Compute a late fee from the due date, the payment date and your own rule — per day, flat, or per month and part — with the grace period applied correctly, which means charging begins after grace rather than from the due date.
Several states regulate what a school may charge as a late fee and some prohibit it for specified categories. Confirm your own state’s position before applying a rule.
Schools lose late fee disputes for one reason more than any other: charging from the due date when the policy grants a grace period. A family that reads the policy and counts the days will notice, and they will be right.
A payment twenty-three days past due, under a policy with seven days’ grace, is charged on sixteen days. Charging on twenty-three and describing it as "after grace" is the version families dispute, and it is usually a spreadsheet formula that nobody re-read.
An uncapped per-day charge on a family four months behind produces a figure larger than the instalment, which no school actually intends to collect and which reads badly if it is ever produced in a dispute. A stated maximum keeps the policy proportionate and makes the arrears figure real.
Phrased the way they arrive, answered so each one stands on its own.
Generally yes, though several states regulate it and some restrict it for specified categories. It should be in the fee policy communicated to families at admission, not introduced mid-year.
Yes. An unpublished grace period is indistinguishable from inconsistent enforcement, and it is the detail families compare notes on.
The concession applies to the instalment; the late fee is computed on what remains due. This calculator applies them in that order.
Checked by the Implementations desk on 6 September 2026. Corrections go in the page, dated, rather than quietly.
Pricing is on the page, in the open, with the counting rule written next to it. Nobody has to book a call to find out what it costs.
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