---
kind: "section"
citation: "43 U.S.C. § 478"
title: "43"
title_heading: "Public Lands"
number: "478"
heading: "Pecuniary penalty for nonpayment of installments of construction charges"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/43/478"
units:
  - "Chapter 12 — Reclamation and Irrigation of Lands by Federal Government"
  - "Subchapter IX — Construction Charges"
---

# §478. Pecuniary penalty for nonpayment of installments of construction charges


If any water-right applicant or entryman shall have, prior to December 5, 1924, failed to pay any installment of his construction charges when due, there shall be added to the amount unpaid a penalty of 1 per centum thereof, and there shall be added a like penalty of 1 per centum of the amount unpaid on the first day of each month thereafter so long as such default shall have continued: Provided, That the penalty of 1 per centum per month against delinquent accounts, is reduced to one-half of 1 per centum per month, as to all installments which may become due after December 5, 1924.


## Source credit

(Aug. 13, 1914, ch. 247, § 3, 38 Stat. 687; Dec. 5, 1924, ch. 4, § 4, subsec. H, 43 Stat. 703.)

## Notes

### Editorial Notes

### Codification

Section consolidates first sentence of act Aug. 13, 1914, § 3, with act Dec. 5, 1924, § 4, subsec. H.