What a tenant background check shows: Credit, criminal, eviction, and income data

If you're renting out your property to a tenant that you don't know, you absolutely must perform a background check before they sign the lease. And a $40 screening report can end a lease negotiation before it starts, so both people at the table want to know what's in it.

Landlords need to know which lines predict a missed rent payment and which ones trip a Fair Credit Reporting Act violation when mishandled; applicants want to know what a stranger is about to see, including records that may be inaccurate or legally restricted. So what does a tenant background check show? The contents depend on the vendor and package, along with the law where the property sits.

What a tenant background check shows

Depending on the package, a report may combine a credit report and score, a criminal records search, a sex offender registry match, and an eviction records search. Higher tiers may add an income estimate and identity verification. TransUnion SmartMove's cheapest package returns only a ResidentScore and a criminal report; the middle tier adds the full credit report and an eviction-related report; the top tier adds an Income Insights report and an Identity Check report (SmartMove pricing). RealPage's consolidated report goes wider: credit and background data from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, rental payment history from more than 20,000 reporting communities, eviction and collection records, identity verification results, verified income details, and a predictive AI Screening score (RealPage).

Each section draws on a different data feed, which is why accuracy varies so much from one line to the next:

• Report section | What it contains | Where the data comes from
• Credit report and score | Tradelines, balances, late payments, collections, public records, inquiries, plus a rental-specific or bureau score | Credit bureau files
• Criminal records | Multi-state criminal search, sex offender registry match, sanctions watchlist screen | Court, law enforcement, registry, and government records aggregated by private databases
• Eviction records | Court-filed landlord-tenant actions and, where the vendor captures them, outcomes | Court records and public-record data sources
• Income | A credit-behavior estimate (SmartMove) or verified bank, payroll, and document data (RealPage and others) | Credit data, employer payroll networks, consumer-permissioned bank links
• Identity | Personal data validation, credit-bureau fraud alerts, and in some products device analysis, document checks, and biometric matching | Bureau files and identity vendors
• Rental payment history | Month-by-month rent payment status, late counts, NSF counts, write-offs | Experian RentBureau and RealPage community reporting

Major tenant-screening companies such as SmartMove and RealPage operate as consumer reporting agencies under the FCRA. The CFPB lists both TransUnion SmartMove and RealPage as consumer reporting companies, so the same accuracy, lookback, and dispute rules bind both of them.

How a tenant background check works

The screening company assembles the report from several outside feeds rather than one master file. Credit data comes straight from a bureau: TransUnion for SmartMove, Experian for RentBureau-based products, all three for RealPage. Criminal and eviction data usually arrive through data brokers, and the CFPB's 2022 market report noted that those brokers "may purchase data in bulk, only periodically refreshing it to reflect updates in underlying sources" (CFPB market report). A record that was dismissed or sealed last month can still sit in a broker's file for a while.

Credit report and credit score

The credit section lists the accounts the bureau reports in the applicant's file and how each one was paid. SmartMove's credit report has five parts: identifying information; a profile summary counting total tradelines, collections accounts, public records, and inquiries; tradelines showing account type, balance, limit, payment status, delinquency dates, and 30/60/90/120/180-day late history; collections showing the agency, original creditor, original balance, and current amount owed; and inquiries (SmartMove). Bankruptcies appear in the public records count.

Civil judgments usually don't appear in this section. After NCAP standards took effect July 1, 2017, the three nationwide bureaus removed civil judgments from ordinary credit reports, though tenant-screening specialty agencies may still pull them from separate public-record sources (CFPB). If you want judgment data, confirm your vendor sources it separately.

Weight rental-related collections and repeated late payments more heavily than a single unrelated collection. TransUnion's analysis found "evicted residents have twice as many prior rental-related collection records than non-evicted residents," and that "prior evictions and rental-related collection records are highly predictive of future evictions" (TransUnion). A collection placed by a former landlord or a utility tells you more about rent behavior than a three-year-old retail charge-off.

