What late fees can a landlord charge in North Dakota?

Verified July 11, 2026 All North Dakota topics →

North Dakota has no statute capping residential late fees and no statutory grace period — a 2025 bill to cap late fees (SB 2236, amending the rent-payment statute) failed in the Senate 7-39, so late charges remain purely a matter of the lease, policed only by North Dakota's liquidated-damages rule (advance damage-fixing clauses are void unless the amount is a reasonable pre-estimate where actual damages would be impracticable to fix) and by unconscionability review of residential rental agreements.

Absent a contrary agreement, rent for lodgings is payable monthly at the end of each month (47-16-20). What North Dakota does regulate is payment-method fees: a landlord may not charge a tenant any fee for accepting cash, a check, or a money order for rent or any other payment required under the lease (47-16-20.1). The three-day figures in North Dakota law are eviction mechanics, not a grace period: nonpayment becomes an eviction ground three days after rent is due, after which the landlord must serve a three-day written notice of intention to evict.

North Dakota 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 statute; a daily late charge would be a lease term bounded only by the liquidated-damages rule (9-08-04) and residential unconscionability review (47-16-13.3).
Reasonableness standard	No late-fee statute exists, so enforceability runs through general contract law: N.D. Cent. Code 9-08-04 voids any contract term fixing damages for breach in advance EXCEPT an amount presumed to be the damage where it would be impracticable or extremely difficult to fix actual damages, and 47-16-13.3 lets a court refuse to enforce, sever, or limit an unconscionable provision of a residential rental agreement.

Notes and caveats

statutory_cap and grace_period_days null: verified negative — complete section-heading sweep of ch. 47-16 from the official chapter PDF (entire chapter read; only rent-related sections are 47-16-20 payment timing, 47-16-20.1 payment-method fee ban, 47-16-21 proportionate rent), run twice. DEAD-BILL DEBUNKS (2025): SB 2236 would have amended 47-16-20 to cap late fees (reported ~8% of monthly rent) — failed Senate 2025-02-04, 7-39; SB 2237 (labor-commissioner oversight of landlord-tenant disputes) failed 5-41 the same day — charts asserting a new ND late-fee cap or complaint process are citing dead bills. must_be_in_lease null rather than true: no statute conditions late fees on a lease term; the requirement is ordinary contract law (and 9-08-04 voids advance damage-fixing except a valid liquidated-damages clause, which by nature must be agreed). 3-day traps debunked: 47-32-01(4) makes eviction maintainable when a tenant 'fails to pay rent for three days after the rent is due,' and 47-32-02 requires three days' written notice of intention to evict — eviction procedure, not a fee grace period. 47-16-20.1's fee ban covers accepting cash/check/money order for 'any other payment required by the landlord under a lease,' so a surcharge for paying a late fee by check is also barred. 2025 SB 2366 (contents of the notice of intention to evict) also failed (8-37) despite a 2025 eviction guide describing it as enacted — stale-source trap.

Statute citations

N.D. Cent. Code ch. 47-16 (complete section list swept — no late-fee provision) Official source
N.D. Cent. Code § 47-16-20 Official source
N.D. Cent. Code § 47-16-20.1 Official source
N.D. Cent. Code § 47-16-13.3 (1) Official source
N.D. Cent. Code § 9-08-04 Official source
SB 2236 (2025) — FAILED late-fee cap bill, official bill overview Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text in the official North Dakota Century Code chapter PDFs on ndlegis.gov (t47c16.pdf read in full, t47c32.pdf sections 47-32-01/-02/-05, t09c08.pdf section 9-08-04), whose official currency page states the posted code reflects all changes approved by the 69th Legislative Assembly, current as of 2025-07-01. Every load-bearing figure (1-month deposit cap; 2-month felony and prior-judgment exceptions; pet deposit greater of $2,500 or 2 months; 30-day itemized return; 9-month interest threshold; treble damages; 30-day written change-of-terms notice covering rent; 25-day tenant termination after a change notice; one-calendar-month m2m termination; no entry-hour figure) was read twice independently — official PDF pass plus codes.findlaw.com mirror pass (current through 2024-01-01), reconciled verbatim, with deposit figures additionally matched against the current-law baseline reprinted in introduced HB 1272 (2025). Amendment history pinned from official session-law PDFs: 2015 ch. 312 (HB 1192, pet deposit subsection), 2017 ch. 316 (HB 1220, felony exception), 2019 ch. 379 (HB 1150, prior-judgment exception). 2025 regular-session sweep via official bill-overview pages: HB 1272 (inspections/deposits) failed House 41-47 on 2025-02-07; SB 2236 (late-fee cap amending 47-16-20) failed Senate 7-39 on 2025-02-04; SB 2237 (labor-commissioner oversight) failed 5-41; SB 2366 (notice of intention to evict) failed 8-37; SB 2238 (eviction-record sealing, now 47-32-05) enacted, signed 2025-03-26 — out of v1 topic scope. January 2026 special session (3 days) was Rural Health Transformation Program only; no regular session in 2026, next regular session January 2027. Negative findings (no late-fee statute, no entry-hour figure, no deposit-interest rate figure, no frequency limits) verified against the complete section-heading list of ch. 47-16 read from the official chapter PDF, run twice.