Is there a legal limit on late fees in Kentucky?

No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). There is no statutory reasonableness standard in Kentucky. Where the URLTA has been adopted a court may refuse to enforce an unconscionable lease provision, but the bar is high; statewide, any other challenge to a late fee rests on general contract law.

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Kentucky?

No Kentucky statute addresses daily late fees, so they stand or fall on the lease. Where the URLTA has been adopted, the only checks are the unconscionability doctrine and the act's short list of banned lease clauses, which does not mention late fees.

What late fees can a landlord charge in Kentucky?

Verified October 1, 2026 Correction October 2, 2026 All Kentucky topics →

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

HB 340 (2026 RS) — 'AN ACT relating to termination of residential leases' — Would have created early-termination rights (new sections of KRS ch. 383) for 'medically fragile' tenants (30 days' notice plus medical documentation), tenants 60+ or disabled on the death of a spouse or cotenant (60 days' notice), and tenants facing unabated lead hazards. Does not touch deposits, entry, late fees, or rent-increase rules, but it was the session's principal landlord-tenant bill and a likely refile. Status: Dead. Referred to House Judiciary 2026-01-21 with no further action; the 2026 Regular Session adjourned sine die 2026-04-15. 2026 RS HB 202, which would have repealed KRS 383.500 and applied a rewritten act to every lease of a dwelling unit in Kentucky, was referred to House Judiciary on January 14, 2026 and also died; no 2026 act amended KRS 383.500-383.715, 383.195, or 65.875 — a future statewide-URLTA enactment would rescope Kentucky landlord-tenant law across the board and is the top KY watch item. (checked July 9, 2026).

Kentucky has no statutory cap on residential late fees and no mandatory grace period — neither in the jurisdictions that have adopted the state's optional Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act nor in the rest of the state, where no landlord-tenant fee statute exists at all.

Cited to KRS 383.565 (rent payable without demand or notice; lease may set terms) (1)-(2) and 2 more cited sources · Verified October 1, 2026

In URLTA jurisdictions (including Louisville and Lexington), rent is payable without demand or notice on the agreed date, the lease may include any term not prohibited, and the act's short list of banned lease clauses does not mention late fees; the only statutory backstop is a court's power to strike an unconscionable provision. Two deadlines are commonly confused with a grace period: the URLTA's 7-day pay-or-quit notice before a landlord may terminate for nonpayment, and its rule letting a landlord end a post-lease holdover tenancy without notice once rent is 10 days late — both are eviction rules, not fee rules. Outside URLTA territory the lease governs, subject only to general contract law.

Kentucky 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	No Kentucky statute addresses daily late fees, so they stand or fall on the lease. Where the URLTA has been adopted, the only checks are the unconscionability doctrine and the act's short list of banned lease clauses, which does not mention late fees. In URLTA jurisdictions any fee owed under the lease is 'rent' by definition (KRS 383.545(10)), and lease terms are constrained only by the unconscionability doctrine (KRS 383.555) and the short prohibited-provisions list (KRS 383.570), which does not mention late fees. Outside URLTA jurisdictions no statute addresses late fees; the lease and general contract law govern.
Reasonableness standard	There is no statutory reasonableness standard in Kentucky. Where the URLTA has been adopted a court may refuse to enforce an unconscionable lease provision, but the bar is high; statewide, any other challenge to a late fee rests on general contract law. In URLTA jurisdictions a court may refuse to enforce an unconscionable lease provision (KRS 383.555) — a high bar defined at KRS 383.545(16) as willful conduct 'shocking to the conscience.' No Kentucky statute sets a reasonableness test for residential late fees.

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

Notes and caveats

Why the cap and grace-period fields are blank — The cap and grace-period answers are empty because no Kentucky statute sets either: KRS 383.570's list of prohibited lease provisions does not mention fees, and no statute caps a residential late fee.
Why 'must be in lease' is also blank — The 'must be in lease' question is left unanswered to avoid asserting a statutory element that does not exist. In URLTA jurisdictions KRS 383.565(2) makes rent due 'without demand or notice' only 'at the time and place agreed upon', but no statute conditions late fees on a lease clause.
The '7-day grace period' trap — sites presenting the KRS 383.660(2) 7-day cure notice as a '7-day grace period for late fees' conflate eviction procedure with fee accrual; the same goes for KRS 383.695(3)'s 10-day rule.
Even the eviction-side rules are URLTA-only — as always in Kentucky, even these eviction-side rules (the 7-day and 10-day provisions above) exist only in URLTA jurisdictions.

