What late fees can a landlord charge in Washington?

Verified July 8, 2026 All Washington topics →

Washington sets no statewide dollar or percentage cap on residential late fees, but a landlord may not charge any late fee when rent is paid within five days of the due date — a statutory grace period under RCW 59.18.170.

The fee must be provided for in the rental agreement, and cities and counties are increasingly active here: several localities cap late fees or ban notice-service fees, so the lease and the local code both need checking. One caution for anyone reading 2025 coverage: early versions of the rent-stabilization bill would have capped late fees at 1.5% of monthly rent statewide, and some summaries still repeat that figure, but it did not become law for standard rentals — manufactured-home communities have their own separate fee limits.

Washington late fees at a glance

Statutory cap	No statutory cap (see reasonableness standard and notes)
Mandatory grace period	5 days
Must be in the lease	Yes
Daily fees	No statewide statute caps or structures fee amounts for standard residential tenancies; daily fees are a lease matter subject to reasonableness, and several cities cap late fees locally (out of scope v1).
Reasonableness standard	No statewide amount cap exists for standard residential tenancies. RCW 59.18.170 bars charging any late fee for rent paid within five days after the due date. Committee-stage versions of HB 1217 (2025) contained a 1.5%-of-monthly-rent late fee cap that was not enacted for standard rentals; manufactured/mobile-home tenancies have their own fee limits under ch. 59.20 RCW.

Notes and caveats

grace_period_days is 5 per RCW 59.18.170. The 1.5% figure from HB 1217 committee reports is a live misinformation risk (same class of trap as the FL §83.808 misattribution disclaimed in batch 2) — the disclaimer belongs on-page. Local late-fee caps are out of scope v1 but flagged. The official RCW 59.18.170 page URL (app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=59.18.170) should replace the legal-aid citation at the next verification sweep with a direct full-text read; the five-day rule is currently corroborated by multiple independent current sources but was not read verbatim from the official page this session.

Statute citations

RCW 59.18.170 (five-day rule), per current Washington legal-aid and AG-adjacent guidance; no amount-cap statute exists for standard residential tenancies Unofficial mirror

How this record was verified: Direct read of statute text on the official Washington Legislature site (app.leg.wa.gov): RCW 59.18.280 (full text, current through the 2023 c 331 amendments), RCW 59.18.610 and 59.18.253 (full text). HB 1217 (2025) rent stabilization provisions (RCW 59.18.700-.730, amended 59.18.140) verified against the Washington Attorney General's official landlord-tenant page and Know Your Responsibilities flyer and the Department of Commerce's official HB 1217 Landlord Resource Center (which publishes the annual cap). RCW 59.18.260, .270, .285, .150, and .170 confirmed across the official AG page, Seattle SDCI, and consistent legal-aid sources. IMPORTANT verification note: committee-stage bill reports of HB 1217 describe a one-month residential deposit cap and a 1.5% late-fee cap that are NOT in the enacted law for standard residential tenancies — those limits apply to manufactured/mobile-home tenancies (ch. 59.20 RCW) per the AG's post-enactment flyer; current legal-aid guidance confirms no statewide residential deposit or late-fee amount cap.