Is there a legal limit on late fees in Alaska?

No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). Alaska sets no statutory cap, formula, or reasonableness standard for late fees. The brakes are the prohibited-provisions list of AS 34.03.040, the good-faith obligation of AS 34.03.320, and common-law contract and liquidated-damages principles.

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Alaska?

Alaska's statutes do not address daily late fees, so such a fee is neither authorised nor barred. A compounding daily fee would have to survive ordinary liquidated-damages and penalty scrutiny in court, with no statutory safe harbor either way.

What late fees can a landlord charge in Alaska?

Verified October 1, 2026 All Alaska topics →

What did not become law. None of the following is law; failed bills are sometimes still described as if enacted:

HB 115 (34th Legislature, 2025-2026) — Would add AS 34.03.020(f): a landlord could not raise rent more than once per calendar year and would have to give written notice at least 90 days before the increase takes effect; if a tenancy ends without that notice having been given, the unit could not be re-rented above the old rent until 90 days after termination (anti-evasion clause). Applies to rental agreements entered into on or after the effective date. Would convert Alaska from a derivation state (no express rent-increase notice statute) to an express 90-day state. Status: Introduced 2025 (Rep. Gray); referred to House State Affairs and Labor & Commerce 2025-02-26 and never heard. The 34th Legislature's second regular session adjourned sine die on May 20, 2026, which ended the bill — the special sessions that followed were limited to their call and did not include it, and no enrolled version of the bill exists. (checked October 1, 2026).

Alaska sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period - rent is payable without demand or notice at the time and place the parties agreed (AS 34.03.020(c)), and the landlord-tenant act never mentions late charges at all.

Cited to AS 34.03.020 (a), (c) and 6 more cited sources · Verified October 1, 2026

A late fee is therefore purely a creature of the rental agreement, policed mainly by contract law: the state's official guidance says a small flat-rate late or NSF charge that reasonably approximates the landlord's actual costs may be legal, and that no automatic charge is enforceable unless the parties agreed to it beforehand; the Court System's handbook adds that a percentage-per-day charge is limited by the usury law's interest ceiling. Two Alaska-specific wrinkles matter in practice: 'rent' is statutorily defined as the uniform periodic payment due the landlord, so unpaid late fees are not unpaid rent - a tenant current on rent cannot be evicted for owing late fees - and Alaska omitted the uniform act's unconscionability clause, so an abusive fee is attacked through ordinary penalty-clause doctrine rather than a statutory backstop.

Alaska late fees at a glance

Statutory cap	No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes)
Mandatory grace period	None mandated statewide
Must be in the lease	Not addressed by statute
Daily fees	Alaska's statutes do not address daily late fees, so such a fee is neither authorised nor barred. A compounding daily fee would have to survive ordinary liquidated-damages and penalty scrutiny in court, with no statutory safe harbor either way. Official Department of Law guidance contemplates only 'a small flat-rate late charge or NSF fee that reasonably approximates the landlord's actual costs.'
Reasonableness standard	Alaska sets no statutory cap, formula, or reasonableness standard for late fees. The brakes are the prohibited-provisions list of AS 34.03.040, the good-faith obligation of AS 34.03.320, and common-law contract and liquidated-damages principles. The Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is silent on late charges, and Alaska's URLTA enactment omitted the uniform act's unconscionability section. The state's official guidance (Dept. of Law pamphlet; Court System PUB-30) says the Act 'does not state whether landlords may assess late charges,' that a small flat-rate charge reasonably approximating the landlord's actual costs 'may be legal,' and that no automatic late or NSF charge is enforceable unless agreed upon beforehand. PUB-30 adds that a reasonable percentage-per-day late charge may also be acceptable and says such a charge is limited by the state usury law (AS 45.45.010); the Department of Law pamphlet does not.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Alaska Late Fee Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/late-fees/alaska/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Check a late fee against the Alaska rules — free, no signup, built on the same verified Alaska law as this page.

