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No rate cap — but a hard limit of five loans a year across all lenders, and a sixth loan is void with nothing collectable or retainable.
5 Del. Admin. Code 2210 · 5 Del. C. §§ 2235A–2235C
No licensee may make, and no borrower may receive, a short-term consumer loan that would give the borrower more than five such loans from all licensees in any twelve-month period. And the consequence is unusually complete: any loan made or collected in violation is void, and the licensee does not have the right to collect, receive, or retain any principal, interest, fees or other charges.Delaware · Regulation5 DE Admin Code 2210-3.1.1 — no licensee shall make and no borrower shall receive a short-term consumer loan that would cause the borrower to have more than five short-term consumer loans from all licensees in any twelve-month period; any loan made or collected in violation of this paragraph is void, and the licensee does not have the right to collect, receive, or retain any principal, interest, fees or other charges
Delaware has no rate cap. It controls this market by controlling frequency instead — and as Pew’s figures show, that produced a far lower annual cost than the other uncapped states.
Regulation 3.5 bars any “device or subterfuge” to evade the chapter, by mail, telephone, internet or any electronic means — including brokering or acting as agent for a third party, regardless of whether that third party’s approval is needed to create the obligation.
And then, specifically: disguising a short-term consumer loan as a revolving line of credit.Delaware · Regulation5 DE Admin Code 2210-3.5.2 — a licensee or licensee's agent shall not engage in any device or subterfuge intended to evade the requirements, including disguising a short-term consumer loan as a revolving line of credit
That is the exact manoeuvre used elsewhere to escape loan-count limits. Delaware wrote it into the regulation by name.
Check the database first. Before lending, a licensee must query the state database for your outstanding loans, how many you have, and whether you are eligible at all.Delaware · Regulation5 DE Admin Code 2210-4.1 — prior to entering into a short-term consumer loan, a licensee shall access the database to determine whether a potential borrower has an outstanding loan, the number outstanding, and whether the borrower is eligible
Post the warning. Every provider must display, at the entrance and on any website, a schedule of fees and rates and the prominent statement: “A payday loan is not intended to meet long-term financial needs.”
Absorb the database fee. Licensees pay a per-transaction database fee and may not charge customers for it — on top of a $1,500 annual high-cost loan surcharge for each licensed office.Delaware · Regulation5 DE Admin Code 2210-5 — each licensee shall pay an annual high-cost loan license fee surcharge of $1,500 for each licensed office, and shall pay a database fee per transaction; licensees shall not charge customers for the database fee
Delaware defines a right of rescission: return the full amount borrowed on or before the close of business on the next business day, without incurring any fee or charge.Delaware · Regulation5 DE Admin Code 2210-2.0 — right of rescission means the right to return any amount borrowed, in full, on or before the close of business of the business day following the day on which such sum has been disbursed, without the incursion of any fee or other charges
If you borrowed yesterday and have changed your mind, that window may still be open today.
The State Bank Commissioner files an annual Short-Term Consumer Loan Database Operations Report with the Senate Banking and House Economic Development committees, as required by 5 Del. C. § 2235C.Delaware · RegulatorOffice of the State Bank Commissioner, Short-Term Consumer Loan Database 2025 Operations Report, filed with the Delaware General Assembly March 2026 as required by Section 2235C of Title 5
Loan volume, provider locations and system availability, published to the legislature. Few states do this, and it is where the honest picture of a market lives.
You can revoke authorisation and instruct your bank to stop the payment, whatever your agreement says.
What Regulation E says about automatic payments →
A payday loan is a consumer debt. If it goes unpaid, two Delaware rules decide what a lender can do next: how long it has to sue you, and how much of your pay a court can order taken.
Being sued over an old payday loan? A collector can still file, but the time limit is a defence you can raise — and you cannot be jailed for the debt. What can and cannot happen if you don’t pay →