Is there a legal limit on late fees in Maine?

4% of the amount due for one month (14 M.R.S. § 6028(2)). None needed — Maine has a hard statutory cap (4%) rather than a reasonableness test. §6028 has been unchanged since 1987 (PL 1987, c. 215 and c. 605).

Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in Maine?

Yes — in Maine a late fee must be stated in the lease.

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Maine?

Daily fees are not addressed as a structure, but any late-payment penalty is bounded by the 4%-of-one-month ceiling, so accruing daily fees cannot lawfully exceed 4% of a month's rent for a late payment.

What late fees can a landlord charge in Maine?

Verified July 11, 2026 All Maine topics →

Check your municipality. Maine does not preempt local rent regulation — city or county ordinances may impose rent caps, notice rules, and fee limits that are stricter than the state-level rules on this page and are not covered here. Verify your municipality's ordinances before relying on any figure below. Verified local pages: Portland , South Portland .

What the state record says

Maine does not preempt local rent control, and two cities regulate rents. Portland has run voter-initiated rent control since 2021, allowing 2.2% for calendar 2026, one increase per 12 months, and 90 days' notice; South Portland caps annual increases at 10% for buildings of 16+ commonly owned units. There is no statewide rent control or percentage cap (§6016's habitability bar is a condition on increases, not a cap). Portland's ordinance is Portland City Code ch. 6, secs. 6-231 to 6-239: an annual Allowable Increase Percentage published each September 1 (2.2% for calendar 2026), one increase per 12 months, +5% of base rent on voluntary turnover, banked increases, a hard 10% ceiling per increase, Rent Board review, and 90 days' written notice, plus a local one-month deposit cap and application-fee ban. South Portland's is a council-enacted rent stabilization ordinance (March 2023; 10% annual cap for buildings of 16+ commonly owned units; sunsets 2030). The former state enabling chapter (30-A ch. 167, 'Municipal Rent Control') was repealed in 1995 with nothing enacted in its place; municipalities act under home rule (30-A §3001).

Maine caps residential late fees at 4% of one month's rent and builds in a 15-day statutory grace period: a rent payment is not legally 'late' until 15 days after it was due, so with rent due on the 1st no penalty can attach before the 16th.

Cited to 14 M.R.S. § 6028 (1)-(3) and 1 more Maine statute · Verified July 11, 2026

On top of the cap and the grace period, no late fee may be charged at all unless the landlord gave the tenant WRITTEN notice — at the time the rental agreement was entered — that a penalty of up to 4% of one month's rent may be charged for late payment; skip that disclosure at signing and the fee is unenforceable for the tenancy. All three rules date to 1987 and have never been amended, making Maine one of the strictest late-fee states in the country. The 'late fees' statute that allows the greater of $20 or 20% belongs to Maine's self-service storage law, not residential rentals.

Maine late fees at a glance

Statutory cap	4% of the amount due for one month (14 M.R.S. § 6028(2))
Mandatory grace period	15 days
Must be in the lease	Yes
Daily fees	Daily fees are not addressed as a structure, but any late-payment penalty is bounded by the 4%-of-one-month ceiling, so accruing daily fees cannot lawfully exceed 4% of a month's rent for a late payment. Late fees are also expressly excluded from the definitions of 'rent' and 'mandatory recurring fee' (§6000(1-A), (1-B)).
Reasonableness standard	None needed — Maine has a hard statutory cap (4%) rather than a reasonableness test. §6028 has been unchanged since 1987 (PL 1987, c. 215 and c. 605).

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Maine Late Fee Laws (verified July 11, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/late-fees/maine/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Maine statute in the citations section below.