Criminal background check

No single national criminal database exists. What vendors sell as a "national" search is a private aggregate of law enforcement records, incarceration records, sex offender registries, court records, and government watchlists (PBSA). In 2020, only 69% of arrests in state criminal history databases had a final disposition on record (BJS), and as of 2022, 27 states reported a backlog of more than 4.2 million court dispositions, with Kansas taking 181-365 days and Indiana more than a year to record final felony dispositions (OJP). A charge dismissed months ago can still read as open.

Convictions and arrests get different treatment under the FCRA. A consumer reporting agency may report a conviction with no time limit, but arrests and other non-conviction records drop off seven years from the date of the charge (FTC). The CFPB's January 2024 advisory opinion, withdrawn May 12, 2025 though the statutory cap remains, stated: "In situations where charges have been dismissed, it is misleading and inaccurate to report that an individual has been arrested for the charges without also reporting that the charges have been dismissed" (CFPB). Several states go further. California bars reporting arrests without conviction at all (Cal. Civ. Code § 1785.13), Kentucky bars agencies from maintaining any charge data that didn't end in conviction (KRS § 367.310), and Colorado bars reporting sealed, expunged, or non-conviction records (CRS § 5-18-109).

Some fair chance laws treat sex-offender registry convictions separately. SmartMove runs every package against state Sex Offender Public Registries nationally, alongside a multi-state criminal search and a "Global Sanctions" (OFAC) check (SmartMove). RealPage's Premium Criminal Report categorizes offenses by nature and severity (RealPage). New York City's Fair Chance for Housing Act, for example, lets landlords review sex-offense registry convictions with no time limit even though it caps other felonies at five years (Local Law 24).

Name matching drives most wrong-person errors. RealPage paid $3 million to the FTC in 2018 after matching records on last name plus a non-exact first name (FTC). A DOJ study of more than 82,000 people found 5.5% were wrongly matched to a criminal record on name-only searches (DOJ), and Lageson and Stewart's 2024 study in Criminology found 60% of 101 participants had at least one false-positive error on a regulated background check (NIJ).

PBSA's position is that databases should be used "only as a supplement to a thorough screening program and not as the sole component," with hits verified at the county courthouse. Only five of the 17 tenant-screening companies the CFPB analyzed advertised any manual verification, which costs about $7 per record versus under $1 for an automated database check (CFPB market report). County searches take 1-3 business days in digitized jurisdictions versus minutes for a database query (Global Background Screening). Ask your vendor whether it verifies hits at the county level before you decline anyone on a criminal record.

Eviction history

The eviction section shows only what a court has recorded. A tenant who left after a warning letter, took a cash-for-keys deal, or moved out owing rent without a filing never appears here. SmartMove calls this section the "Eviction Related Report," Experian's Connect API calls it "Housing Court Records," and RealPage folds evictions in with collection actions (Experian). Filings often show without an outcome, and the FTC treats a report that "list[s] housing court actions, but [does not include] the outcome of the action" as a sign of unreasonable procedures (FTC).

The CFPB estimated 22% of state eviction cases are "ambiguous or false records" (CFPB market report). TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions paid $15 million in October 2023 over duplicate eviction entries, inaccurate dispositions, and sealed eviction records that appeared in reports (FTC).

Whether an out-of-state filing appears depends on which court systems feed the vendor's data broker, and sealed records legally must not appear at all. As of 2025, 15 jurisdictions had eviction sealing or expungement laws: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, D.C., Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, and Virginia (NLIHC). California permits reporting an unlawful detainer only when the landlord prevailed (§ 1785.13). Maryland courts must shield records within 60 days after a failure-to-pay-rent case that ended without a judgment of possession (SB 19, effective October 1, 2024). And in New York, Real Property Law § 227-f bars landlords from refusing to rent based on past or pending landlord-tenant court actions, so the section can't drive a decision there.

