What late fees can a landlord charge in Hawaii?

Verified July 11, 2026 All Hawaii topics →

Hawaii caps residential late fees at 8% of the amount of rent due, and only a late charge the rental agreement itself provides for may be collected at all (HRS 521-21(f)).

The cap was added by Act 179 of 2017, took effect November 1, 2017, and applies to every rental agreement entered into or renewed on or after that date — so only a pre-November-2017 lease that has never been renewed sits outside it. Hawaii mandates no grace period: rent is payable at the time and place the parties agreed, and a lease-based late charge can attach the day after rent is due. The statute measures the cap against 'the amount of rent due' rather than the unpaid balance; a bill that would have limited fees to 5% of only the unpaid amount (SB 347) died when the 2026 legislature adjourned without acting on it.

Hawaii late fees at a glance

Statutory cap	8% of the amount of rent due (HRS 521-21(f))
Mandatory grace period	None mandated statewide
Must be in the lease	Yes
Daily fees	Not addressed by statute; any late-charge structure, daily or flat, is bounded by the 8% cap on the late charge for rent not paid when due, and by the unconscionability backstop (HRS 521-75).
Reasonableness standard	None needed beyond the hard cap: HRS 521-21(f) caps the late charge at eight per cent of the amount of rent due wherever the rental agreement provides for one. HRS 521-75 lets a court refuse to enforce an unconscionable rental-agreement provision.

Notes and caveats

Cap pinned twice from primary text: official 521-21 page (fetched twice, identical) and the SLH 2017 Act 179 PDF, which sets out the amended section in full; the official DCCA 2024 handbook states the same 8% cap and the same applicability rule. EFFECTIVE-DATE/APPLICABILITY TRAP: Act 179 (S.B. 119, approved 2017-07-11) took effect 2017-11-01 and by its § 3 applies to 'all rental agreements entered into on or after' and 'all rental agreement renewals entered into on or after' that date — never-renewed pre-2017-11-01 agreements are outside the cap. BASE AMBIGUITY: the statute says 8% 'of the amount of rent due,' not of the unpaid balance; the legislature's own description of (dead) SB 347 (2025-26, Rhoads) — which would have 'clarifie[d] that a landlord may only assess a late fee on any unpaid rent' and cut the cap to 5% of the unpaid amount — treats current law as permitting 8% of the full rent due even after partial payment. SB 347 was never heard, was carried over 2025-12-08, and died at sine die 2026-05-08: the cap REMAINS 8%. must_be_in_lease true: the cap clause operates only '[w]here the rental agreement provides for a late charge,' and 521-8 defines rental agreement to include oral agreements. grace_period_days null: verified negative — full ch. 521 sweep; 521-21(b) makes rent payable as agreed, and the only due-date accommodation is the public-assistance due-date-shift mechanism in 521-21(b); calculators listing a Hawaii '5-day grace period' have no statutory basis.

Statute citations

HRS § 521-21 (f) Official source
Act 179, Session Laws of Hawaii 2017 (S.B. 119) (slip law) §§ 1, 3 Official source
HRS § 521-75 Official source
DCCA Office of Consumer Protection, Landlord-Tenant Handbook (2024) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Hawaii State Legislature site (capitol.hawaii.gov, hrscurrent edition; fetched via curl with a browser user agent because the host 403s automated fetchers): sections 521-44, 521-21, 521-53, and 521-71 each fetched twice with SHA-1-identical results, and every load-bearing figure additionally reconciled against two more official documents — the Session Laws of Hawaii act PDFs on capitol.hawaii.gov (Act 179 (2017), S.B. 119, which sets out amended section 521-21 in full including the 45-day/15-day rent-increase notices and the 8 per cent late-charge cap, effective 2017-11-01 with an entered-into-or-renewed applicability clause; Act 206 (2013), S.B. 328, which sets out amended section 521-44(a)-(b) including the one-month cap plus the additional one-month pet deposit, applicable to agreements entered into on or after 2013-11-01) and the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Office of Consumer Protection's official 2024 Landlord-Tenant Handbook (cca.hawaii.gov), which matches on the 14-day return, forfeiture rule, treble small-claims penalty, one-year limitation, two days' entry notice, 45-day termination and rent-increase notices, 8 per cent cap and its 2017-11-01 applicability, and the no-interest negative. Also read in full: 521-7, 521-8, 521-10, 521-22, 521-31, 521-43, 521-46, 521-63, 521-66, 521-70, 521-73, 521-74, 521-75, 521-77, 521-85, 666-20, and 127A-30. Verified negatives (no deposit interest, no separate-account rule, no grace period, no rent-increase frequency or size tiers, no express rent-control preemption) each run against the full chapter 521 table of contents sweep. Legislative check 2026-07-11 on official capitol.hawaii.gov status pages and the LRB Bills Passed 2026 list: the 2026 regular session adjourned sine die 2026-05-08 ending the 2025-2026 biennium; no 2025 or 2026 act amended any topic section; SB 2539 (3% rent cap), SB 347 (late fee 8%-to-5%), HB 464 (60/90-day notices), HB 693 (increase increments), and SB 822 (code working group) all died.