Yes, you can get an apartment with a misdemeanor on your record. A conviction does not automatically disqualify you, because federal guidance discourages landlords from imposing blanket bans on applicants with criminal histories and pushes them to evaluate each application on its own facts.1U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Office of General Counsel Guidance on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records How hard your search will be depends on three things: what the misdemeanor was, how long ago it happened, and how strong the rest of your application looks.
What a Landlord Actually Sees
Most landlords run a tenant screening report once you sign the consent form and pay the application fee. The report pulls from public databases and typically shows criminal history, credit history, and prior evictions.2Federal Trade Commission. Tenant Background Checks and Your Rights
The criminal section can include convictions, pending charges, and sometimes arrests. The Fair Credit Reporting Act caps most negative items at seven years, but criminal convictions have no federal time limit. A misdemeanor conviction from twenty years ago can be reported the same as one from last year.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports About a dozen states have passed stricter limits, and some cut off conviction reporting at seven years for tenant screening. If you live in one of those states, an older misdemeanor may not surface at all.
Reports also contain errors more often than people assume. Someone else’s conviction attached to your name, a dismissed charge logged as a conviction, a record from a county you’ve never lived in. Before you apply anywhere, it is worth pulling your own report so you know exactly what a landlord will see.
What Landlords Can and Can’t Do With Your Record
The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 3604 – Discrimination in the Sale or Rental of Housing and Other Prohibited Practices Criminal history is not a protected class, but a 2016 HUD guidance explained that screening policies built around criminal records can still violate the Act when they disproportionately exclude people of a particular race or national origin.1U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Office of General Counsel Guidance on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records
Two rules from that guidance matter most for a misdemeanor applicant. A landlord who denies you solely because of a prior arrest that never led to a conviction is almost certainly violating the law. And blanket bans that automatically reject anyone with any conviction are likely illegal, because they ignore the nature of the offense, the time since it happened, and any evidence of rehabilitation.5U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Council. Office of General Counsel Guidance on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records
What the law expects instead is an individualized assessment. HUD lists the circumstances of the offense, your age at the time, your tenant history before and after, and any evidence of rehabilitation as relevant factors. That framework is where most misdemeanor applicants find their opening. The less serious the offense and the more time that has passed, the harder it becomes for a landlord to justify a denial.
Between 2017 and 2024, eleven states and the District of Columbia went further by passing “fair chance housing” laws. The specifics vary, but common provisions bar landlords from asking about criminal history on the initial application, restrict which convictions can be considered, cap how far back the landlord can look, and require written explanations for denials based on a record. If you are in one of these jurisdictions, your position is stronger than the federal baseline.
How a Misdemeanor Actually Gets Weighed
When a landlord does an honest individualized assessment, they’re running a risk analysis. Not all misdemeanors land the same way.
The type of offense carries the most weight. Convictions that suggest a direct risk to other residents or to the property, such as assault, theft, vandalism, or fraud, draw the most scrutiny. A disorderly conduct charge, a minor traffic-related misdemeanor, or an old public intoxication offense rarely moves the needle.
Time matters almost as much. A single misdemeanor from five or more years ago, with nothing after it, reads as an isolated incident. A clean stretch is evidence in your favor, and many of the fair chance laws codify lookback windows for exactly that reason.
Pattern versus one-off is the third factor. One old blemish on an otherwise clean record tells a very different story than several convictions spread over several years. A pattern gives a landlord firmer legal ground to say no, even when each individual offense is minor.
Drug-related misdemeanors sit awkwardly in the middle. A simple possession charge is one of the most common misdemeanors in the country, and many private landlords treat an old one as a non-issue. Property management companies with aggressive policies are the exception, and the rules change entirely once federal subsidies enter the picture.
Subsidized Housing Is a Different System
If you’re applying through a Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) or public housing, the Public Housing Authority runs its own screening, and federal law requires denial in a few specific situations: eviction from federally assisted housing for drug activity within the past three years, current illegal drug use or a drug or alcohol pattern that threatens other residents, a conviction for manufacturing methamphetamine on the premises of federally assisted housing, and lifetime sex offender registration.6U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Housing Choice Voucher Program Guidebook – Eligibility Determination and Denial of Assistance Most misdemeanors do not fall into these mandatory categories.