Income and employment verification

Vendors sell two different products under the same label. SmartMove's Income Insights report, available only in the Premium tier, never touches actual income data; it estimates income from credit behavior, shows the variance from what the applicant self-reported, recommends whether to ask for more proof, and needs at least one credit tradeline to run (SmartMove FAQ). Verified income products pull real records:

• RealPage announced Income Verification on March 27, 2024; it reads consumer-permissioned bank accounts and payroll providers directly, along with income documents (RealPage).
• TransUnion added Truework employer and payroll data to its rental screening on September 12, 2024 (TransUnion).
• Equifax The Work Number holds more than 839 million employee records from over 5 million employers, with 36 months of pay history and 1099 records for gig and contract workers (Equifax).
• Plaid Check, launched June 4, 2024, returns up to 24 months of consumer-permissioned bank data, and each report expires 24 hours after creation (Plaid).
• Argyle's waterfall runs payroll connection, then bank linking, then document upload, covering 90% of the US workforce with verifications returned in an average of 15 seconds (Argyle).

Forged pay stubs are why these products exist. In the NMHC's pulse survey of 75 large operators (November 2023 to January 2024), 84.3% had encountered falsified pay stubs, employment references, or other income documentation (NMHC). Avail's December 2023 survey of roughly 2,419 landlords found 83.37% verify income as part of screening (Avail).

The 3x benchmark means gross monthly income of at least three times the rent, or about 33.3% of income going to housing (LeaseRunner). Its ancestor is the Brooke Amendment of December 24, 1969, which capped public housing rent at 25% of tenant income, raised to 30% in 1981 (HUD). No statute requires the ratio. HUD's May 2024 screening guidance says "There is no federal law mandating specific income-to-rent ratios," and adds that "minimum income requirements are also not relevant to predicting whether a tenant who receives income-based housing assistance will pay their rent on time" (HUD).

Regulators have started policing the threshold. New Jersey's Division on Civil Rights found probable cause in 2024 that requiring after-tax income of at least 3x rent plus a bank balance of 5x rent had an unlawful disparate impact (NJ OAG). Colorado's SB23-184, effective June 6, 2023, caps any income requirement at 200% of annual rent for unsubsidized applicants and applies that cap only to the tenant-paid portion for subsidized applicants (Colorado). For perspective, 49.7% of the 42.5 million renter households spent more than 30% of income on housing in 2023 (Census), so a strict 3x screen would fail roughly half of today's renters at their current rent.

Identity verification and watchlist searches

Identity verification confirms the applicant is the person on the application. RealPage's Identity Verification, available since Q2 2024, combines personal data validation, device and network analysis, document verification, and biometric matching (RealPage). SmartMove's Identity Check is Premium-only, and TransUnion doesn't publish its field-level contents. Credit-bureau fraud alerts also surface in reports; RealPage's terms state clients "must not make leasing decisions based solely on fraud alerts" (RealPage terms). Address history sits in the identifying-information block of the credit report.

The sanctions check compares the applicant's name against the Treasury's Specially Designated Nationals list, which covers people and entities "owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, targeted countries" plus terrorists and narcotics traffickers (OFAC). No rule forces you to run it. OFAC's own FAQ says "There is no legal or regulatory requirement to use software or to scan" (OFAC), but you may not do business with an SDN, and a landlord who discovers a tenant on the list must move to terminate the lease, freeze the security deposit, and report the property interest to OFAC (Pillsbury).

OFAC's search tool uses fuzzy name matching (Jaro-Winkler and Soundex) on the name field (OFAC), many SDN entries lack birthdates or identifiers, and a 2024 peer-reviewed study reports "over 90% of alerts generated by current sanction screening programs ultimately turn out to be false positives" (PMC). TransUnion matched consumers on first and last name alone until the Ramirez litigation; after switching to exact name matches its false-positive rate fell only from roughly 5% to roughly 0.5%, and the class included 8,185 consumers with false OFAC alerts (Ninth Circuit). In Cortez v. Trans Union, a woman born in May 1944 was flagged as a match for someone born in June 1971 with a differently spelled surname; the jury awarded $750,000 in punitive damages (Third Circuit).

