Is there a legal limit on late fees in Virginia?

The lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant (§ 55.1-1204(E)). The hard cap displaces any general reasonableness test. No late charge may be imposed at all unless the WRITTEN rental agreement provides for it, and no charge may exceed the lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance owed.

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

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

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Virginia?

No structure is specified and daily accrual is not barred, but the total late charge may not exceed the lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant (§ 55.1-1204(E)).

What late fees can a landlord charge in Virginia?

Verified October 1, 2026 All Virginia topics →

Enacted but not yet in force. This page reflects the law in force today. The following measures have been signed and take effect on the dates shown:

HB 678 (2026), c. 1066 — Already CHAPTERED but not yet effective: on July 1, 2027, § 55.1-1204(K)'s rent-increase notice for landlords with more than four units extends from 60 to 90 days before the end of the rental agreement term, and the notice must give the tenant a renewal-decision deadline no sooner than 30 days after delivery. The current 60-day rule governs until then. Status: Enacted 2026 (c. 1066, approved April 22, 2026); effective 2027-07-01 under the chapter's own enactment clause. Not incorporated until effective. (checked July 9, 2026).
HB 329 (2026), c. 1111 — Effective January 1, 2027, § 55.1-1258's retaliation rules expand: the lists of prohibited retaliatory acts and protected tenant conduct both grow, the sentence placing the burden of proving retaliatory intent on the tenant is removed (actual damages and the defense in any action for possession, already in today's text, carry over), and failing to renew the tenancy of a Housing Choice Voucher holder without good cause becomes a protected ground. The parallel § 55.1-1314 (Manufactured Home Lot Rental Act) changes with it. Status: Enacted 2026 (c. 1111); effective 2027-01-01 per the chapter. Not incorporated until effective. (checked August 12, 2026).
HB 95 (2026) — Effective July 1, 2027, a landlord who owns more than four rental units (or more than a 10 percent interest in more than four) must offer a payment plan in equal monthly installments over the lesser of six months or the rest of the lease when no more than one month’s rent plus contracted late charges is unpaid, with no additional late fees on that balance while the tenant keeps to the plan — a new subsection G of § 55.1-1245 that sits beside the § 55.1-1204(E) late-fee cap. Status: Enacted 2026 (c. 1105); effective 2027-07-01 per the chapter's own enactment clause. Not incorporated until effective. (checked September 27, 2026).

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

HB 278 / SB 355 (2026) — local rent regulation ('anti-rent gouging') enabling act — Would let localities adopt rent-increase regulation. Failed in 2026: Senate committee voted 11-4 to continue the bill to the 2027 session, and the Virginia Housing Commission opened a study of local rent regulation in June 2026 — expect a 2027 return. Predecessor HB 2175 (2025, 3% local cap enabling) also died. Status: Continued to the 2027 session; not enacted. § 55.1-1201's supersession clause and the Dillon Rule continue to bar local rent control. (checked July 9, 2026).

Virginia caps residential late fees at the LESSER of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance the tenant actually owes — so a tenant who has paid most of the month's rent can only be charged 10% of the small unpaid remainder, not 10% of the full rent, a distinction many summaries flatten into '10% of rent.'

Cited to Va. Code § 55.1-1204 (C), (E) and 1 more cited source · Verified October 1, 2026

A late fee may be charged only if the written rental agreement provides for it (§ 55.1-1204(E)). Where the landlord offered no written lease, the statutory default tenancy kicks in: rent is due the first of the month and 'considered late if not paid by the fifth,' and the landlord 'shall be entitled to charge a late charge as provided in this chapter' (§ 55.1-1204(C)); the statute does not say how that entitlement fits with the written-agreement requirement. That fifth-of-the-month rule is the source of a persistent five-day-grace-period myth: it applies only when no written lease was offered, and written leases carry no statutory grace period. Two enacted changes are worth a calendar note: nonpayment pay-or-quit notices lengthened from 5 to 14 days on July 1, 2026, and from July 1, 2027 a landlord who owns more than four rental units, or more than a 10 percent interest in more than four, must offer a payment plan when no more than one month's rent plus contracted late charges is unpaid, and may charge no additional late fees on that balance while the tenant keeps to the plan.

