Is there a legal limit on late fees in Kentucky?

No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). No statutory reasonableness standard. In URLTA jurisdictions a court may refuse to enforce an unconscionable lease provision (KRS 383.555) — a high bar defined at KRS 383.545(16) as willful conduct 'shocking to the conscience.' Statewide, ordinary contract law treats a late charge grossly disproportionate to actual damage as an unenforceable penalty; no Kentucky statute codifies this for residential leases.

Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Kentucky?

No statute addresses daily late fees. In URLTA jurisdictions any fee owed under the lease is 'rent' by definition (KRS 383.545(10)), and lease terms are constrained only by the unconscionability doctrine (KRS 383.555) and the short prohibited-provisions list (KRS 383.570), which does not mention late fees. Outside URLTA jurisdictions, only common-law penalty/liquidated-damages doctrine applies.

What late fees can a landlord charge in Kentucky?

Verified July 10, 2026 All Kentucky topics →

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

HB 340 (2026 RS) — 'AN ACT relating to termination of residential leases' — Would have created early-termination rights (new sections of KRS ch. 383) for 'medically fragile' tenants (30 days' notice plus medical documentation), tenants 60+ or disabled on the death of a spouse or cotenant (60 days' notice), and tenants facing unabated lead hazards. Does not touch deposits, entry, late fees, or rent-increase rules, but it was the session's principal landlord-tenant bill and a likely refile.Status: Dead. Referred to House Judiciary 2026-01-21 with no further action; the 2026 Regular Session adjourned sine die 2026-04-15. No 2026 bill amending KRS 383.500-383.715, 383.195, or 65.875 was found; the perennial statewide-URLTA bills (2017 HB 510, 2018 HB 550, 2021 HB 595) were not refiled in 2026 — a future statewide-URLTA enactment would rescope every topic in this record and is the top KY watch item. (checked 2026-07-09).

Kentucky has no statutory cap on residential late fees and no mandatory grace period — neither in the jurisdictions that have adopted the state's optional Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act nor in the rest of the state, where no landlord-tenant fee statute exists at all.

In URLTA jurisdictions (Louisville, Lexington, and other documented adopters), rent is payable without demand or notice on the agreed date, the lease may include any term not prohibited, and the act's short list of banned lease clauses does not mention late fees; the only statutory backstop is a court's power to strike an unconscionable provision. Two deadlines are commonly confused with a grace period: the URLTA's 7-day pay-or-quit notice before a landlord may terminate for nonpayment, and its rule letting a landlord end a post-lease holdover tenancy without notice once rent is 10 days late — both are eviction rules, not fee rules. Outside URLTA territory the lease governs entirely, checked only by the common-law rule against penalty clauses.

Kentucky 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	No statute addresses daily late fees. In URLTA jurisdictions any fee owed under the lease is 'rent' by definition (KRS 383.545(10)), and lease terms are constrained only by the unconscionability doctrine (KRS 383.555) and the short prohibited-provisions list (KRS 383.570), which does not mention late fees. Outside URLTA jurisdictions, only common-law penalty/liquidated-damages doctrine applies.
Reasonableness standard	No statutory reasonableness standard. In URLTA jurisdictions a court may refuse to enforce an unconscionable lease provision (KRS 383.555) — a high bar defined at KRS 383.545(16) as willful conduct 'shocking to the conscience.' Statewide, ordinary contract law treats a late charge grossly disproportionate to actual damage as an unenforceable penalty; no Kentucky statute codifies this for residential leases.

Notes and caveats

statutory_cap and grace_period_days are null because no provision exists anywhere in KRS (searched ch. 383 in full; 383.570's prohibited-provisions list is the only lease-content restriction and omits fees; no usury-style cap reaches residential late fees). must_be_in_lease is null to avoid asserting a statutory element that does not exist — as a matter of contract law a fee needs some agreed basis (and in URLTA jurisdictions KRS 383.565(2) makes rent due 'without demand or notice' only 'at the time and place agreed upon'), but no statute conditions late fees on a lease clause. Trap documented: sites presenting the 383.660(2) 7-day cure notice as a '7-day grace period for late fees' conflate eviction procedure with fee accrual; same for 383.695(3)'s 10-day rule. As always in KY, even these eviction-side rules exist only in URLTA jurisdictions.

Common questions: Kentucky 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 Kentucky?: No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes). No statutory reasonableness standard. In URLTA jurisdictions a court may refuse to enforce an unconscionable lease provision (KRS 383.555) — a high bar defined at KRS 383.545(16) as willful conduct 'shocking to the conscience.' Statewide, ordinary contract law treats a late charge grossly disproportionate to actual damage as an unenforceable penalty; no Kentucky statute codifies this for residential leases.
Is there a grace period before rent is late in Kentucky?: None mandated statewide.
Does a late fee have to be written into the lease in Kentucky?: Not addressed by statute.
Can a landlord charge a daily late fee in Kentucky?: No statute addresses daily late fees. In URLTA jurisdictions any fee owed under the lease is 'rent' by definition (KRS 383.545(10)), and lease terms are constrained only by the unconscionability doctrine (KRS 383.555) and the short prohibited-provisions list (KRS 383.570), which does not mention late fees. Outside URLTA jurisdictions, only common-law penalty/liquidated-damages doctrine applies.

Statute citations

KRS 383.565 (official LRC text; rent payable without demand or notice, lease may set terms) (1)-(2) Official source
KRS 383.570 (official LRC text; prohibited lease provisions — late fees not among them) (1) Official source
KRS 383.660 (official LRC text; 7-day pay-or-quit is an eviction notice, not a fee grace period) (2) Official source

How this record was verified: Every load-bearing section read verbatim from official Kentucky LRC statute PDFs at apps.legislature.ky.gov (KRS 383.500, 383.580, 383.615, 383.695, 383.565, 383.570, 383.660, 383.535, 383.195, 383.198, 383.199, and 65.875), each with an independent second read on the FindLaw mirror (current through 2025-01-01) that matched — Justia, the usual second host, returned 403 throughout, so FindLaw served as the mirror. A third corroborating read of 383.565/.570/.580/.615/.695 came via the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission's booklet of Ordinance No. 98-84 (the LFUCG URLTA adoption), whose reproduced text matched. The URLTA adopter list is from the Fort Knox Legal Assistance Office brief (US Army, government source) corroborated by a Kentucky landlord-side attorney's published list; no official registry exists. 2026 Regular Session (adjourned sine die 2026-04-15) swept via official bill pages and the LRC chapter listing, which is current through the 2026 RS and shows no amendments to any section used here. 2026-07-10 browser session retired the Louisville carry-forward: Louisville Metro Code ch. 151 read directly on the American Legal Publishing code library (codelibrary.amlegal.com, supplement 2026 S-47, current through ordinances of 2026-05-20) — § 151.01 titles the chapter the 'Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act' with an express statutory reference to KRS 383.500-383.705, ordinance lineage Jefferson County Ord. 22-1984 (adopted and effective 7-24-1984), recodified as 1994 Jeff. Code ch. 151, continued post-merger by Lou. Metro Am. Ord. No. 134-2006 (approved 8-23-2006); § 151.26 (security deposits) read in full and tracks KRS 383.580 verbatim in substance, including the separate-account/account-number disclosure, signed move-in/move-out damage listings with written dissent, the forfeiture-only penalty, and the 30-day (F) / 60-day (G) TENANT-side windows — confirming the encoded reading that those windows are forfeiture rules, not landlord return deadlines. Metro-only additions beyond the URLTA text (eviction-court legal-representation §§ 151.60-151.61) noted and out of v1 scope.