TransUnion now contractually bars users from "treating the alert as a reason for declination or other adverse action" (TransUnion), and Experian's guidance says an alert "does not necessarily mean the applicant is on the SDN List" (Experian). Treat a hit as a prompt to compare date of birth and address, plus other identifiers, using OFAC's five-step process, and call OFAC's compliance hotline if doubt remains.

Rental history and landlord references

Automated rent payment data exists for very few applicants. The CFPB estimated it covered only 1.7%-2.3% of U.S. renters (CFPB). Where it exists, it's detailed. Experian RentBureau, a specialty consumer reporting agency with more than 36 million renter profiles from over 10,000 data furnishers updated daily (Experian), records lease dates, monthly rent, outstanding balance, counts of late and NSF payments, write-offs, and a month-by-month payment vector coded P (paid as agreed), L (late), N (NSF), O (outstanding balance), W (rent write-off), or U (non-rent write-off) (Experian). RentBureau isn't sold to landlords directly; it reaches you through partners such as a Zillow report that Experian powers (Experian Connect). RealPage's rental history comes from its own reporting communities and includes positive marks like on-time payments and proper notice.

When reports lack automated payment data, landlords often verify rental history by contacting prior landlords. The credit report's address history can help identify the addresses involved. Ask for lease dates, rent amount, late payments, and whether the tenant gave notice, which is the same set of facts RentBureau records.

How far back does a tenant background check go?

Seven years for most negative items and ten for bankruptcies, with no federal limit on criminal convictions. The obsolescence periods in 15 U.S.C. § 1681c break down by item type:

• Item | Federal reporting limit
• Criminal convictions | No limit; the 1998 Consumer Reporting Employment Clarification Act removed them from the 7-year cap
• Arrests and other non-conviction records | 7 years from the date of the charge
• Eviction judgments | 7 years from entry, or the governing statute of limitations if longer; filings without judgment also 7 years
• Collections and charge-offs | 7 years from the original delinquency plus a 180-day waiting period; selling the debt doesn't restart the clock
• Bankruptcies | 10 years from the order for relief by statute; bureau practice reports Chapter 7 for 10 years and Chapter 13 for 7
• Other adverse items | 7 years

The FCRA's high-value exceptions (credit transactions of $150,000 or more, salaries of $75,000 or more) don't apply to ordinary residential screening, so these caps hold for every rental applicant. The CFPB's plain-language version: "Eviction court cases could be on your tenant screening record for up to seven years" (CFPB).

State lawmakers have changed these windows in ways that matter for multi-state portfolios:

• State | Rule
• California | Criminal records 7 years from disposition, release, or parole; arrests without conviction not reportable; evictions only if the landlord prevailed (Civ. Code § 1785.13, SB 1061, effective January 1, 2025)
• New York | Convictions 7 years; arrests not reportable unless a conviction resulted or charges are pending (GBL § 380-j); Clean Slate Act seals eligible misdemeanors after 3 years and certain felonies after 8 (effective November 16, 2024)
• Massachusetts | Bankruptcies 14 years; criminal records 7 years (G.L. c. 93 § 52)
• New Mexico | Bankruptcies 14 years; criminal records 7 years from release or parole (§ 56-3-6)
• Montana | Bankruptcies 14 years from adjudication (§ 31-3-112); criminal records 7 years
• Maryland | Criminal records 7 years (Com. Law § 14-1203); reusable screening reports limited to a 3-year criminal lookback (HB 964, effective July 1, 2024)
• Texas | Criminal records 7 years from disposition, release, or parole (Bus. & Com. Code § 20.05)
• Colorado | Limits what landlords may consider rather than what agencies report: rental or credit history no older than 7 years, no arrest records from any time, convictions generally no older than 5 years (C.R.S. § 38-12-904)

Sealed and expunged records are supposed to be invisible. Consumer reporting agencies must keep information that has been "expunged, sealed, or otherwise legally restricted from public access" out of reports (CFPB). NCLC's 2023 Digital Denials survey of 253 practitioners found sealed or expunged records appearing in reports in 41% of observations, arrests older than seven years creating a barrier in 50%, and the same record duplicated in 19% (NCLC). AppFolio paid $4.25 million to the FTC on December 8, 2020, in part for reporting eviction and non-conviction criminal records older than seven years (FTC).

