What late fees can a landlord charge in Virginia?

Verified July 9, 2026 All Virginia topics →

Pending legislation — not yet law. The rules on this page reflect current law only. The following bills would change it if enacted:

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 (encoded in this record) governs until then.Status: Enacted 2026; effective 2027-07-01 per the official code site's version label (one Realtor-association summary says January 1, 2027 — the official 'Effective July 1, 2027' code version controls). Not incorporated until effective. (checked 2026-07-09).
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 2026-07-09).
HB 95 (2026) — Effective January 1, 2027, landlords with 4+ units must offer payment plans for unpaid rent, with no additional late fees accruing while the tenant complies — a conditional overlay on the § 55.1-1204(E) late-fee rules.Status: Enacted 2026; effective 2027-01-01. Not incorporated until effective. (checked 2026-07-09).

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.' The fee must be provided for in a written rental agreement; with no written lease there is no late fee at all — instead the statutory default tenancy kicks in, under which rent is due the first of the month and 'considered late if not paid by the fifth.' 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 January 1, 2027 landlords with four or more units must offer payment plans during which no additional late fees accrue.

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; any fee arrangement must stay within the lesser-of-10% cap, which as a per-period ceiling forecloses meaningful daily accrual.
Reasonableness standard	The hard cap displaces a general reasonableness test: no late charge may be imposed at all unless provided for in the WRITTEN rental agreement, and no charge may exceed the lesser of 10% of the periodic rent or 10% of the remaining balance owed.

Notes and caveats

statutory_cap quotes the lesser-of formulation because '10% of monthly rent' is the standard misstatement — the remaining-balance prong routinely produces the smaller number after partial payment. grace_period_days is null: the due-1st/late-after-5th rule belongs to the § 55.1-1204(C) default terms for tenancies with no written agreement offered, not to written leases (trap disclaimed in summary). Bad-check processing fees are separately capped at $50 (§ 55.1-1200 definition). HB 95's payment-plan fee freeze (eff. 2027-01-01) is flagged in pending_legislation, not incorporated.

Statute citations

Va. Code § 55.1-1204 (C), (E) 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 fetches 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, cross-checked against practitioner summaries; 2026 HB 278/SB 355 status (continued to 2027) checked 2026-07-09.