Oregon landlord fees under ORS 90.302 are limited to a short list of charges the statute specifically authorizes, and any fee outside that list is unlawful. The statute splits allowable fees into two groups: per-occurrence charges tied to specific events like a bounced check or an early lease break, and noncompliance fees for repeated rule violations like parking or pet waste. If a landlord charges something the statute doesn’t allow, or skips the required warning before a noncompliance fee, the tenant can recover twice their actual damages or $300, whichever is greater.
What a Landlord Can Charge at Move-In
ORS 90.302(1) bars landlords from charging any move-in fee for an anticipated expense. Charges labeled as administrative fees, lease preparation fees, or file setup fees are not allowed unless a separate statute authorizes them.
Only three categories of upfront money are lawful in Oregon:
- A screening charge under ORS 90.295, limited to the actual cost of running a background and credit check, and capped at one charge per applicant within any 60-day period no matter how many units they applied for.
- A refundable security deposit under ORS 90.300, held during the tenancy and returned within 31 days after move-out, minus valid deductions for damage beyond normal wear or unpaid rent. Oregon does not set a specific dollar cap on the deposit amount.
- Prepaid rent, meaning first month’s or last month’s rent collected in advance under ORS 90.300.
Anything else demanded at signing falls outside what the statute permits.
Per-Occurrence Fees
ORS 90.302(2) lists five situations where a landlord can charge a fee each time the event happens, with no warning process required. Each of these still has to be described in the written rental agreement to be enforceable.
- Late rent. Allowed, but the amount and timing are controlled by ORS 90.260, which sets its own caps and requires a four-day grace period.
- Dishonored checks. Up to the statutory amount under ORS 30.701(5), plus whatever the bank charged the landlord for processing the returned check.
- Smoke alarm or carbon monoxide detector tampering. Up to $250 for removing or disabling a working alarm, unless the State Fire Marshal has already assessed a civil penalty for the same conduct.
- Pet agreement violations. A fee is allowed under ORS 90.530 when a tenant breaks a written pet agreement or a pet rule in a manufactured dwelling facility.
- Early lease termination. Capped at one and a half times the monthly rent. This fee cannot be charged when a tenant leaves under domestic violence protections, military deployment, or activation to state service by the Governor.
Noncompliance Fees and the Warning-First Rule
Noncompliance fees work differently, and this is where many landlords get the process wrong. Under ORS 90.302(3), a landlord cannot charge anything for a first-time rule violation. The only response allowed the first time is a written warning notice. A fee only becomes available on the second violation of the same or similar conduct within one year of that warning.
The written warning has to describe the specific rule the tenant broke and state the dollar amount that will apply if the same behavior happens again within the next year. When a fee is later assessed for a repeat violation, the landlord has to give a separate written notice describing that new incident at the time the fee is charged. Both the warning and any later fee have to be issued within 30 days of the conduct that triggered them. Miss that 30-day window and the landlord loses the right to act on that incident.
The statute limits noncompliance fees to a specific list. A landlord cannot invent new categories or stretch the list to cover other behavior:
- Late payment of utility or service charges owed directly to the landlord under ORS 90.315.
- Failure to clean up pet waste in areas outside the tenant’s dwelling unit.
- Failure to clean up waste from a service animal or a companion animal.
- Failure to properly dispose of trash and garbage in areas outside the unit.
- Parking violations.
- Improper use of vehicles on the premises.
- Smoking in a clearly designated nonsmoking unit or area.
- Keeping an unauthorized pet capable of causing damage to people or property.
If the violation isn’t on this list, the landlord has other options, including terminating the tenancy for cause, but cannot use the noncompliance fee process.
How Much a Noncompliance Fee Can Be
For the standard categories (everything except smoking and unauthorized pets), the caps are:
- First violation: no fee, written warning only.
- Second violation within a year of the warning: up to $50.
- Third or later violation within a year of the warning: up to $50 plus 5% of the current month’s rent.
On $1,500 rent, that third-violation cap works out to $125. These are hard ceilings. A landlord cannot exceed them by relabeling the charge an administrative fee or a processing fee.
Smoking and unauthorized pets carry higher caps and extra timing rules. For smoking in a clearly designated nonsmoking unit or common area, the fee for a second or later violation can be up to $250, and the landlord cannot assess it until at least 24 hours after delivering the required warning. For keeping an unauthorized pet capable of causing damage to people or property, the cap is also $250 per violation after the initial warning, and 48 hours have to pass after the warning before any fee can be charged. The unauthorized pet provision references ORS 90.405, which governs the consequences of keeping a pet not permitted under the rental agreement.
Every noncompliance fee also has to appear in the written rental agreement, with the specific prohibited conduct and the dollar amount for a second and any later violation. A lease that says only “fees may apply for rule violations” is not enough. If a particular violation isn’t listed with a corresponding fee in the signed document, the landlord has no legal basis to collect on it.
Late Rent Charges Under ORS 90.260
Because the per-occurrence rule on late rent points to a separate statute, the late fee rules deserve their own look. A landlord cannot impose a late charge until rent goes unpaid past the fourth day of the rental period. The written rental agreement has to spell out the obligation to pay a late charge, the type and amount, the date rent is due, and the date the late charge starts. Without all of that in writing, no late charge is enforceable.
The statute gives landlords three calculation methods, and they have to pick one rather than stacking them:
- A flat fee for the rental period, based on what landlords in that market customarily charge.
- A daily fee starting on the fifth day, capped at 6% of the flat fee amount, accruing until rent is paid in full for that period.
- A single charge of 5% of the monthly rent for each five-day window the rent remains unpaid, starting on the fifth day and accumulating through that rental period only.
A landlord cannot deduct a prior late charge from a current rent payment and then treat that payment as short to trigger a new late charge or a nonpayment eviction. Nonpayment of a late charge alone also cannot be the basis for a nonpayment eviction, though it can support a for-cause termination.
Assistance Animals
The pet-related fee categories run into federal disability law. Under the Fair Housing Act, a landlord has to waive pet deposits, pet fees, and pet-related restrictions as a reasonable accommodation for a tenant who needs a service animal or an emotional support animal. That means no unauthorized-pet noncompliance fee for an assistance animal, even when the tenant didn’t go through the standard pet approval process.
The cleanup obligation still applies. A tenant with an assistance animal has to clean up waste in common areas, and a landlord can use the noncompliance fee process for waste violations the same way it applies to any other pet, after the required written warning. The tenant is also responsible for any property damage the animal causes.
What You Can Recover for an Unlawful Fee
ORS 90.302(8) gives tenants a direct remedy when a landlord charges a fee that violates any part of the statute. The recovery is twice the actual damages or $300, whichever is greater. That includes charging a noncompliance fee without the required warning, exceeding a cap, using a category not listed in the statute, or collecting a fee that isn’t described in the written rental agreement.
The remedy does not extend to the per-occurrence fees in subsection (2). Late rent charges and bounced check fees have their own enforcement paths through the statutes they reference. But for unauthorized move-in fees and mishandled noncompliance fees, the $300 floor matters: it gives tenants leverage even when the unlawful charge itself was small.