Clean Slate laws widen the gap between what's legally reportable and what shows up. Pennsylvania's Act 36 of 2023 (effective February 12, 2024), Michigan (April 2023), Colorado (automated sealing from July 2024), Connecticut (January 1, 2023), Minnesota (January 1, 2025), and California's SB 731 (July 1, 2023) all seal eligible records automatically. Urban Institute's early analysis "suggests companies may not capture sealing and expungement" (Urban Institute). If an applicant tells you a record on the report was sealed, believe it enough to check before you deny.

Tenant screening score vs. standard credit score

ResidentScore predicts lease outcomes; FICO predicts loan repayment. TransUnion states the difference directly: "Traditional credit scores predict loan repayment, not rental performance. They overlook critical indicators such as eviction history and rental payment behavior" (TransUnion). ResidentScore runs 350-850, with 850 best, and uses five factor categories: payment history, credit utilization, credit history, credit availability, and inquiries (SmartMove). TransUnion doesn't publish the weights. FICO does: payment history 35%, amounts owed 30%, length of credit history 15%, new credit 10%, credit mix 10% (myFICO).

The current enterprise model, TruVision Resident Score 4.0, uses more than 1,500 credit attributes plus eviction history from 3 million active renters. TransUnion built the model with machine learning (TransUnion asset sheet). It scores any applicant with at least one account on file, so thin-file renters who wouldn't receive a FICO score still get a number. TransUnion's 2016 SmartMove research claimed the score "Identifies 15% more evictions and 19% more skips than other typical credit scores" in the bottom 20% range; the 4.0 asset sheet claims 7% additional eviction prediction over VantageScore 3.0, which is the score Experian's Connect screening products use (Experian).

TransUnion publishes no accept, conditional, or decline bands (TransUnion). The thresholds circulating online come from third-party vendors, and you should read them as vendor opinion:

• Score range | Label | Source
• 350-523 | Decline | TenantCloud, May 20, 2024
• 524-537 | Conditional | TenantCloud
• 538-559 | Low accept | TenantCloud
• 560-850 | Accept | TenantCloud
• 700 and above | Strong candidate | LeaseRunner, June 24, 2025
• Below 560 | High risk | LeaseRunner

ClearScreening's SmartScreen (March 2026) attaches eviction-risk estimates to bands: 3-5% at 700-759, 6-12% at 650-699, 13-18% at 560-649, and 19-25% or more below 560 (ClearScreening). Those percentages are the vendor's, not TransUnion's. Set your cutoff in writing before you screen anyone and apply it identically to every applicant. And read the underlying report before you trust the number: the CFPB warned that "Rental risk scores and decision recommendations can conceal inaccuracies in the underlying data" (CFPB).

Screening costs and who pays

Applicant-paid reports in this comparison run from $19.95 to $49; landlord-paid reports run from $29 to $49. The pricing model determines who fronts the money and who holds the report afterward:

• Service | Landlord pays | Applicant pays | Notes
• TransUnion SmartMove Basic | $0 | $25 + tax | ResidentScore and criminal report
• TransUnion SmartMove Plus | $0 | $40 + tax | Adds credit and eviction reports
• TransUnion SmartMove Premium | $0 | $49 + tax | Adds Income Insights and Identity Check
• RentPrep Background Check | $29 | $0 | Landlord-paid
• RentPrep Complete Package | $49 | $0 | Landlord-paid
• Zillow | $0 | $35 | Reusable for 30 days
• Apartments.com | $0 | $32 + tax | Reusable for 10 listings over 30 days
• Experian Connect | $0 | $19.95 per order | Consumer orders their own report; landlord views free

Sources: SmartMove, RentPrep, Zillow, Apartments.com, Experian Connect. Zillow's 2024 renter survey put the median application fee at $50, the average across all recent renters at $69, and the average among those who paid at $88; 79% of recent renters paid a fee, down from 84% in 2023 (Zillow Research).