Common questions: Kentucky 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 Kentucky?: No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). There is no statutory reasonableness standard in Kentucky. Where the URLTA has been adopted a court may refuse to enforce an unconscionable lease provision, but the bar is high; statewide, any other challenge to a late fee rests on general contract law.
Is there a grace period before rent is late in Kentucky?: None mandated statewide.
Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in Kentucky?: Not addressed by statute.
Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Kentucky?: No Kentucky statute addresses daily late fees, so they stand or fall on the lease. Where the URLTA has been adopted, the only checks are the unconscionability doctrine and the act's short list of banned lease clauses, which does not mention late fees.

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (October 1, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Correction, October 2, 2026 — Kentucky (correction): several pages had said that outside the cities and counties that have adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act no statute applies. Two statewide sections do: a landlord may not charge a pet fee or deposit for an assistance animal (KRS 383.085(4)), and a tenant who holds over after a fixed term may be removed without notice only if the case is begun within 30 days after the term ends, or 90 days for a term of a year or more (KRS 383.160). The eviction timeline is restated from the statutes: about 19 to 21 days from the notice to the earliest warrant where the act applies, and about 11 to 13 days from filing where it does not. Also corrected: a local ordinance cannot lengthen the act's notice periods, because a locality must adopt the act whole and without amendment (KRS 383.500, 383.198); a landlord may enter during a tenant's absence of more than seven days, and the statute requires no documentation of it (KRS 383.670(2)); since June 27, 2025 the bar on billing a landlord for an emergency response fee reaches a response caused by a tenant or guest where the landlord kept the building to code (KRS 65.111); the Louisville owner-occupancy rule for new leases does not reach a lot with one single-family home and no accessory dwelling unit (KRS 383.199); the deposit and entry sections date from 1974 and were reenacted in 1984. No state publication lists the localities that have adopted the act; the pages now name Lexington-Fayette from its own code (section 12-54) and Louisville from a Court of Appeals decision, and no longer cite privately compiled lists.

Citations

KRS 383.565 (rent payable without demand or notice; lease may set terms) · (1)-(2) (verified 2026) Official source
KRS 383.570 (prohibited lease provisions — late fees not among them) · (1) (verified 2026) Official source
KRS 383.660 (7-day pay-or-quit is an eviction notice, not a fee grace period) · (2) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Every section these answers rest on was read on the Legislative Research Commission's statute pages at apps.legislature.ky.gov. On October 1, 2026 each was read there again (the Commission's database includes enactments through the 2026 Regular Session): KRS 383.500 to 383.715, the forcible entry and detainer sections 383.195 to 383.290, and KRS 383.085, 383.160, 383.302, 65.111, 65.875 and 446.030, together with the sections-affected tables for 2019 through 2026, the Administrative Office of the Courts forms AOC-215, AOC-216, AOC-217 and AOC-220, and Lexington-Fayette Urban County Code § 12-54, which enacts the act. No state publication lists the localities that have adopted the act; the Commission's 2018 local mandate statement on House Bill 550 gives a count. 2026 Regular Session (adjourned sine die 2026-04-15) swept via official bill pages and the LRC chapter listing, which is current through the 2026 RS and shows no amendments to any section used here. Louisville Metro Code ch. 151 was read directly 2026-07-10 on the American Legal Publishing code library (codelibrary.amlegal.com, supplement 2026 S-47, current through ordinances of 2026-05-20) — § 151.01 titles the chapter the 'Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act' with an express statutory reference to KRS 383.500-383.705, ordinance lineage Jefferson County Ord. 22-1984 (adopted and effective 7-24-1984), recodified as 1994 Jeff. Code ch. 151, continued post-merger by Lou. Metro Am. Ord. No. 134-2006 (approved 8-23-2006); § 151.26 (security deposits) read in full and tracks KRS 383.580 verbatim in substance, including the separate-account/account-number disclosure, signed move-in/move-out damage listings with written dissent, the forfeiture-only penalty, and the 30-day (F) / 60-day (G) TENANT-side windows — confirming the reading given here that those windows are forfeiture rules, not landlord return deadlines. Metro-only additions beyond the URLTA text (eviction-court legal-representation §§ 151.60-151.61) noted and out of v1 scope.