What late fees can a landlord charge in Georgia?

Verified July 8, 2026 All Georgia topics →

Georgia sets no statutory cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — the fee is whatever the lease provides, policed only by Georgia's general rule against contractual penalties.

A late fee must be in the lease to be collected, and unpaid late fees are an expressly permitted security-deposit deduction. Since July 1, 2024, a separate protection applies on the eviction side: before filing a dispossessory action for nonpayment, the landlord must give written notice and allow three business days for the tenant to pay all amounts owed, including rent and late fees — but that is an eviction prerequisite, not a late-fee grace period. Bounced-check fees are separately capped at the greater of $30 or 5% of the check amount plus bank charges.

Georgia 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	Yes
Daily fees	No statute addresses daily late fees; they are a matter of contract, subject to general Georgia contract-law limits on penalties (liquidated damages must be a reasonable pre-estimate of loss, not a penalty).
Reasonableness standard	No hard statutory cap or mandated grace period exists. Late fees are enforceable as lease terms; Georgia's general liquidated-damages doctrine (O.C.G.A. 13-6-7) polices fees that operate as penalties. For bounced checks, O.C.G.A. 13-6-15 authorizes a service charge of $30 or 5% of the check's face amount, whichever is greater, plus bank fees.

Notes and caveats

statutory_cap and grace_period_days are null because no Georgia statute caps residential late fees or mandates a grace period. must_be_in_lease is true as a matter of contract law. The HB 404 three-business-day cure period (44-7-50(c), leases entered/renewed on or after 2024-07-01) is deliberately cited and disclaimed here because it is widely misreported as a 'grace period' — it delays eviction filing, not fee accrual. Page copy must draw that line.

Statute citations

O.C.G.A. 44-7-34 (late-payment fees as permitted deposit deduction; no late-fee cap exists in the landlord-tenant code) (a) Unofficial mirror
HB 404 (2024) — 3-business-day pay period before dispossessory filing, O.C.G.A. 44-7-50(c) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text: O.C.G.A. 44-7-30.1, 44-7-34, 44-7-35, 44-7-36, 44-7-7, and 44-7-19 read in full from the 2024 Code of Georgia (Justia mirror of the official code, which is not deep-linkable on the official legis.ga.gov LexisNexis portal), cross-checked against the official Georgia General Assembly HB 404 (2024 Ga. Laws 392) bill record on legis.ga.gov and the Georgia Appleseed / magistrate-judge bench card summarizing the Safe at Home Act. 44-7-31, 44-7-32, and 44-7-33 mechanics confirmed across the code mirror section listing and multiple consistent secondary sources.