Notes and caveats

The statute is silent on late fees — The words 'late fee,' 'late charge,' and 'liquidated' appear nowhere in the chapter's 42 sections, and both official guidance documents state the Act is silent. No cap, no grace period.
A tenant current on rent cannot be evicted over late fees — 'Rent' means 'the uniform periodic payment due the landlord, however denominated' (AS 34.03.360(18)), so late fees fall outside it. Official guidance: 'a tenant cannot be evicted for failure to pay late fees if the tenant is current on rent payments.'
'Agreed beforehand' is contract law, not statute — No STATUTE conditions late fees on the rental agreement — the requirement comes from contract law as restated in official DOL guidance ('no automatic late charge or NSF fee is legally enforceable unless it has been agreed upon beforehand') — and rental agreements may be oral (AS 34.03.360(19)).
No unconscionability backstop — Alaska's URLTA enactment has NO unconscionability section (uniform act sec. 1.303 was not adopted), and AS 34.03.040's prohibited-provisions list — waivers, confessed judgment, exculpation, landlord's attorney fees — does not address fees. An abusive fee is attacked through ordinary penalty-clause doctrine.
Usury limit on percentage late fees: official guidance is split — The Alaska Court System's landlord and tenant handbook (PUB-30, 10/18) says a rental agreement may also be able to set a reasonable percentage-per-day late charge, limited by the state usury law (AS 45.45.010) to five percentage points above the Federal Reserve discount rate or, if no rate is specified, 10.5% a year. The Department of Law's 2024 pamphlet leaves that sentence out and mentions only a small flat-rate charge. AS 45.45.010 sets the legal rate of interest on money after it is due; no Alaska appellate decision fixing a late-fee standard was found.
NSF checks are a separate regime — Bounced checks carry their own civil-penalty regime outside the landlord-tenant act; official guidance mentions lease-based NSF fees, but that is not a rent late-fee rule.
Who pays the lawyer in a late-fee fight — Two rules work in opposite directions and both apply to a dispute over a late fee. A rental agreement may not provide that either party agrees to pay the landlord's attorney fees, and a clause that does is unenforceable. Separately, attorney fees must be allowed to the prevailing party in any proceeding arising out of Alaska's landlord and tenant act or out of a rental agreement. So a lease cannot shift fees to the tenant by contract, while the statute shifts them to whichever side wins.

Common questions: Alaska late fees

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Is there a legal limit on late fees in Alaska?: No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). Alaska sets no statutory cap, formula, or reasonableness standard for late fees. The brakes are the prohibited-provisions list of AS 34.03.040, the good-faith obligation of AS 34.03.320, and common-law contract and liquidated-damages principles.
Is there a grace period before rent is late in Alaska?: None mandated statewide.
Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in Alaska?: Not addressed by statute.
Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Alaska?: Alaska's statutes do not address daily late fees, so such a fee is neither authorised nor barred. A compounding daily fee would have to survive ordinary liquidated-damages and penalty scrutiny in court, with no statutory safe harbor either way.

Citations

AS 34.03.020 · (a), (c) (verified 2026) Official source
AS 34.03.360 · (18) (verified 2026) Official source
AS 34.03.040 · (a)-(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Alaska Dept. of Law, The Alaska Landlord & Tenant Act: what it means to you (2024) · p. 4 ('Late charges') (verified 2026) Official source
Alaska Court System, PUB-30 Alaska Landlord and Tenant Act handbook (10/18) (verified 2026) Official source
AS 34.03.350 (verified 2026) Official source
AS 45.45.010 · (a) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Alaska State Legislature site (www.akleg.gov, read via its print-format section pages): AS 34.03.070, 34.03.140, and 34.03.290 each read twice through independent paths (the single-section view plus a different-range view) with byte-identical results, and AS 34.03.020 read twice to verify the negative (no rent-increase language). The complete chapter (all 42 sections, 34.03.010-34.03.380) was read in one pass and every section heading enumerated for the verified-negative sweeps (no late-fee, grace-period, interest, unconscionability, rent-control, or preemption provision). Every figure that decides an answer here was additionally reconciled against three more sources: the enrolled text of HB 282 (28th Leg.), Ch. 27 SLA 2014, read in full on the official BASIS bill-text system (pins the pet-deposit subsection, the per-tenant trust-accounting rules, and the 30-day damages exception to the 14-day return track, all added 2014); the Alaska Department of Law's official 2024 pamphlet 'The Alaska Landlord & Tenant Act: what it means to you' (law.alaska.gov); and the Alaska Court System's PUB-30 handbook (public.courts.alaska.gov, 10/18 ed.). Preemption negative run against a single-pass official sweep of AS Title 29 (Municipal Government, chs. 29.10-29.71 including 29.35 powers and 29.40 planning): zero rent-control or landlord-tenant provisions. Legislative check 2026-07-11 on official BASIS: all 97 bills passed by the 34th Legislature (2025-2026, status dates through 2026-07-09) enumerated - none on-topic (SB 50, Ch. 19 SLA 25, is municipal comprehensive planning only); full introduced-bill sweep found one pending on-topic bill, HB 115 (90-day rent-increase notice), idle in House State Affairs since 2025-02-26 - flagged, not incorporated. September 5, 2026 addendum: the decisive figures touched by the 2025-2026 enactments reviewed that day were re-read on the official host — AS 09.45.090 and 3 AAC 90 on akleg.gov; the earlier reads stand as recorded. October 1, 2026: every section named above, with AS 09.45.060 to 09.45.160, AS 34.03.220, 34.03.310 and 45.45.010, District Court Civil Rule 24, Civil Rules 62 and 85 and Appellate Rules 602 and 603, was read again on akleg.gov (which now serves the Alaska Statutes 2025) and on courts.alaska.gov. The Legislature's per-section bill index shows no bill of the 34th Legislature on any section of AS 34.03 other than HB 115, which was never passed, and no enrolled version exists for HB 115, HB 159 or SB 207. The municipal codes of Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau were searched for rent control and rent stabilization provisions and contain none. The automatic stay on a district court eviction judgment was corrected to the two days of District Court Civil Rule 24(a).