If you are a Virginia landlord still using a five-day pay-or-quit notice, stop. As of July 1, 2026, Virginia Code § 55.1-1245(F) gives a residential tenant 14 days — not five — to pay after written notice before you may terminate the lease and file for possession.
The change came from House Bill 15 and Senate Bill 48, identical bills passed in the 2026 session. It is short, it is simple, and it is the most operationally consequential landlord-tenant change in years. It does not just add time. It invalidates every notice form in circulation that still recites the old period.
What actually changed
Two things, both in subsection F of § 55.1-1245.
Nonpayment of rent. If rent is unpaid when due and the tenant fails to pay within 14 days after written notice is served — notice that must state the nonpayment and your intention to terminate if rent is not paid within the 14-day period — you may terminate and proceed to obtain possession.
Bounced payments. The same 14-day period now applies when a rent check is drawn on an account with insufficient funds, when an electronic funds transfer is rejected for insufficient funds, or when a stop-payment order was placed in bad faith. In that situation the notice must also state that the rent has to be paid by cash, cashier’s check, certified check, or a completed electronic funds transfer.
That is the whole amendment. Five became fourteen in both places.
What did not change
Everything else in § 55.1-1245 held steady, and it is worth restating because the 14-day rule gets misapplied to situations it does not touch.
Material lease violations still use the 21-day cure and 30-day termination structure. You serve a notice specifying the acts and omissions, stating the lease terminates on a date not less than 30 days after receipt if the breach is not remedied within 21 days.
Non-remediable breaches still get a notice of termination on a date not less than 30 days after receipt.
Criminal or willful acts that are not remediable and pose a threat to health or safety, including illegal drug activity, still permit immediate termination without waiting for a conviction, with an initial hearing within 15 calendar days of service.
Ending a month-to-month tenancy still requires at least 30 days’ written notice prior to the next rent due date under § 55.1-1253(A), unless the rental agreement provides for a different notice period. Week-to-week tenancies take seven days. Under subsection B, an owner of a multifamily premises who fails to renew the greater of 20 or more month-to-month tenancies, or 50 percent of them, within a consecutive 30-day period must give each affected tenant 60 days’ notice, except where the tenant has failed to pay rent.
Only the nonpayment and bad-payment tracks moved to 14 days.
Three reasons landlords lose otherwise valid cases
Most dismissed unlawful detainers are not close calls on the merits. The rent really was unpaid. The landlord lost on procedure, and almost always on one of these three.
1. The notice was wrong
The pay-or-quit notice is a statutory precondition to an unlawful detainer for nonpayment. A notice telling the tenant they have five days does not give the notice the statute requires. Neither does one that omits the statement of your intention to terminate, or, on a bounced payment, the requirement that the cure come by cash, cashier’s check, certified check, or completed electronic funds transfer.
The result is not a warning or a continuance. It is a dismissal, after you paid the filing fee, paid for service, and took a day off for court. Then you start over with a correct notice and a fresh 14-day clock. In a market where a return date is already weeks out, a defective notice can add two months to a vacancy.
2. The partial payment was accepted wrong
This costs landlords more cases than the notice period itself.
Under § 55.1-1250, a landlord generally may not accept full payment of rent and still obtain an order of possession for nonpayment, unless there are other grounds stated in the unlawful detainer.
A landlord may accept partial payment and still proceed, but only if the landlord has given the tenant written notice that all amounts owed will be accepted with reservation and will not waive the right to evict. The statute prescribes specific language, and it expressly allows the reservation notice to be included in the termination notice itself.
Get that language into your 14-day form. If it is not there and you take $500 against a $1,600 balance, you may have handed the tenant a waiver defense.
3. Service was defective, or the days were counted wrong
The clock runs from service, not from the date you signed the notice or dropped it in the mail.
Do not count the day of service. Virginia’s computation-of-time statute, § 1-210(A), provides that when an act must be performed within a prescribed amount of time after an event, the day the event occurred is not counted. Service is the event. Day one is the day after.
