Delaware Notice to Pay Rent or Quit
Delaware requires 5 days' notice before a nonpayment filing. Enter the date you serve the notice and the calculator counts the period out on a calendar — both of the ways it can be counted — and uses the later.
CompliMaint provides document tools and general information, not legal advice. This is a template, not Delaware’s approved form. Confirm requirements with a local attorney or your local housing authority before serving a notice.
- Notice before an eviction filing
- A landlord must give a 5-day written demand for rent before filing for possession.
- Counted by the tool as
- 5 days
- Before a late fee
- A late fee may not be charged until rent is more than five days late; if the landlord has no in-county office for payment, the period extends.
- Statute
- 25 Del. C. § 5501; § 5502
Last checked July 2026. Laws change — verify before you rely on this.
When 5 days' notice actually expires
5 days' notice served on a Monday expires on one of two dates, depending on whether the day of service counts as day one. In Delaware that is a question we have not verified — and it is the difference between a filing that stands and one that is dismissed.
So the calculator does not pick. It works out both dates, acts on the later, prints the earlier one on the notice beside it, and says on the face of the document which reading produced the deadline. It also gives you the first weekday after the period runs out, which is the date the filing question is really about, and flags a federal holiday landing on either — as a note, never as an adjustment, because whether a period rolls off a holiday in Delaware is exactly the sort of thing we have not researched.
What comes before this
A pay-or-quit notice is a formal step, and most unpaid rent never needs one. Before it sits the Delaware late rent notice — an informal demand with no statutory timeline, which is the cheapest thing that works — and behind both sits the rent ledger, which is where the amount on this notice should come from rather than from arithmetic on paper.
A late fee may not be charged until rent is more than five days late; if the landlord has no in-county office for payment, the period extends. (25 Del. C. § 5501; § 5502, last checked July 2026.) A fee charged before that point is a fee a tenant can dispute, and a disputed fee riding along on a pay-or-quit notice is a reason to leave fees off the demand entirely.
Other states: Massachusetts · Connecticut · Maine · North Carolina · All states
Delaware notice period last checked July 2026 against 25 Del. C. § 5501; § 5502. Informational, not legal advice, and not Delaware’s approved form — confirm with a local attorney or your housing authority before acting.
Everything else we’ve researched about Delaware
Same state, the problems either side of this one. Each carries its own statute and the date we last checked it.