Tenant rights, adverse action, and disputing errors

Any decision made against an applicant that rests even partly on a screening report triggers a notice duty under 15 U.S.C. § 1681m, and the report only needs to be a small factor (FTC). The FTC's list of adverse actions is broader than a flat denial:

• Denying the application
• Requiring a co-signer
• Requiring a deposit not required of other applicants
• Requiring a larger deposit than other applicants pay
• Charging higher rent than other tenants pay

The notice can be oral, written, or electronic, and must include the name, address, and phone number of the screening company (toll-free if it operates nationwide); a statement that the screening company did not make the decision and cannot explain the reasons; and notice of the applicant's right to a free copy of the report within 60 days and to dispute its accuracy. When a numerical score contributed to the decision, the notice must be written or electronic and must add the score itself, the range of possible scores, up to four key factors that lowered it in order of importance, the date the scoring company created the score, and the entity that provided it (15 U.S.C. § 1681g).

Federal law sets no deadline for delivering the notice and, unlike employment screening, requires no pre-adverse-action notice before you decide (CFS Law Monitor). States fill that gap. Colorado requires a written denial stating reasons, with a good-faith target of 20 calendar days (C.R.S. § 38-12-904); California requires written notice "not later than three days after the date on which the report was first requested" (Civ. Code § 1786.16); Washington requires advance written disclosure of your screening criteria and a written adverse-action notice with reasons (RCW 59.18.257). HUD's May 2024 guidance recommends denial letters "contain as much detail as possible as to all reasons for the denial, including the specific standard(s) that the applicant did not meet," with all reports attached (HUD), and FHFA "strongly encourages written adverse action notices and providing applicants a copy of the screening report relied upon" (FHFA).

Willful noncompliance costs the greater of actual damages or $1,000 per instance, plus attorney's fees (Fox Rothschild). Screening companies face larger numbers: RentGrow agreed to pay $2.25 million on July 9, 2026, to settle FTC allegations that included failing to use reasonable accuracy procedures (FTC).

Applicants who spot an error dispute it with the screening company under 15 U.S.C. § 1681i, in writing and with supporting documents such as dated proof of payment (CFPB). Congress established these deadlines:

• Screening company obligation | Deadline
• Forward the dispute to the data furnisher | 5 business days after receipt
• Complete the reinvestigation | 30 days, extendable to 45 if the consumer supplies more information during the first 30
• Delete or correct inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable information | Promptly on finding it
• Send written results to the consumer | 5 business days after completing the reinvestigation
• Provide a free updated report | With the results notice
• Notify prior recipients of the report | At the consumer's request, for reports sent within the past 6 months (2 years for employment)

A screening company cannot reinsert deleted information unless the furnisher certifies that it is complete and accurate. Furnishers must run their own investigation inside the same 30- or 45-day window and must flag the item as disputed while it's pending (15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2). The FTC adds that "Even if the landlord refuses [to share the report], the background check company must give you a free copy of the report if you request it within 60 days" (FTC).

Dispute contacts for the major services: TransUnion Rental Screening Solutions, Attn: Disputes, PO Box 800, Woodlyn, PA 19094, myreports@transunion.com, (888) 710-0270 (TransUnion); Experian RentBureau, P.O. Box 26, Allen, TX 75013, 877-704-4519 (Experian); RealPage, fax 1-800-866-8736 or mail to LeasingDesk Screening Consumer Relations, 2201 Lakeside Blvd., Richardson, TX 75082 (RealPage).

The 30-day window is longer than most housing searches. The CFPB found it "nearly impossible for a consumer who is actively looking for rental housing to access reports, identify errors or inaccuracies, dispute them, and have them universally resolved within the timeframe of a typical rental housing search" (CFPB). Nothing in the FCRA requires you to hold a unit while a dispute runs, and NCLC found that in 86% of practitioner observations landlords ignored the dispute and rejected the renter (NCLC). Given that the CFPB logged roughly 26,700 tenant-screening complaints between January 2019 and September 2022, with 17,240 about incorrect information, an applicant's claim that a record is wrong deserves a look before you fill the unit with someone else.