Serve properly. Section 55.1-1202 governs how notice is served on a tenant. Electronic notice is available only if the rental agreement provides for it and the tenant has not elected paper, and the sender must retain proof of delivery.
Keep proof every time. A certificate of service, a mailing receipt, or a delivery confirmation. When a tenant contests, service is the first thing they attack.
Do not file early. Filing on day 13 because you counted from the wrong date is an avoidable dismissal. Build in a buffer.
A realistic timeline
Rent is due on the first. The tenant does not pay. You serve a proper 14-day notice by hand on the 5th.
Day one is the 6th. The period runs through the 19th. If the tenant has not paid in full by the end of the 19th, you may terminate and file an unlawful detainer in the general district court for the locality where the property sits. The summons must be served ahead of the return date, and the first hearing is set by the court’s docket.
Fourteen days of notice, then court scheduling, then, if you prevail, a writ of eviction and sheriff scheduling on top. Landlords who budget for a two-week process are budgeting wrong. Plan for months.
How this becomes a dismissal
A property manager with 40 units serves a 14-day notice on a tenant who owes $1,750. The form is current and correctly served. So far, so good.
On day nine the tenant hands the on-site manager $800 in cash. The manager takes it, writes a receipt, and notes the balance. On day fifteen the company files an unlawful detainer for the remaining $950.
At the return date, the tenant’s counsel points out that the notice contained no reservation-of-rights language and the company gave no separate written notice that payments would be accepted with reservation. The court dismisses.
Now count the cost. The tenant has been in possession an extra six weeks. The company must serve a new 14-day notice, wait it out, refile, pay a second filing and service fee, and wait for a new return date, while the arrearage grows. The $800 it accepted is the most expensive money it collected all year.
The fix took one paragraph. The reservation language belongs in the notice form itself, where the statute expressly permits it, so that the on-site manager’s judgment call is never the thing that decides the case.
The other changes that landed the same day
The 14-day notice did not arrive alone. Effective July 1, 2026, House Bill 1005 and Senate Bill 313 amended §§ 55.1-1204 and 55.1-1208 and changed how you collect rent.
You must accept check and money order. Section 55.1-1204(J)(1) now opens: “The landlord shall accept payment of periodic rent and any security deposit by check and money order.” You cannot funnel every tenant into a single online portal that forecloses paper payment.
You must provide a written receipt whenever a tenant pays rent in cash or by money order. This used to be required only on request. The 2026 amendment struck that qualifier, so the receipt is now automatic.
You must keep a fee-free option. You may not charge a collection or processing fee on rent, security deposit, or other fees unless you also offer an alternative payment method carrying no additional fee.
Payment fees are capped at cost. Any fee may not exceed the actual out-of-pocket expense a third party charges you to process the payment by credit card, debit card, or electronic payment. A convenience fee is now a pass-through, not a profit center.
Small-landlord carve-out. Landlords with four or fewer rental dwelling units, or up to a 10 percent interest in four or fewer, are not required to accept rent and security deposit payments by debit or credit card. That is the only exemption in this package. The check-and-money-order duty, the receipt rule, and the fee limits apply regardless of portfolio size.
Maintenance fees are out. Section 55.1-1208(C) now provides that, unless necessitated by the tenant’s violation of a requirement of the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, no landlord may require a tenant to pay any fee for the maintenance or repair of any dwelling unit.
These interact with eviction practice. If a tenant tried to pay with a money order you refused to accept and then received a 14-day notice, expect that refusal to show up as a defense.
One more change is coming in 2027
Beginning July 1, 2027, a new subsection G of § 55.1-1245 will require landlords who own more than four rental dwelling units to offer a written payment plan before terminating for nonpayment, where the amount owed is no more than one month’s rent plus contracted late charges. It adds a required step in front of the notice sequence for most professional operators.
If you own more than four units, start designing the form and the workflow now rather than in the spring of 2027. We will cover the requirement in detail closer to the effective date.
