Is there a legal limit on late fees in Kansas?

No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). There is no statutory cap and no statutory formula. A late fee set in the lease is enforceable as liquidated damages only if, judged as of the time the lease was signed, the amount is reasonable in light of the probable loss from late payment and that loss would not be easily determined; a fixed sum that works to compel payment rather than to estimate the loss is an unenforceable penalty.

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Kansas?

Daily late fees are allowed if the lease provides for them, because no Kansas statute addresses fee structure. The brakes are unconscionability and the common-law rule against penalties, and a tenant has to raise them properly to get the benefit.

What late fees can a landlord charge in Kansas?

Verified October 1, 2026 All Kansas topics →

Kansas sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act never mentions late fees, and rent is payable without demand or notice at the time the lease fixes (K.S.A. 58-2545(c)), so a lease-based fee can start accruing the day after rent is due.

Cited to K.S.A. 58-2545 (c) and 3 more cited sources · Verified October 1, 2026

The three days many websites call Kansas's 'statutory grace period' is actually the eviction cure window in K.S.A. 58-2564(b): a landlord terminating for nonpayment must give a 3-day pay-or-quit notice (three consecutive 24-hour periods, plus two extra days if mailed), but nothing in that section delays or limits a late fee. With no cap, the only brakes are contract law: courts can refuse to enforce an unconscionable fee (K.S.A. 58-2544) and Kansas treats an unreasonably large fixed charge as a void penalty under liquidated-damages doctrine. Beware the headline case: in 2025 the Kansas Supreme Court reinstated $21,240 in $20-per-day late fees (Schutt v. Foster), but only because the tenant's lawyers failed to properly raise unconscionability — the court never ruled the fee fair. One practical statute cuts the other way: a landlord who accepts late rent without reservation waives the right to terminate over that late payment (K.S.A. 58-2566).

Kansas 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	Daily late fees are allowed if the lease provides for them, because no Kansas statute addresses fee structure. The brakes are unconscionability and the common-law rule against penalties, and a tenant has to raise them properly to get the benefit. No statute addresses fee structure; daily late fees are a lease matter bounded only by unconscionability (K.S.A. 58-2544) and common-law liquidated-damages reasonableness. In Schutt v. Foster, No. 126,555 (Kan. July 25, 2025), a $20-per-day lease fee that accrued to $21,240 was reinstated by the Kansas Supreme Court — but solely because the tenant failed to preserve her unconscionability argument, not because the court approved the amount.
Reasonableness standard	There is no statutory cap and no statutory formula. A late fee set in the lease is enforceable as liquidated damages only if, judged as of the time the lease was signed, the amount is reasonable in light of the probable loss from late payment and that loss would not be easily determined; a fixed sum that works to compel payment rather than to estimate the loss is an unenforceable penalty. No statutory cap or reasonableness formula exists in the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (K.S.A. 58-2540 through 58-2573). Enforceability is governed by K.S.A. 58-2544 unconscionability and Kansas liquidated-damages doctrine: a stipulated amount is upheld only if it is reasonable in light of the value of the subject matter and the probable loss in case of breach and the actual damages would not be easily and readily determinable, judged prospectively as of the time the contract was made; a sum that secures performance rather than settling anticipated damages in advance is an unenforceable penalty, and the party challenging the clause must prove it (Carrothers Constr. Co. v. City of South Hutchinson, 288 Kan. 743 (2009)). No Kansas appellate decision has set a percentage cap for residential late fees.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Kansas Late Fee Laws (verified October 1, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/late-fees/kansas/" — 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 Kansas rules — free, no signup, built on the same verified Kansas law as this page.