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

Notes and caveats

15 days is a true statutory grace period — Subsection 1 defines lateness itself: 'A payment of rent is late if it is not made within 15 days from the time the payment is due.' The 15 days is recorded as a grace period because it is a genuine statutory precondition to any penalty, not a custom.
The 4% cap is measured against one month's rent — Subsection 2 says a landlord 'may not assess a penalty ... which exceeds 4% of the amount due for one month' — the base is one month's rent due.
Disclosure at inception — even for oral tenancies — Subsection 3 requires written notice 'at the time they entered into the rental agreement' that a penalty up to 4% of one month's rent may be charged. Strictly this is a written-disclosure-at-inception duty rather than a lease-clause requirement: a lease clause is the natural vehicle, but even an oral tenancy needs the written notice.
No exemptions, and no second statute — § 6028 contains no exemptions, and no other residential late-fee provision exists anywhere in ch. 710 (§§ 6021-6030-K) or ch. 709, subch. 1.
Confusion trap: the 'Late fees' statute in search results is storage law — 10 M.R.S. § 1376 ('Late fees' — the greater of $20 or 20%, with a 3-day rule) is the Self-Service Storage Act and surfaces in search results; it has nothing to do with residential rent.
Two separate clocks: fee grace vs. eviction arrears — The 7-day eviction notice for nonpayment under § 6002 requires rent to be 7 or more days in arrears — a separate clock from the 15-day late-fee grace period.
Late fees are not 'rent' since January 1, 2025 — § 6000(1-A) and (1-B) expressly exclude late-payment fees from 'rent' and 'mandatory recurring fees,' so the § 6015 fee-increase notice rules do not govern late-fee terms; the § 6028 at-inception disclosure does.
Verified — All three elements that decide a late fee here — the 15-day definition of lateness, the 4% cap, and the disclosure duty — come from the official text of § 6028 published by the Maine Revisor of Statutes.

Common questions: Maine 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 Maine?: 4% of the amount due for one month (14 M.R.S. § 6028(2)). None needed — Maine has a hard statutory cap (4%) rather than a reasonableness test. §6028 has been unchanged since 1987 (PL 1987, c. 215 and c. 605).
Is there a grace period before rent is late in Maine?: 15 days.
Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in Maine?: Yes — in Maine a late fee must be stated in the lease.
Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Maine?: Daily fees are not addressed as a structure, but any late-payment penalty is bounded by the 4%-of-one-month ceiling, so accruing daily fees cannot lawfully exceed 4% of a month's rent for a late payment.

Statute citations

14 M.R.S. § 6028 (1)-(3) (verified 2026) Official source
14 M.R.S. § 6000 (1-A), (1-B) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Maine Revisor of Statutes site (legislature.maine.gov): sections 6032, 6033, 6034, 6038, 6015, 6028, and 6025 of Title 14 each read twice in independent formats (the HTML section page and the Revisor's official section PDF, read verbatim), with every decisive figure matching (2-month deposit cap; 30-day-maximum/21-day return split with the later-of trigger; forfeiture rule; double damages with 7-day pre-suit notice and landlord burden; separate-bank-account rule with $500/one-month remedy; 45-day and 75-day/10% rent-increase notices with 12-month aggregation; 4% late-fee cap, 15-day late definition, and written-notice-at-inception duty; 24-hour reasonable-notice presumption with emergency/impracticable exception). PL 2023, c. 594 (LD 1490) was additionally reconciled against the enrolled chapter law PDF, which pins 'Sec. 13. Effective date. This Act takes effect January 1, 2025.' Supporting sections read once (6031, 6035, 6036, 6037, 6039, 6000, 6016, 6022-A, 6030-I, 6030-J, 6002) plus full chapter listings of ch. 709 subch. 1, ch. 710, and ch. 710-A as the sweep basis for verified negatives (no deposit interest, no other late-fee or entry provision, no rent-increase frequency limit, no preemption statute). Preemption checked via Title 30-A: former ch. 167 'Municipal Rent Control' (30-A sections 3601-3606) confirmed repealed by PL 1995, c. 194 with nothing enacted in its place, home rule under 30-A section 3001; Portland's active rent control ordinance verified from the City of Portland's own Rent Control FAQ (version 2025.10.24, Portland City Code ch. 6, secs. 6-231 to 6-239; 2026 allowable increase 2.2%). Bill checks on official status pages: LD 1534 (municipal rent-stabilization enabling) died Ought Not to Pass 2025-05-27; LD 1765 enacted as PL 2025, c. 365 (2025-06-18, mobile home park licensing/model-ordinance only); 132nd Legislature adjourned sine die 2026-04-29. Main-session supplement (2026-07-11): the full Second Regular Session public-laws list (chapters ~500-775) was swept via the Revisor's Laws of Maine service; one on-topic enactment found and flagged as pending — PL 2025, c. 767 (LD 2176), which raises the section 6025(3) entry-violation minimum recovery from $100 to $250 and enacts section 6025-B (tenant personal-information disclosure ban), effective on the session's general nonemergency effective date, 2026-07-29 (per the Legislature's published effective-date statement), so NOT in force at this verification; folded into entry_notice 2026-08-02 once effective. Two manufactured-housing acts (PL 2025, c. 688 and c. 691) checked and confirmed out of v1 scope (lot-tenancy notice/mediation and park-sale machinery; no hard rent caps).