Is there a legal limit on late fees in Connecticut?

Lesser of (1) $5 per day up to a maximum of $50, or (2) 5% of the delinquent rent payment — computed on the tenant's share only, where a governmental or charitable entity pays part of the rent; and no more than ONE late charge per delinquent rent payment.

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

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

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Connecticut?

Daily accrual is the structure the statute itself contemplates ($5 per day), but it is double-capped: the running total may not exceed $50, and the whole charge may not exceed 5% of the delinquent rent payment if that is less (47a-15a(b)). Only one late charge may be assessed per delinquent payment no matter how long the rent stays unpaid, so re-charging the same month is unlawful.

What late fees can a landlord charge in Connecticut?

Verified July 10, 2026 All Connecticut topics →

Check your municipality. Connecticut does not preempt local rent regulation — city or county ordinances may impose rent caps, notice rules, and fee limits that are stricter than the state-level rules on this page and are not covered here. Verify your municipality's ordinances before relying on any figure below.

What the state record says

No statewide rent cap or stabilization formula. Connecticut instead MANDATES local rent oversight: under Conn. Gen. Stat. 7-148b (as amended by Nov. Sp. Sess. P.A. 25-1, eff. 2026-01-01), every municipality with a population of 15,000 or more MUST maintain a fair rent commission (or join a joint or regional one), and any smaller municipality MAY create one. Commissions receive complaints about rents and 'rental charges' (including any fee on top of rent), and may roll a rent back to a fair and equitable level if, weighing the 13 factors in 7-148c (comparable rents, condition, services, repairs, taxes and debt service, code compliance, tenant income, amount and frequency of increases, reinvestment), it is 'so excessive ... as to be harsh and unconscionable' (7-148c, 7-148d). They can also suspend rent into escrow for health/safety violations and order landlords to stop retaliating against complainants; violations of commission orders draw fines of $25-$100 per offense, with each day beyond five a fresh offense (7-148d, 7-148f). Newly covered municipalities (15,000-24,999) have until January 1, 2028 to adopt the ordinance; commissions existing before 2026 cannot be abolished before then. The original mandate (25,000+, deadline July 1, 2023) came from P.A. 22-30. Separately, using rent-setting algorithms that compute on nonpublic competitor data is an unfair trade practice as of January 1, 2026 (47a-4f).

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

SB 218 (2026) — Public Act 26-79, Section 3 — Enacted but NOT yet effective. Amends Conn. Gen. Stat. 47a-21(j)(1) so that the Banking Commissioner, on finding a security-deposit violation within the commissioner's jurisdiction (deposit-amount cap, return/itemization duties, escrow duties, or interest duties), may order the landlord to PAY A CIVIL PENALTY under Conn. Gen. Stat. 36a-50 (up to $100,000 per violation) in addition to the existing cease-and-desist and compliance orders. Adds real administrative teeth to the deposit rules; incorporate into security_deposits penalty_for_violation on the first verification pass after the effective date.Status: Passed Senate 2026-04-15 and House 2026-05-05, signed by the governor 2026-05-27 as Public Act 26-79; Section 3 effective October 1, 2026. (checked 2026-07-10).

Connecticut gives every residential tenant a statutory 9-day grace period for monthly rent (4 days for week-to-week tenancies) and caps late fees at the lesser of $5 per day up to $50 total, or 5% of the delinquent rent payment.

No late charge may be assessed at all unless the lease contains a valid written late-charge agreement, no fee may attach before the grace period runs out — disguising an early fee as a 'discount' for on-time payment is equally banned — and only one late charge may be imposed per delinquent payment no matter how long it stays unpaid. Where a government program or charity pays part of the rent, the 5% arm is computed on the tenant's share only. Since January 1, 2026, the grace period stretches by five extra days if the landlord's own online rent-payment system prevented payment when due, and rent that goes unpaid because of such an outage cannot support a nonpayment eviction. A lease clause purporting to charge more, or sooner, is simply unenforceable, and a tenant more than 10 days late loses that month's security-deposit interest only if the landlord did not impose a late charge.

Connecticut late fees at a glance

Statutory cap	Lesser of (1) $5 per day up to a maximum of $50, or (2) 5% of the delinquent rent payment — computed on the tenant's share only, where a governmental or charitable entity pays part of the rent; and no more than ONE late charge per delinquent rent payment
Mandatory grace period	9 days
Must be in the lease	Yes
Daily fees	Daily accrual is the structure the statute itself contemplates ($5 per day), but it is double-capped: the running total may not exceed $50, and the whole charge may not exceed 5% of the delinquent rent payment if that is less (47a-15a(b)). Only one late charge may be assessed per delinquent payment no matter how long the rent stays unpaid, so re-charging the same month is unlawful.
Reasonableness standard	Not addressed by statute