Beyond those, each PHA sets its own discretionary rules for drug-related, violent, or other criminal activity that threatens community safety, with its own lookback periods.7eCFR. 24 CFR Part 5 Subpart I – Preventing Crime in Federally Assisted Housing The same misdemeanor can get you approved in one city and denied in another. Whatever the PHA decides, you have the right to explain your circumstances and submit additional information before the final decision.6U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Housing Choice Voucher Program Guidebook – Eligibility Determination and Denial of Assistance
What to Do Before You Apply
Most of your real leverage sits in how you approach the search, not in the law.
Start by choosing landlords carefully. Large property management companies tend to use automated systems with rigid cutoffs, where a conviction flag triggers a denial before anyone looks at your file. Individual landlords with a handful of units are far more likely to talk with you, weigh your explanation, and judge the full picture. Watch for “for rent” signs, check local classifieds, and ask around. Reentry programs and local housing organizations often keep lists of landlords open to applicants with records.
Disclose the misdemeanor yourself rather than letting the landlord discover it. A one-page letter attached to your application does the job. Acknowledge the conviction, note when it happened, and focus on what has changed since: steady work, completed probation, community involvement. Keep the tone professional, not apologetic. Owning the narrative is far better than being surprised by it.
Then make the rest of the application as strong as you can:
- Recent pay stubs, a W-2, or an employment verification letter showing you can comfortably afford the rent.
- A reference from a previous landlord confirming on-time payments and no lease violations. This is one of the most persuasive documents you can hand over.
- Character references from employers, community leaders, or mentors. Family members get discounted.
- Completion certificates from any counseling, community service, treatment, or court-ordered program.
If you can afford it, offering a larger security deposit or prepaying first and last month’s rent can ease a hesitant landlord. Some fair chance housing laws limit a landlord’s ability to charge higher deposits based on criminal history, so whether this is available to you depends on your jurisdiction. A co-signer with good credit who agrees to cover rent if you default can also tip a borderline decision. The co-signer doesn’t need to live in the unit.
If You Get Denied
A denial based on a background check or credit report triggers specific rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The landlord must give you a written adverse action notice that includes the name, address, and phone number of the screening company, a statement that the screening company did not make the decision, and notice of your right to a free copy of the report within 60 days and to dispute any inaccurate information.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports The same requirement applies if a landlord charges you a higher deposit, requires a co-signer, or alters the lease terms based on your report. Many smaller landlords don’t know about this rule, and raising it is sometimes worth doing on its own.
If something on the report is wrong, dispute it directly with the screening company. They generally have 30 days to investigate and respond.9Federal Trade Commission. Disputing Errors on Your Tenant Background Check Report You can get your free copy within 60 days of the adverse action notice.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681j – Charges for Certain Disclosures If the investigation doesn’t resolve it, you can require that a statement of your dispute be added to the file and shared with anyone who received the report in the past six months.
If you believe the real reason for the denial was your race, national origin, or another protected characteristic, and the criminal record was a pretext, you can file a complaint with HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity online, by mail, or by phone at 1-800-669-9777. There are time limits, so file as soon as possible.11U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Report Housing Discrimination
Clearing the Record for Good
The strongest long-term fix is making the conviction disappear. Most states allow expungement or sealing of at least some misdemeanors. Eligibility usually requires that you have completed your sentence and any probation, waited a specified number of years without a new offense, and filed a petition with the court. Filing fees range from nothing to a few hundred dollars, and many jurisdictions waive them for low-income applicants.
Once a record is sealed or expunged, it should not appear on a standard tenant background check, and you generally have no obligation to disclose it to a private landlord. The system isn’t perfect: screening companies sometimes keep records they pulled before the sealing took effect. If an old conviction appears on a report despite being legally sealed, you have strong grounds to dispute it, and potentially a Fair Credit Reporting Act claim if the company won’t correct it.
Some states issue certificates of rehabilitation or good conduct. These don’t erase the conviction, but they can carry real weight in an individualized assessment, and a few states extend liability protections to landlords who rely on them. If you aren’t sure whether your misdemeanor qualifies for expungement, a local legal aid office is usually the fastest way to find out. The payoff for being able to answer “no convictions” honestly is hard to overstate.