Landlord Atlas

What late fees can a landlord charge in New Mexico?

Verified July 11, 2026 All New Mexico topics →

New Mexico caps residential late fees at 5% of the rent for each rental period the tenant is in default — cut from 10% by a 2025 law effective June 20, 2025 — and the fee may be charged only if the rental agreement provides for it.

The 5% is measured against rent alone: deposits, other fees and utilities are expressly excluded from the calculation. New Mexico also imposes a use-it-or-lose-it notice rule found almost nowhere else: to assess a late fee at all, the landlord must notify the tenant of the fee charged no later than the last day of the rental period immediately following the one in which the default occurred. There is no statutory grace period — rent is payable without demand at the agreed time — so the fee can attach as soon as rent is late, subject to the lease and the notice rule. Beware outdated sources: most 50-state charts and even major legal databases still show the pre-2025 10% cap.

New Mexico late fees at a glance

Statutory cap 5% of the rent for each rental period the resident is in default (NMSA 47-8-15(D), as amended by Laws 2025, ch. 122, effective 2025-06-20). The base is rent only: late-fee calculations shall not include deposits, additional fees or utilities.
Mandatory grace period None mandated statewide
Must be in the lease Yes
Daily fees The statute is silent on fee structure, but the 5% ceiling applies per rental period in default, so an initial-plus-daily structure may not total more than 5% of that period's rent. Rent is otherwise payable without demand or notice at the agreed time (47-8-15(B)).
Reasonableness standard Not addressed by statute

Notes and caveats

PRIMARY STALE-SOURCE TRAP for NM: from Laws 1995, ch. 195 until 2025-06-20 the cap was 10% of the 'total rent payment'; SB 267 (Laws 2025, ch. 122, § 6, signed 2025-04-08, effective 2025-06-20 under the 90-days-after-adjournment default) reduced it to 5% and narrowed the base to rent only, expressly excluding deposits, additional fees and utilities. FindLaw (stamped current 2024-01-01), the RLD 2019 compilation, the courts' 2023 self-help brochure and nearly all landlord guides still carry 10% — the FindLaw citation above is retained deliberately as the documented superseded text. Current 5% text double-read from the official enrolled bill PDF plus the Justia 2025-edition amendment note ('after "not to exceed" changed "ten" to "five"... effective June 20, 2025'). must_be_in_lease = true from the express precondition 'If the rental agreement provides for the charging of a late fee.' The notice-to-assess mechanic (notice of the fee charged no later than the last day of the next rental period after the default period) predates 2025 and survived the amendment verbatim; a landlord who misses that window cannot assess the fee for that period. grace_period_days null: verified negative — the word 'grace' appears nowhere in UORRA (full-chapter sweep), and the 3-day nonpayment termination notice of 47-8-33 is an eviction cure window, not a fee-accrual delay; a 2025 bill to stretch that eviction notice to 10 days (HB 462) did not become law. reasonableness_standard null: hard cap, no standard needed.

Statute citations

How this record was verified: Verbatim reads of two independent official documents, each downloaded and text-extracted in full: (1) the NM Regulation & Licensing Department's official UORRA compilation PDF (rld.nm.gov, 2019 edition) for sections 47-8-15 (pre-2025 baseline), 47-8-18, 47-8-24, 47-8-37 and full-chapter negative sweeps (no escrow/interest-account rule, no grace period, no pet-deposit statute, no frequency limit); and (2) the final (enrolled, SJC substitute) version of 2025 SB 267 on nmlegis.gov (Laws 2025, ch. 122, signed 2025-04-08, effective 2025-06-20) for the current text of 47-8-15 (5% late fee), new sections 47-8-19.1 to 47-8-19.4, and amended 47-8-48. Every load-bearing figure reconciled against FindLaw (mirror stamped current 2024-01-01) and Justia 2025-edition amendment notes; the two officials agree with each other and the mirrors on the 1-month deposit cap for sub-annual agreements, annual-lease interest trigger, 30-day return, $250 bad-faith penalty, 5% late fee and its notice-to-assess mechanic, 30-days-before-the-rental-date increase rule, and 24-hour written entry notice. Section 47-8A-1 (rent control preemption) initially verified on two mirrors reconciled verbatim (Justia + FindLaw) because the official host nmonesource.com returns HTTP 403 to automated fetches; a same-day (2026-07-11) in-app browser-pane session then read the official compiled code directly on nmonesource.com (NMSA Unannotated, Chapter 47), sight-verifying 47-8A-1 verbatim (subsections A-C, History: Laws 1991, ch. 23, § 1), the compiled 47-8-15 text including the 5% subsection (D) and the 2025 ch. 122 history line, the compiled section numbers 47-8-19.1 through 47-8-19.4, and the unamended history lines of 47-8-18 (1975/1985/1989) and 47-8-24 (1975/1995) — all matching the encoding. Pending-bill sweep 2026-07-11: 2026 regular session (30-day) adjourned sine die 2026-02-19; SB 138 (repeal rent control prohibition) died in committee (Action Postponed Indefinitely, confirmed on the official nmlegis.gov bill page); no UORRA bill touching the four topics passed.