To check a prospective tenant’s credit, you collect the applicant’s identifying information and written authorization, submit it through a tenant screening service or one of the three national credit bureaus, review the resulting report against consistent qualification criteria, and send a formal adverse action notice if anything in the report leads you to deny the applicant or offer less favorable terms. Learning how to check tenant credit is less about the mechanics of pulling a report, which take minutes, and more about the federal rules that govern what you can do with it.
What You Need Before Pulling a Report
The Fair Credit Reporting Act only lets you request a consumer credit report if you have a “permissible purpose.” For landlords, that purpose is the provision covering a legitimate business need connected to a transaction the consumer initiated.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681b – Permissible Purposes of Consumer Reports Once someone submits a rental application, they’ve initiated that transaction, and you can request their file.
You certify to the screening company or bureau that your purpose is permissible. That certification runs from you to the reporting agency. Separately, you should get written authorization from the applicant themselves. Federal law requires the certification; some states require the written consent by statute; and most screening platforms won’t process a request without it.2Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know Treat written consent as a baseline.
To match the applicant to the right file, collect their full legal name, Social Security number, date of birth, and current and previous addresses. Screening providers use these to cross-reference bureau records. Partial information is the most common cause of processing delays and mismatched results, so every field on your authorization form should be filled in before submission.
One thing to flag for applicants up front: if they have placed a security freeze on their credit file, your screening request will come back empty or be rejected. They have to temporarily lift the freeze with each of the three bureaus. Lifting online or by phone happens within one hour of the request; lifting by mail takes up to three business days.3USAGov. How to Place or Lift a Security Freeze on Your Credit Report Mentioning this in your application materials saves everyone time.
Picking a Screening Service
The three nationwide consumer reporting agencies are Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.4Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Companies List You can go directly to a bureau, but most landlords use third-party tenant screening platforms that pull from one or more of the three and bundle the credit report with eviction history, criminal background checks, and income verification.
Screening fees typically run $30 to $75 per applicant, depending on the provider and how many data sources are included. Basic credit-only pulls tend to cost less; comprehensive packages more. A handful of states cap what landlords can charge applicants for screening, so check your local rules before passing the cost through.
Tenant screening usually creates a soft inquiry on the applicant’s file, which doesn’t affect their credit score. Hard inquiries, which can lower a score slightly, are tied to applications for new credit like a loan or card. Most landlord-facing services use the soft-pull model, but some don’t. Confirm with your provider before running the check.
Running the Check
Once you have an account with a provider and a signed authorization in hand, the mechanics are simple. Most platforms verify your identity as a property owner or manager during account setup. After that, you enter the applicant’s details, upload the authorization form, and submit. Reports usually come back within minutes.
What to Look For on the Report
The report gives you a three-digit credit score alongside the account history behind it. No universal cutoff governs rental approvals. Many landlords treat scores above 700 as low-risk, scores between 600 and 699 as generally acceptable depending on the property, and scores below 600 as higher-risk situations that may warrant closer review or additional safeguards. Whatever threshold you pick, write it down and apply it the same way to every applicant.
Tradelines and Payment History
Each account appears as a separate entry showing the creditor’s name, the current balance, the credit limit or original loan amount, and a month-by-month payment record. These cover credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and personal lines of credit. Look for patterns. Consistent on-time payments suggest reliability. A history of missed or late payments is a warning sign that rent may follow the same trajectory.
Collections and Bankruptcies
When a creditor gives up on collecting a debt and sends it out, the collection account appears separately on the report. Collections stay on the report for up to seven years from the date the original account first went delinquent.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports One old collection from a medical emergency reads differently than multiple recent collections for utilities and credit cards.
Bankruptcies can remain on the report for up to ten years from the filing date.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports Age and context matter: an eight-year-old bankruptcy with clean credit since is a different risk profile than a recent one. Bankruptcies are the only public record type still appearing on reports from the three major bureaus. Civil judgments and tax liens were removed in 2017 and 2018, so you won’t see those even if the applicant has them.6Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A New Retrospective on the Removal of Public Records
Applying Your Criteria Without Violating Fair Housing
Credit screening is legal. Applying it unevenly is not. The Fair Housing Act prohibits using different qualification criteria, credit standards included, based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin.7eCFR. Part 100 – Discriminatory Conduct Under the Fair Housing Act If your standard is a 650 score, every applicant faces that threshold.
Even facially neutral policies can create problems. HUD has flagged that broad reliance on credit scores can have a disproportionate impact on certain racial groups, since credit score disparities track closely with historical inequality in access to credit. You can still use credit reports. But your criteria should be documented, consistently applied, and reasonably tied to predicting whether someone will pay rent. A blanket rejection of anyone under 700 sweeps in a lot of people who would pay rent reliably, and the broader the exclusion, the greater the legal risk.
Disability adds another layer. If an applicant’s poor credit history is directly connected to a disability, they may be entitled to a reasonable accommodation in your screening process. That doesn’t mean ignoring credit. It may mean considering alternative evidence of ability to pay.
Applicants With Thin or No Credit File
Young renters, recent immigrants, and people who’ve always paid cash may come back with a “thin file” or no score at all. Rejecting them outright turns away tenants who could be excellent but haven’t built a credit profile. Common alternatives include requiring a co-signer with established credit, asking for a larger security deposit where state law permits, requesting several months of rent up front, or accepting alternative proof like bank statements, pay stubs, or a letter from a previous landlord confirming on-time rent payments. Apply whichever approach you use consistently. Asking one thin-file applicant for a co-signer but not another is the kind of inconsistency that creates fair housing exposure.
Sending an Adverse Action Notice if You Deny
If you deny an application, charge higher rent, or require a larger deposit based even partially on information from a credit report, you must send an adverse action notice.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports This is where landlords most often slip, and skipping it is a federal violation. The notice must include:
- A clear statement of the action you took, whether that’s denying the application, requiring a higher deposit, or imposing other unfavorable terms.
- The specific credit score you relied on.
- The name, address, and phone number of the reporting agency or screening company that supplied the report.
- A statement that the reporting agency didn’t make the decision and can’t explain why you made it.
- Notice that the applicant can get a free copy of their report within 60 days and can dispute any inaccurate information with the reporting agency.
The notice can be delivered in writing or electronically.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports Many screening platforms generate a compliant template automatically. If you’re handling it manually, work from a checklist and keep a copy of every notice you send.
Destroying the Report When You’re Done
You remain responsible for how you handle the report after the decision. Federal rules require anyone holding consumer information for a business purpose to dispose of it by taking reasonable steps to prevent unauthorized access.9eCFR. 16 CFR 682.3 – Proper Disposal of Consumer Information For paper, that means shredding, burning, or pulverizing so the information can’t be reconstructed. For digital files, that means permanently deleting or destroying the electronic media.
A printed report in the recycling bin or a PDF sitting in your downloads folder both create liability. If you retain reports as part of recordkeeping, store them with restricted access, and destroy them once you no longer need them. An applicant whose Social Security number leaks from a discarded report has a clear path to legal action against you.