Is there a legal limit on late fees in North Carolina?

$15 or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is greater (monthly rent); $4 or 5% of the weekly rent, whichever is greater (weekly rent).

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

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

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in North Carolina?

Effectively prohibited. G.S. 42-46(b) allows a late fee to be imposed only one time for each late rental payment, and the fee may not be deducted from a subsequent rent payment so as to manufacture a new default.

What late fees can a landlord charge in North Carolina?

Verified October 1, 2026 All North Carolina topics →

Legislative changes ahead — not yet in force. This page reflects the law in force today. The following measure would change North Carolina's landlord-tenant law:

H990 (2025-2026 session) — Would rewrite G.S. 42-46 to require landlords to give tenants written notice (hand delivery, mail, or electronic per the lease) before collecting a late fee, stating the amount and date imposed, no earlier than five days after the due date. Caps unchanged. Status: Introduced April 10, 2025; referred to the House Committee on Rules, Calendar, and Operations April 14, 2025; no further action as of October 1, 2026, and not enacted. The adjournment resolution (Resolution 2026-6) lists the only matters that may be considered at the sittings that remain before the session ends on December 18, 2026 (veto overrides, appointments, conference reports and concurrence votes on bills already returned, and a few others); a bill still in committee is not among them, so this bill cannot move unless a later resolution allows it. CAUTION: at least one landlord-facing website reports this notice requirement as effective October 1, 2025; that is wrong (no notice requirement has been enacted; the 2025 amendments to G.S. 42-46(i) concern attorneys' fees and eviction costs and are retroactive to September 9, 2024). (checked October 1, 2026).

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

House Bill 377 (2025-2026), 2026 Court Changes — Would rewrite N.C.G.S. § 42-34.1, on rent owed while a possession judgment is executed and on the bond required to stay execution pending appeal. A tenant who already filed an undertaking on appeal from the magistrate, and who keeps making the periodic rent payments that undertaking requires after the district court judgment, would satisfy the bond requirement by those continued payments and keep the stay, both during the thirty days for taking an appeal and during the appeal itself. It would apply to actions pending on and filed after the date it became law. No notice period, court deadline or writ figure on this page would change. Status: Ratified August 6, 2026; presented to the Governor August 7, 2026; vetoed August 17, 2026. The House placed the veto message on its calendar for September 2, 2026. Veto overrides were in order at the sittings the adjournment resolution set for September 28 to 30, 2026, and as of October 1, 2026 the bill's official history records no override vote in either chamber. Overrides are next in order at the sittings beginning October 26, November 16 and November 30, 2026, and the session ends December 18, 2026. It is not law. (checked October 1, 2026).

North Carolina caps residential late fees at the greater of $15 or 5% of the monthly rent (for weekly rentals, the greater of $4 or 5% of weekly rent), and no fee may be charged unless the payment is five calendar days or more late, counting the day after rent was due as the first day — a statutory grace period.

Cited to G.S. 42-46 (a)-(b), (d)-(j) and 2 more cited sources · Verified October 1, 2026

The fee must be agreed to in the rental agreement, only one fee may be imposed per late payment, and it cannot be skimmed from the next month's rent to create a fresh default. For HUD-, USDA-, state-, or locally-subsidized tenancies the percentage is calculated on the tenant's share of rent only, and no late fee may be charged on unpaid water or sewer charges. Separate from late fees, the statute authorizes a menu of eviction-related administrative fees — complaint-filing (greater of $15 or 5%), court-appearance (10% of monthly rent), and second-trial (up to 12%) — of which a landlord may keep only one per ejectment case, plus actual out-of-pocket court costs and lease-based attorneys' fees capped at 15%, plus an uncapped award of all actual reasonable attorneys' fees where the landlord prevails on a tenant's district court appeal that the court finds frivolous, unreasonable, without foundation, in bad faith or solely for delay.

North Carolina late fees at a glance

Statutory cap	$15 or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is greater (monthly rent); $4 or 5% of the weekly rent, whichever is greater (weekly rent)
Mandatory grace period	5 days
Must be in the lease	Yes
Daily fees	Effectively prohibited. G.S. 42-46(b) allows a late fee to be imposed only one time for each late rental payment, and the fee may not be deducted from a subsequent rent payment so as to manufacture a new default.
Reasonableness standard	Not addressed by statute

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

Notes and caveats

Only one eviction fee per case — G.S. 42-46(e)-(g) authorize three administrative eviction fees under a written lease: a complaint-filing fee, a court-appearance fee and a second-trial fee. Subsection (h) limits a landlord to one of the three per case, prohibits deducting the fee from a later rent payment and bars treating a failure to pay it as a default for a later summary ejectment.
The subsection (i) fee rules changed retroactively to September 9, 2024 — Two 2025 acts rewrote the out-of-pocket expenses and litigation costs subsection, each of them retroactive to September 9, 2024. The fifteen percent cap on lease-based attorneys' fees no longer depends on the landlord being the prevailing party. A separate award now sits beside it: where a tenant appeals a summary ejectment to district court and the landlord prevails, the landlord is entitled to all actual reasonable attorneys' fees paid or owed if the court determines the tenant knew or should have known the appeal was frivolous, unreasonable, without foundation, in bad faith or solely for delay. That award is not subject to the fifteen percent cap.
H990 is not law — and at least one source says it is — The pending bill requiring written notice before a late fee is collected is flagged in the pending-legislation entry above and deliberately not incorporated. At least one secondary source misreports it as effective law.
Five calendar days, counted from the day after rent was due — The trigger is five calendar days or more, not five business days, and the count begins the day after the rent was due rather than on the due date itself. Both points are in the statute's own words.

Common questions: North Carolina 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 North Carolina?: $15 or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is greater (monthly rent); $4 or 5% of the weekly rent, whichever is greater (weekly rent).
Is there a grace period before rent is late in North Carolina?: 5 days.
Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in North Carolina?: Yes — in North Carolina a late fee must be stated in the lease.
Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in North Carolina?: Effectively prohibited. G.S. 42-46(b) allows a late fee to be imposed only one time for each late rental payment, and the fee may not be deducted from a subsequent rent payment so as to manufacture a new default.

Citations

G.S. 42-46 · (a)-(b), (d)-(j) (verified 2026) Official source
S.L. 2025-54, s. 12.4 (G.S. 42-46(i), retroactive to September 9, 2024) · s. 12.4(a)-(b) (verified 2026) Official source
S.L. 2025-52, s. 3 (G.S. 42-46(i), retroactive to September 9, 2024) · s. 3(a)-(b) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the North Carolina General Assembly's own site (ncleg.gov). October 1, 2026: every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee, entry and eviction answers rest on was read there with its history line: G.S. 42-3, 42-14, 42-14.1, 42-14.3, 42-25.6 to 42-25.9, 42-26 to 42-36.2, 42-46, 42-50 to 42-56 and Article 7 of Chapter 42; G.S. 7A-210 to 7A-229; and Rules 1, 6 and 62 of the Rules of Civil Procedure. The site's statutes included changes through S.L. 2026-30 that day; the later 2026 session laws (through S.L. 2026-61) were checked for amendments to Chapter 42, and none changes these answers. The 2025 acts amending G.S. 42-46 (S.L. 2025-45, 2025-52 and 2025-54) were read in their enacted texts, because the page for that section prints subsection (i) incompletely. The status of each pending bill was read on its own bill page and against the adjournment resolution (Resolution 2026-6).