FCRA and Fair Housing rules landlords must follow

A screening policy that treats every applicant identically can still violate the Fair Housing Act if it falls harder on a protected class without a legitimate reason. The Supreme Court confirmed in Texas Dept. of Housing v. Inclusive Communities Project (2015) that disparate-impact claims are cognizable under the Act, while limiting liability to policies that create "artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barriers" (Supreme Court). In Fortune Society v. Sandcastle Towers, DOJ argued that categorical criminal-history bans that "do not consider when the conviction occurred, what the underlying conduct entailed, or what the convicted person has done since then run a substantial risk of having a disparate impact"; the case settled in 2019 for $1,187,500 (Relman Colfax).

Federal guidance shifted in 2025, but the statute didn't. HUD withdrew its April 2016 criminal-history guidance effective September 25, 2025 (Federal Register), and a November 26, 2025 letter from the HUD Secretary told public housing authorities and owners to "take all steps necessary" to screen for criminal history (HUD). HUD's withdrawal notice still states that "Any actions that do not comply with the text of the Fair Housing Act continue to be subject to enforcement by the Department" (Federal Register). HUD also proposed on January 14, 2026 to remove its own discriminatory-effects regulations and leave disparate impact to the courts (Federal Register); that is a proposal, and Inclusive Communities remains controlling. Anchor your policy to the statute and case law rather than to guidance documents that can be withdrawn.

Three points from HUD's May 2, 2024 tenant-screening guidance still describe how enforcement agencies read a file. Housing providers "are responsible for avoiding discriminatory housing decisions, even when they use a tenant screening company to assist in the process." Screening companies "should not offer options likely to pose fair housing concerns (e.g., unlimited or lifetime lookback periods for criminal records)." And when a report arrives with a denial recommendation, "the housing provider should make an independent determination" (HUD). California's FEHA regulations, in force since January 1, 2020, prohibit blanket criminal bans regardless of whether the conviction is "directly related to a demonstrable risk" (California regulations).

Fair chance housing ordinances restrict when you may look at criminal history and how far back. Urban Institute counted 15 such policies across 11 states and D.C. enacted between 2017 and 2024, with 3 years as the shortest lookback (Urban Institute). The major ones:

• Jurisdiction | Effective | Core rule
• New York City | January 1, 2025 | Criminal check only after a written conditional offer; arrests, pending cases, and sealed or vacated convictions never reviewable; felonies reviewable within 5 years of release or sentencing, misdemeanors within 3; applicant gets 5 business days to respond; penalties up to $125,000, or $250,000 for willful violations (Local Law 24)
• New Jersey | January 1, 2022 | Lookback from conditional offer: 6 years for 1st-degree indictable offenses, 4 for 2nd/3rd degree, 1 for 4th degree; no consideration of arrests or expunged, pardoned, vacated, or sealed records; over 150 enforcement actions to date (NJ OAG)
• Colorado | August 2, 2019 | No arrest records; no convictions older than 5 years, with exceptions for meth, sex-offender-registration, homicide, and stalking offenses (HB 19-1106)
• Cook County, IL | February 1, 2020 | No criminal history older than 3 years; individualized assessment for anything newer (Cook County)
• Washington, D.C. | October 1, 2017 | Only 48 listed offenses from the last 7 years, reviewable only after a conditional offer, with mitigating information considered (D.C. OHR)
• Oakland, CA | February 4, 2020 | Criminal history screening generally prohibited at every stage (Oakland)
• Seattle, WA | Adverse-action ban enforced; inquiry ban unenforced since June 2023 after Yim v. City of Seattle | Adverse action based on criminal history prohibited (Seattle)

Source-of-income laws are the other compliance layer, and they interact with the income section of the report. HUD's Office of Inspector General counted 23 states plus D.C. with statewide source-of-income laws as of August 2025, 16 of which explicitly cover housing choice voucher holders. Another 152 cities and counties in 27 states have local ordinances (HUD OIG). California, Connecticut, Delaware (effective January 1, 2026), Hawaiʻi, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington name vouchers or Section 8 explicitly (PRRAC).

