What counts as a default under a commercial lease?
A default is any failure by a tenant (or, less commonly, a landlord) to do something the lease requires. That's a broad definition on purpose, since commercial leases typically define default to cover far more than just missed rent.
The two broad categories
Monetary defaults are the straightforward ones: unpaid rent, unpaid CAM or operating-expense charges, late fees not paid. These are usually easy to prove and, because the harm is just a dollar figure, typically carry the shortest cure periods in the lease.
Non-monetary defaults cover everything else the lease requires of a tenant: operating outside the permitted use, failing to maintain required insurance, violating an exclusivity or co-tenancy obligation owed to another tenant, or simply failing to maintain the space as the lease requires. These are often harder to prove and get longer cure periods, since fixing a physical or operational problem usually takes more than writing a check.
Why the category matters as much as the violation itself
A lease's default clause doesn't just list what counts. It also sets how much notice is required before a cure period starts, how long the tenant has to fix it, and what the landlord can actually do once that period runs out without a fix. Two tenants committing what looks like the same violation can be in very different legal positions depending on which category their lease assigns it to and whether the landlord followed the required notice sequence.
What this means practically
Knowing a tenant is in default isn't the same as being able to act on it. The lease's own definitions, notice requirements, and cure periods are what actually control whether a landlord's remedies (late fees, termination, drawing on a security deposit) are enforceable at a given moment.
None of this is legal advice, and exactly what counts as a default, and how long a tenant gets to fix it, depends entirely on your specific lease. For the deeper mechanics of cure periods and notice requirements, see here. RenewSavvy extracts your lease's actual default definitions and cure periods, so you know where you stand before a violation turns into a dispute.