Virginia late fees at a glance

Statutory cap	The lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant (§ 55.1-1204(E))
Mandatory grace period	None mandated statewide
Must be in the lease	Yes
Daily fees	No structure is specified and daily accrual is not barred, but the total late charge may not exceed the lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant (§ 55.1-1204(E)).
Reasonableness standard	The hard cap displaces any general reasonableness test. No late charge may be imposed at all unless the WRITTEN rental agreement provides for it, and no charge may exceed the lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance owed.

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

Notes and caveats

It is the lesser of two 10% figures, not '10% of rent' — The cap is the lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance due and owed (§ 55.1-1204(E)), and the remaining-balance prong routinely produces the smaller number after a partial payment. '10% of monthly rent' is the standard misstatement.
No grace period is recorded, and that is deliberate — The rent-due-on-the-first, late-after-the-fifth rule belongs to the § 55.1-1204(C) default terms for tenancies where no written rental agreement was offered — not to written leases, which carry no statutory grace period.
Bad-check fees are capped separately — Processing fees for a returned check are capped at $50 under the § 55.1-1200 definition.
Coming July 1, 2027 (HB 95) — A landlord who owns more than four rental units, or more than a 10 percent interest in more than four, must offer a payment plan when no more than one month's rent plus contracted late charges is unpaid, and may charge no additional late fees on that balance while the tenant pays on time under the plan (section 55.1-1245, subsection G, as amended by 2026 chapter 1105). The change takes effect July 1, 2027 and is not built into the figures here.
A landlord may not charge a fee to repair the unit — Since July 1, 2026 a landlord may not require a tenant to pay any fee for the maintenance or repair of a dwelling unit, unless the repair was made necessary by the tenant's own violation of the landlord-tenant act. The bar applies to every residential tenancy the act covers, not only to public housing, and it is separate from the late-fee ceiling (section 55.1-1208, subsection C).

Common questions: Virginia 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 Virginia?: The lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant (§ 55.1-1204(E)). The hard cap displaces any general reasonableness test. No late charge may be imposed at all unless the WRITTEN rental agreement provides for it, and no charge may exceed the lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance owed.
Is there a grace period before rent is late in Virginia?: None mandated statewide.
Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in Virginia?: Yes — in Virginia a late fee must be stated in the lease.
Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Virginia?: No structure is specified and daily accrual is not barred, but the total late charge may not exceed the lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant (§ 55.1-1204(E)).

Citations

Va. Code § 55.1-1204 · (C), (E) (verified 2026) Official source
Va. Code § 55.1-1208 · (C) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Virginia Code site (law.lis.virginia.gov): §§ 55.1-1226, 55.1-1204 (both the current version and the 'Effective July 1, 2027' version), 55.1-1253, and 55.1-1229 each read in full twice (independent reads matched verbatim); §§ 55.1-1200 (definitions), 55.1-1201 (applicability/supersession), 55.1-1203, 55.1-1206, 55.1-1208, and 55.1-1210 read in full once. 2026 session laws (cc. 722/723, 1050, 1066, and the HB 15/SB 48 and HB 95 changes) identified via official code version labels and section history lines; 2026 HB 278/SB 355 status (continued to 2027) checked 2026-07-09. 2024 Acts of Assembly c. 46 (HB 701) read in full on legacylis.virginia.gov 2026-07-09 and its added language confirmed against the current § 55.1-1229 text, confirming the earlier reading. October 1, 2026: every section the security deposit, rent increase, late fee and entry answers rest on was read again on the Code of Virginia site (law.lis.virginia.gov), which prints the 2026 session's amendments and a separately dated version of each section a 2026 act changes in 2027: §§ 55.1-1200, 55.1-1201, 55.1-1203, 55.1-1204, 55.1-1206, 55.1-1208, 55.1-1210, 55.1-1223, 55.1-1226, 55.1-1229, 55.1-1253, 55.1-1302 and 55.1-1320, with §§ 54.1-2108.1 and 15.2-2305. Each 2025 and 2026 act amending them was read in its chaptered text on the Legislative Information System (lis.virginia.gov), and its effective date taken from the act's own enactment clause: 2025 chapters 554, 562 and 655 and 2026 chapters 353, 354, 598, 722, 723, 1050, 1066, 1105 and 1111. The acts that first enacted the renewal-notice and rent-change provisions (2023 chapters 679 and 706, 2024 chapter 831) were read on the Legislature's archive site.