What you should do now
If you are a Virginia landlord or property manager:
✓ Replace every five-day notice form: leases, templates, property management software
✓ Confirm the notice states both the nonpayment and your intention to terminate within the 14-day period
✓ Confirm the bounced-payment notice specifies cash, cashier’s check, certified check, or completed electronic funds transfer
✓ Add the § 55.1-1250 reservation-of-rights language to the notice form
✓ Set a written partial-payment policy before a tenant offers one, and train on-site staff to it
✓ Serve under § 55.1-1202 and keep proof of service every time
✓ Count from the day after service, and never file early
✓ Update rent collection to accept check and money order
✓ Issue automatic receipts for cash and money order payments
✓ Audit processing fees against actual third-party cost, and keep a fee-free option
✓ Remove any recurring maintenance or repair fee from your lease
Bottom line
The 14-day notice is not a hard rule to follow. It is an easy rule to violate by accident, because the violation lives in a form nobody has looked at in years, or in a payment an on-site manager accepted without thinking.
The landlords who lose cases this year will not lose them on the merits. They will lose them because a template said “five,” or because nobody wrote down what to do when a tenant shows up with partial rent.
McClanahan Powers handles landlord-tenant disputes and general district court proceedings across Northern Virginia. If you are carrying an arrearage and are not certain your notice form and your partial-payment practice will hold up, have them reviewed before you file, not after a case is dismissed.
Contact McClanahan Powers today.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Virginia pay-or-quit notice period 14 calendar days or 14 business days?
Calendar days. The statute says 14 days after written notice is served. Do not count the day of service. The period begins the following day.
I served a five-day notice before July 1, 2026. Is it still good?
Notices served under the prior version of the statute were subject to the five-day rule in effect at the time. Any notice served on or after July 1, 2026, must give 14 days. If you have an older notice you have not acted on, re-serve on the current form rather than litigate the transition question.
Does the 14-day rule apply to lease violations that are not about rent?
No. Material lease violations still use the 21-day cure and 30-day termination structure. Non-remediable breaches use a 30-day termination notice. Criminal or willful acts posing a threat to health or safety may support immediate termination.
Can a Virginia landlord refuse a rent payment?
Generally a landlord may not accept full payment of rent and still obtain possession for nonpayment unless other grounds are stated in the unlawful detainer. Refusing a full tender is a different question and carries its own risk. Partial payment may be accepted without waiving the right to proceed, but only where the tenant received the written reservation-of-rights notice § 55.1-1250 requires.
What if the tenant pays on day 14?
Payment in full within the period ends the nonpayment basis for termination. The period runs through the end of the fourteenth day. Do not file before it expires.
Can I charge a late fee and evict at the same time?
Late charges must be provided for in the written rental agreement, and § 55.1-1204(E) caps them at the lesser of 10 percent of the periodic rent or 10 percent of the remaining balance due and owed by the tenant. A late fee does not substitute for a proper notice, and an overstated balance in the notice can itself create a defense.
Can I still charge tenants a convenience fee to pay rent online?
Only up to your actual cost. Since July 1, 2026, a landlord may not require a tenant to pay a fee that exceeds the actual out-of-pocket expense a third party charges to process a credit card, debit card, or electronic payment, and must offer an alternative method carrying no additional fee. Landlords with four or fewer units are not required to accept cards at all.
Do I have to give a receipt for every rent payment?
For cash and money order payments, yes, automatically, without the tenant asking. That changed on July 1, 2026.
How long does a Virginia eviction take from start to finish?
There is no fixed answer. Fourteen days of notice is the first step. After that the timeline depends on filing, service of the summons, the court’s return date, whether the tenant contests, continuances or appeals, issuance of the writ, and sheriff scheduling. Plan for months of carrying costs.
Can I use the same notice for nonpayment and a lease violation?
Do not. They carry different periods and different required content. Combining them is a reliable way to make both defective.
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This article is general information about Virginia law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.