Notes and caveats

The empty answers are genuine absences, not gaps — The cap and grace-period answers are both empty because the act (K.S.A. 58-2540 through 58-2573) contains no such provision; the words late charge and late fee appear nowhere in its text.
Why 'must be in lease' is left unanswered rather than marked yes — No Kansas statute conditions late fees on a written lease; the agreed-fee requirement is ordinary contract law. Rent is defined as 'all payments to be made to the landlord under the rental agreement, other than the security deposit' (58-2543(j)), which pulls agreed late charges into the rent framework.
The '3-day grace period' is really an eviction cure window — The 58-2564(b) window recast by many sites as a grace period only delays termination — it is computed as three consecutive 24-hour periods, adds two days when the notice is mailed, and does nothing to delay or limit a late fee.
Schutt v. Foster did not bless $21,000 in fees — The July 25, 2025 decision (No. 126,555) reversed the Court of Appeals — which had cut the fees to $2,460 as unconscionable — purely on preservation grounds. Unconscionability remains an open, viable defense when properly raised; spinning the case as 'Kansas Supreme Court approves $21,000 late fees' is wrong.
No '5-10% presumptively reasonable' rule exists — The percentage figures on landlord sites have no Kansas statutory or appellate basis.
Related doctrine worth knowing — Heckard v. Martin, 25 Kan. App. 2d 162 (1998): late charges must be specifically pleaded to be awarded. Chelsea Plaza Homes v. Moore, 226 Kan. 430 (1979): the specific RLTA takes precedence over the broader Kansas Consumer Protection Act, limiting KCPA attacks on lease fees. And 58-2547(a)(3) voids lease clauses shifting attorney fees — often conflated with late-fee clauses.
Dead bill: HB 2666 is not law — HB 2666 (2025-26, Rep. Rui Xu) would have imposed 'restrictions on fees for the late payment of rent' plus tenant disclosures; it died in the House Commerce, Labor and Economic Development committee at sine die adjournment on April 10, 2026 without a vote. SB 369, the Senate version of the same bill, and SB 388, which would have set a maximum fee for the late payment of rent, also died in committee that day. Any source citing it as live Kansas law is wrong.

Common questions: Kansas 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 Kansas?: No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). There is no statutory cap and no statutory formula. A late fee set in the lease is enforceable as liquidated damages only if, judged as of the time the lease was signed, the amount is reasonable in light of the probable loss from late payment and that loss would not be easily determined; a fixed sum that works to compel payment rather than to estimate the loss is an unenforceable penalty.
Is there a grace period before rent is late in Kansas?: None mandated statewide.
Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in Kansas?: Not addressed by statute.
Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Kansas?: Daily late fees are allowed if the lease provides for them, because no Kansas statute addresses fee structure. The brakes are unconscionability and the common-law rule against penalties, and a tenant has to raise them properly to get the benefit.

Citations

K.S.A. 58-2545 · (c) (verified 2026) Official source
K.S.A. 58-2564 · (b) (verified 2026) Official source
K.S.A. 58-2566 (verified 2026) Official source
K.S.A. 58-2544 · (a) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes site (ksrevisor.gov), each section carrying a figure on this page read twice independently, with all figures reconciled verbatim: 58-2550 (1-month/1.5-month/half-month pet caps, 14-day and 30-day return clocks, 1.5x penalty), 58-2548 (5-day joint inventory), 58-2557 (reasonable notice/reasonable hours entry), 58-2570 (7-day/30-day/15-day termination notices), 58-2565(b) (30-day absence entry, 10-day abandonment presumption), 58-2564(b) (3-day nonpayment cure), 58-2563 (1.5 months' rent ouster remedy), and 12-16,120 (express local rent-control preemption). Negative checks run against the full Residential Landlord and Tenant Act: all 34 sections (58-2540 through 58-2573) downloaded and searched — no late-fee, grace-period, deposit-interest, escrow/separate-account, or rent-increase-notice provision exists. Pending-bill check 2026-07-11 on kslegislature.gov: 2025-26 biennium adjourned sine die 2026-04-10; HB 2666 (late-fee restrictions), SB 482 (condemned-unit deposit return), and HB 2768 (split rent payments) all died in committee; enacted Sub HB 2357 (eviction expungement) and SB 391 (voucher-mandate preemption) do not affect these four topics. Sight-confirmed 2026-07-12 on each bill's official history page (kslegislature.org/li/b2025_26/measures/): all three show 'Died in Committee' 2026-04-10 as the final entry. On October 1, 2026 every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction answers rest on was read again on the Kansas Legislature's site (kslegislature.gov), which serves the Revisor of Statutes' text with each section's history line and carries the 2025 session: the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (K.S.A. 58-2540 to 58-2573), the Mobile Home Parks Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (58-25,100 to 58-25,126), K.S.A. 12-16,120, chapter 61, articles 28 to 39, and K.S.A. 60-206. The 2026 session laws (chapters 56, 132 and 152, in force July 1, 2026 and not yet numbered into the statutes) were read on the Secretary of State's site. Statute links on these pages now point to the Legislature's site.