What late fees can a landlord charge in Nebraska?

Verified July 11, 2026 All Nebraska topics →

Nebraska sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — the state's landlord-tenant act never mentions late fees at all, and rent is 'payable without demand or notice at the time and place agreed upon by the parties' (Neb.

Rev. Stat. 76-1414(3)), so a lease-based fee can begin the day after rent is due. The seven days that some sources call a Nebraska 'grace period' is actually the eviction cure window in 76-1431(2): a landlord may terminate for nonpayment only after giving written notice and waiting seven calendar days, but nothing in that section delays or limits a late fee. With no statutory formula, a late fee's enforceability rests on ordinary contract law — it must function as a reasonable estimate of the landlord's loss rather than a penalty, and a court may strike an unconscionable clause under 76-1412 — so a clearly drafted lease clause with a defensible amount is the only real protection on either side. A bill that would have capped late fees at the lesser of 5% of the overdue payment or $50 (LB 17) died in committee when the Legislature adjourned in April 2026.

Nebraska 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 statute addresses late-fee structure; daily fees are a lease matter bounded by contract-law reasonableness and the act's unconscionability backstop (76-1412).
Reasonableness standard	No statutory standard — the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act never mentions late fees (negative check run twice against the full act text). Enforceability is governed by ordinary Nebraska contract and liquidated-damages principles (a fee must be a reasonable forecast of probable loss, not a penalty), with 76-1412 letting a court refuse to enforce an unconscionable rental-agreement provision. No Nebraska appellate decision squarely addressing residential late fees was found.

Notes and caveats

statutory_cap and grace_period_days are both null — the act is silent on late-fee amount and timing (negative sweep run twice against the legislature's consolidated act text, 76-1401 through 76-14,111). must_be_in_lease is null rather than true: no statute conditions fees on a written lease; the agreement requirement is contract law (76-1414(1) permits any term 'not prohibited' by the act). Traps debunked: (1) online calculators and charts asserting a Nebraska '10% cap and 5-day grace period' — no statutory basis of any kind; (2) the 76-1431(2) seven-CALENDAR-day pay-or-quit window recast as a rent grace period — it delays only termination, and it was THREE days until LB 433 (2019) lengthened it, so charts saying '3-day notice' are doubly stale; (3) LB 17 (2025-26, Cavanaugh J.) — fee restrictions plus a late-fee cap of the lesser of 5% or $50 — never left the Judiciary Committee and was indefinitely postponed 2026-04-17 at sine die (verified on the official bill page); it is a dead bill, not law. Definition point for collections copy: 76-1410(13) defines rent as 'all payments to be made to the landlord under the rental agreement,' which sweeps lease-based late fees into 'rent' for the act's remedies.

Statute citations

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1414 (1), (3) Official source
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1412 Official source
Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1431 (2) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Nebraska Legislature site (nebraskalegislature.gov): sections 76-1416, 76-1423, 76-1437, and 13-331 each fetched twice in independent reads (standard and print views) with all load-bearing figures matching verbatim (one-month deposit cap, one-quarter-month pet deposit, 14-day return keyed to the date of termination of the tenancy, lesser-of one month's rent/2x deposit penalty, 24 hours' written entry notice with purpose and anticipated-window content requirements, 30-day/7-day periodic termination notice, rent-control preemption text), and each additionally reconciled character-for-character against the official enacted slip laws downloaded from nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs: LB 433 (2019) and LB 532 (2021) for 76-1416, LB 320 (2021) for 76-1423, LB 266 (2025) for 13-331 — so every amendment claim is pinned from the session law itself. Also read: 76-1408 (exclusions), 76-1414 (rent terms), 76-1432(2) (absence entry), 76-1410(13) (rent definition), 76-1412 (unconscionability), 76-1431(2) (7-day pay-or-quit). FindLaw mirror (current through 2024) matched 76-1423 verbatim; Justia/LegiScan returned 403 and were not needed. Negative checks (no late-fee or grace-period provision, no deposit interest, no escrow/trust account, no rent-increase notice or frequency rule) run twice against the full act text via the legislature's consolidated display (76-1401 through 76-14,111). Pending-bill check 2026-07-11 on official bill pages: LB 17 (fee limits, late-fee cap) indefinitely postponed 2026-04-17; LB 587 (tenant remedies) indefinitely postponed 2026-04-17; LB 980 and LB 469 (2026 eviction-procedure bills) not enacted — no slip law exists; 109th Legislature 2nd session adjourned sine die 2026-04-17.