What late fees can a landlord charge in Wyoming?

Verified July 12, 2026 All Wyoming topics →

Wyoming sets no cap on residential late fees and mandates no grace period — no statute anywhere in Wyoming law addresses late charges on residential rent, so a late fee exists only if the rental agreement creates it, bounded by ordinary contract law rather than any statutory test.

The '3-day' figure that circulates for Wyoming is not a grace period: it comes from the eviction statute, under which a landlord may bring a forcible entry and detainer action against a tenant who has failed to pay rent for three days after it is due — rent is still late (and a lease-based late fee can still accrue) from day one. Two statutory hooks give lease-based fees real teeth here: the deposit statute lets the landlord deduct 'other costs provided by any contract' from the security deposit, and the renter-duties statute makes staying current on 'all payments required by the rental agreement' a statutory duty whose violation is itself a ground for eviction. Wyoming never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, so there is no unconscionability provision — an abusive fee would have to be attacked as a common-law penalty clause.

Wyoming 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	Not addressed by any statute; a daily or compounding late fee would be a lease term policed only by common-law contract and liquidated-damages/penalty principles — Wyoming never adopted URLTA and has no statutory unconscionability backstop for residential leases.
Reasonableness standard	No statutory cap, formula, grace period or reasonableness standard exists — verified negative: zero occurrences of 'late fee', 'late charge' or 'grace period' in Titles 1, 15 and 34 (full-text sweeps of the official LSO statute files). The statutes touch lease charges only obliquely: deposits may be applied to 'other costs provided by any contract' (W.S. 1-21-1208(a)), and the renter's statutory duties include being 'current on all payments required by the rental agreement' (W.S. 1-21-1204(a)(vi)), whose violation is an independent eviction ground (W.S. 1-21-1002(a)(vi)). No Wyoming appellate decision fixing a late-fee standard was found.

Notes and caveats

statutory_cap and grace_period_days null: verified negative — full reads of Title 1 ch. 21 arts. 10/12/13 plus keyword sweeps of Titles 1, 15 and 34 (zero hits) and Title 40 (its only 'late charge' text is the Consumer Rental Purchase Agreement Act, W.S. 40-19-108(a)(x)-(xii) — rent-to-own PERSONAL PROPERTY, amended by 2025 SF0146/ch. 75; a keyword trap, not residential tenancy law). must_be_in_lease null rather than true (MT/AK precedent): no statute conditions late fees on the lease; the lease-only footing is contract law, reinforced by 1-21-1204(a)(vi)'s 'payments required by the rental agreement' framing. GRACE-PERIOD TRAP for page copy: 1-21-1002(a)(i) (FED lies 'after a failure to pay rent for three (3) days after it is due') plus the 1-21-1003 3-day notice to quit are eviction-procedure timing, not a fee grace period — same treatment as Montana's 3-business-day cure window. Collections wrinkle: unpaid lease charges are deposit-deductible ('other costs provided by any contract'), and unpaid amounts beyond the deposit accrue 10%/yr statutory interest under 1-21-1211(b). No unconscionability statute reaches residential leases (Wyoming never adopted URLTA; 1999 act is homegrown). Session sweep 2025+2026: no late-fee or junk-fee bill introduced.

Statute citations

Wyo. Stat. § 1-21-1204 (a)(vi), (vii) Official source
Wyo. Stat. § 1-21-1208 (a) ('other costs provided by any contract') Official source
Wyo. Stat. § 1-21-1002 (a)(i), (vi) (verified negative context: 3-day rule is FED timing, not a fee grace period) Official source
Title 1, ch. 21, arts. 10 and 12 (LSO NXT infobase views, double-read endpoints) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text from the official Wyoming Legislative Service Office statute files (wyoleg.gov/statutes/compress/title01.pdf, title34.pdf, title15.pdf, title40.pdf — the wyoleg.gov site is an SPA that serves its statute PDFs directly to curl; the Title 1 file reflects 2025-session repeals and is current through the 2025 General Session): Title 1 ch. 21 art. 12 (W.S. 1-21-1201 through 1-21-1211) and art. 10 (1-21-1001 through 1-21-1017) read in full, plus W.S. 34-2-126 through 34-2-132. Double-read via a second official endpoint: the LSO NXT infobase ('2021 Titles', wyoleg.gov/NXT/gateway.dll) article views for arts. 12 and 10 — the entire Article 12 text (12,872 normalized characters) is CHARACTER-IDENTICAL between the official 2021 edition and the official 2025 PDF. Deposit figures additionally triple-read against the Wyoming Judicial Branch's TENANT Form 03 instructions (wyocourts.gov, rev. Sept 2024), which reprint W.S. 1-21-1208 verbatim; FED figures corroborated by the Judicial Branch Eviction Handout; FindLaw mirror matched 1-21-1208 and 34-2-128 verbatim (Justia 403s automated fetchers). Verified negatives (no deposit cap, no interest or separate-account rule beyond the express 'without interest' clause, no rent-increase or periodic-termination notice statute, no late-fee cap or grace period, no entry-notice statute, no rent-control or preemption provision) run by full-article reads plus keyword sweeps of Titles 1, 15, 34 and 40 — zero occurrences of 'month-to-month', 'late fee', 'late charge' or 'grace period' in Titles 1/15/34. Mandatory session sweep on the official LSO bill API (lsoservice.wyoleg.gov): all 891 bills of the 2025 General and 2026 Budget Sessions enumerated by short title, and all 278 enacted chapters (171 of 2025, 107 of 2026) separately enumerated — zero on-topic enactments; dead bills 2025 HB0213 (owner utility duties) and 2026 HB0183 (renter tax relief) both 'Did not Consider for Introduction'. The 2026 Budget Session has adjourned; next regular session January 2027.