What late fees can a landlord charge in Idaho?

Verified July 11, 2026 All Idaho topics →

Idaho has no numeric cap on late fees, but since July 1, 2023 state law requires every fee charged to a residential tenant — late-payment fees included — to be reasonable, and bars landlords from charging any fee, fine, assessment, or interest that exceeds what the rental agreement states or that is not in the agreement at all (Idaho Code § 55-305).

Under a written lease, a fee can only be changed with 30 days' written notice; oral agreements are exempt from the in-writing requirement. The statute applies to rental agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2023, and it expressly does not limit the amount of rent itself. Idaho mandates no grace period — the lease governs when rent is due and what lateness costs.

Idaho 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	Yes
Daily fees	Not addressed by statute; a daily fee would have to be reasonable under § 55-305(1) and stated in the rental agreement under § 55-305(2).
Reasonableness standard	Statutory: 'Any fees imposed on a residential tenant, including fees for the late payment of rent, shall be reasonable' (Idaho Code § 55-305(1), enacted 2023). No numeric cap or safe harbor; no Idaho appellate case law fixing a formula.

Notes and caveats

statutory_cap null: no numeric cap — the binding limit is the § 55-305(1) reasonableness standard plus the § 55-305(2) must-be-in-agreement rule, so must_be_in_lease is encoded true (for written agreements; § 55-305(2)(b)(i) exempts oral agreements). grace_period_days null: verified negative — full-text sweep of Title 6 ch. 3 and Title 55 chs. 2-3 found no mandated grace period; the 3-day pay-or-quit notice of § 6-303(2) is eviction procedure, not a fee grace period. APPLICABILITY TRAP: § 55-305(3) limits the statute to rental agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2023 — older never-renewed leases are outside it. STALE TRAPS: (1) 'Idaho has no late-fee law' was true only before S.B. 1039 (2023 ch. 67 § 1, p. 228, signed Mar. 20, 2023); (2) the statute was enacted as § 55-314 and redesignated § 55-305 by S.B. 1043 (2025 ch. 65 § 14, eff. 7/1/2025) — pre-2025 citations use the old number. Related but distinct: 2025 S.B. 1042 (rental APPLICATION fee limits) passed the Senate but died in the House Business Committee (last action Feb. 20, 2025) — it is not law. Double-read: § 55-305 verified verbatim on official HTML, official T55CH3.pdf, and the S1043 enrolled text.

Statute citations

Idaho Code § 55-305 (1)-(4) Official source
S.B. 1039, 2023 Idaho Sess. Laws ch. 67 (enacted the fee-limitation statute as § 55-314) sec. 1 Official source
Idaho Office of the Attorney General, Landlord and Tenant Manual (July 2025) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on legislature.idaho.gov (official HTML section pages), double-read against the official chapter PDFs (T6CH3.pdf, T55CH3.pdf, T55CH2.pdf) and the enrolled session laws S1043 (2025 ch. 65 recodification), H0594 (2020 ch. 254), H0545 (2024 ch. 257); Idaho Attorney General Landlord and Tenant Manual (July 2025) used as official agency confirmation of verified negatives; FindLaw mirror used only to reconcile pre-2025 section numbering.