Notes and caveats

Encoding decisions: grace_period_days=9 encodes the month-to-month/monthly figure; the 4-day week-to-week figure and the NEW +5-day extension (Nov. Sp. Sess. P.A. 25-1 § 38, eff. 2026-01-01, when 'a landlord's online rental payment system prevents the payment of rent when due,' applying only to the affected week or month) are carried here and in the summary because the schema holds one integer. The cap language was double-read verbatim: official current text, 2026 Supplement, Justia 2024 mirror, and the enrolled PA 23-207 § 8 PDF (effective 2023-10-01) — all four agree on 'the lesser of (1) five dollars per day, up to a maximum of fifty dollars, or (2) five per cent of the delinquent rent payment.' must_be_in_lease=true has a dual statutory basis: 47a-15a(b) requires 'a valid written agreement to pay a late charge in accordance with subsection (a) of section 47a-4,' and 47a-4(a)(8)-(9) voids lease terms charging before the grace period ends (including sham 'early-payment discounts,' banned since P.A. 87-154) or above the 47a-15a amounts; 47a-4(b) makes violating provisions unenforceable. reasonableness_standard=null because the hard cap displaces it. Related protections worth page copy: 47a-23(a)(1)(D) as amended (eff. 2026-01-01) bars nonpayment evictions where the landlord's online payment system blocked payment within the grace period; 47a-7d(e) (2025) requires tenant payments to be applied FIRST to rent, then to fees, blocking fee-pyramiding into 'unpaid rent.' STALE-SOURCE TRAPS: (1) 'Connecticut has no late-fee cap' — true only before 2023-10-01; (2) '5% of monthly rent' — the statutory base is the DELINQUENT rent payment (and only the tenant's share for subsidized tenancies), so a half-paid month yields a smaller maximum; (3) quoting '$50' or '5%' alone without the lesser-of structure; (4) virtually no circulating source yet reflects the 2026 online-payment-outage grace extension. HB 5359 (2026), which would have added late-fee disclosure duties and a cost-free payment method, died on the House calendar at adjournment — debunked, not flagged.

Common questions: Connecticut 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 Connecticut?: Lesser of (1) $5 per day up to a maximum of $50, or (2) 5% of the delinquent rent payment — computed on the tenant's share only, where a governmental or charitable entity pays part of the rent; and no more than ONE late charge per delinquent rent payment.
Is there a grace period before rent is late in Connecticut?: 9 days.
Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in Connecticut?: Yes — in Connecticut a late fee must be stated in the lease.
Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Connecticut?: Daily accrual is the structure the statute itself contemplates ($5 per day), but it is double-capped: the running total may not exceed $50, and the whole charge may not exceed 5% of the delinquent rent payment if that is less (47a-15a(b)). Only one late charge may be assessed per delinquent payment no matter how long the rent stays unpaid, so re-charging the same month is unlawful.

Statute citations

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-15a (2026 Supplement text, as amended by Nov. Sp. Sess. P.A. 25-1 § 38) (a)-(b) Official source
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-15a (b) Official source
Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-4 (late-charge lease terms: no fee before grace period ends, no fee above the 47a-15a amounts; violations unenforceable) (a)(8)-(9), (b) Official source
P.A. 23-207, § 8 (late-fee cap enacted, eff. 2023-10-01) Sec. 8 Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Connecticut General Assembly site (cga.ct.gov): chapters 830, 831, 832 and 98 downloaded in full from the current-revision pages AND from the 2026 Supplement (revised to January 1, 2026), which carries the 2025-session amendments to Conn. Gen. Stat. 47a-15a, 47a-21, 47a-23 and 7-148b — the supplement text is the operative text used here. Every load-bearing number was read at least twice in independent documents: the 2-month/1-month deposit caps, 21-day/15-day return deadline, double-deposit penalty, deposit-index interest rule, 9-day/4-day grace periods, $5-per-day/$50/5%-of-delinquent-payment late-fee cap, and the reasonable-notice entry standard were each confirmed verbatim on both the official pages and the Justia 2024-edition mirror (fetched raw); the 2025 changes (fair-rent-commission threshold 25,000 to 15,000, +5-day online-payment-outage grace extension, rent-algorithm ban) were confirmed in both the 2026 Supplement and the enrolled November Special Session Public Act 25-1 (HB 8002) PDF on cga.ct.gov; the 30-to-21-day deposit-deadline change and late-fee cap were traced to PA 23-207 sections 8, 38 and 39 (effective 2023-10-01) in the enrolled act PDF. The 2026 security-deposit interest rate (0.49% deposit index) was double-read on two official Department of Banking pages. 2026-session sweep: PA 26-79 section 3 (SB 218) read in the enrolled PDF and flagged as pending (effective 2026-10-01); bill-status pages read for HB 5092, HB 5359, SB 257 and SB 274, all of which died at the 2026-05-06 adjournment.