Colorado's HB 25-1240 (effective May 29, 2025) repealed the exemption that had let owners of five or fewer single-family rentals decline vouchers (Colorado). Wisconsin's statewide law excludes vouchers, and Texas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky (HB 18, March 6, 2024), and Missouri (effective August 28, 2025) preempt local ordinances that would require voucher acceptance (Missouri). Every LIHTC, HUD HOME-funded, and Housing Trust Fund property must accept vouchers regardless of state law (HUD).

Where vouchers are protected, the income test applies only to the tenant-paid portion. Washington's statute requires that "Any source of income in the form of a rent voucher or subsidy must be subtracted from the total of the monthly rent prior to calculating if the income criteria have been met," with civil liability up to 4.5 times monthly rent (RCW 59.18.255). California's Civil Rights Department gives the worked example: you may require 3x the tenant's share, not 3x total rent (CRD).

Illinois and Massachusetts agency guidance say the same, and New York's Division of Human Rights calls an income formula "unreasonable if applied to a tenant who has 70% to 100% of the rent paid by the vouchering agency" (NYSDHR). If a voucher covers $1,200 of a $1,500 unit, the 3x test in those states runs against $300.

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FAQ

These answers summarize what reports contain, how far they reach, who pays, and what applicants and landlords must do when a report affects a decision.

What data points appear on a tenant background check?

Credit tradelines and payment history, collections, public records such as bankruptcies, credit inquiries, a score (ResidentScore or VantageScore 3.0 depending on the vendor), a multi-state criminal search, a sex offender registry match, an OFAC sanctions screen, court-filed eviction cases, and address history. Higher tiers add an income estimate or verified income data, identity verification, and month-by-month rent payment history where a prior landlord reported it. Rent payment data exists for only a small share of renters, so most reports have that section empty.

How far back does a tenant background check go?

Seven years for arrests, eviction cases, collections, and most other negative items; ten years for bankruptcies under federal law, though bureau practice reports Chapter 13 for seven. Criminal convictions carry no federal time limit, but California, New York, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Maryland, and Texas cap them at seven years, Colorado bars landlords from considering most convictions older than five years, and Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Montana let bankruptcies stay for 14 years.

Does a tenant background check verify income?

Only if you buy a product that pulls payroll or bank data. SmartMove's Income Insights compares credit behavior to the applicant's stated income and flags a variance without seeing a paycheck. RealPage Income Verification, Equifax The Work Number, Plaid Check, Argyle, and TransUnion's Truework integration read actual employer, payroll, or bank records with the applicant's permission.

Can an applicant dispute a tenant background check?

Yes. The applicant writes to the screening company with documentation, and the company must finish its reinvestigation within 30 days (45 if the applicant sends more information mid-process), send written results within five business days after that, and supply a free corrected report. After a denial, the applicant can also demand a free copy of the report within 60 days even if the landlord won't share it. The landlord isn't required to hold the unit while the dispute runs.

Who pays for a tenant background check?

It depends on the platform. SmartMove, Zillow, Apartments.com, and Experian Connect charge the applicant between $19.95 and $49; RentPrep charges the landlord $29 to $49. Massachusetts and Vermont ban application fees outright, New York caps them at $20, California at $65.86, New Jersey and Virginia at $50, and Colorado requires landlords to accept a 30-day-old applicant-provided report instead of running a new one.

What laws does a landlord have to follow when screening tenants?

The Fair Credit Reporting Act governs what the report may contain and requires an adverse action notice whenever you deny, require a co-signer, or charge more based on the report. The Fair Housing Act bars policies with an unjustified disparate impact on a protected class, which is why blanket criminal bans and rigid income ratios draw enforcement. State and local rules add fee caps, fair chance ordinances that delay or limit criminal checks, source-of-income laws requiring voucher acceptance, and shorter lookback windows than federal law allows.