Colorado Tenant Screening Laws: Fees, Denials, and Penalties

Colorado tenant screening laws, set mainly by the Rental Application Fairness Act (C.R.S. § 38-12-901 through 905) and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, limit how far back a landlord can look into your credit, rental, and criminal history; tie application fees to actual processing costs; require landlords to accept portable screening reports in place of a fee; mandate written notice when an application is denied; and protect a broader list of applicants from discrimination than federal law does. Whether you are applying for a rental or writing the screening policy, the specifics decide what is lawful.

What Landlords Can and Can’t Look At

Colorado landlords may check credit history, rental history, employment and income, and criminal background. The state puts hard time limits on each.

Credit and Rental History

If a landlord uses credit or rental history as screening criteria, nothing older than seven years before the application date can be considered.¹ A bankruptcy from eight years ago, or a run of late payments from a decade back, is off limits. Current employment and income can still be verified through pay stubs or employer contact, and previous landlords can be contacted about tenant behavior within the seven-year window.

Criminal History

Colorado’s criminal history rules are among the most specific in the country. If a landlord uses criminal history as a screening criterion, arrest records cannot be considered at all, from any time period. An arrest that never led to a conviction is off the table no matter how recent.¹

For actual convictions, the landlord cannot consider anything that occurred more than five years before the application date, with four exceptions. A landlord may look further back for convictions or deferred judgments involving:

Methamphetamine manufacturing or distribution
Unlawful possession of materials used to make methamphetamine or amphetamine
Any offense requiring sex offender registration
Homicide and certain other serious violent offenses under Colorado law

Outside those four categories, a conviction from six or more years ago cannot factor into the decision.¹

Whatever criteria a landlord does use must be applied uniformly to every applicant. Selectively tightening the standard for certain applicants is itself a violation, even when the written criteria read as neutral.

Application Fees and Portable Screening Reports

A Colorado landlord cannot charge an application fee unless the entire amount is used to cover the actual cost of processing the application. That cost can be measured two ways: the real expense for the specific application in front of the landlord, or the average expense per applicant across multiple applications.²

There is no fixed dollar cap, but there is a ceiling built into the statute. A landlord charging $75 when the real cost of a credit report and background check is $35 is violating the law. Several related rules apply:

Every applicant for the same unit pays the same fee, and the fee must be consistent across multiple units available at the same time.
After collecting the fee, the landlord must provide either a disclosure of anticipated expenses or an itemization of actual expenses. If an average is used, the method of calculation must be explained.
Every applicant who pays receives a receipt. Electronic is fine unless the applicant asks for paper.
Any unused portion of the fee must be refunded, and the landlord must make a good-faith effort to send the refund within 20 calendar days of processing the application.

Portable Screening Reports

If you buy your own screening report from a consumer reporting agency and share it with a landlord, the landlord generally must accept it, and cannot charge you an application fee or any fee to access or use the report.³ The landlord can require that the report was prepared within the previous 30 days, that you paid for it, and that the reporting agency makes it available to the landlord directly. The report must cover verification of employment and income, rental and credit history, and criminal history.

Before collecting any information that would trigger an application fee, the landlord must tell prospective tenants that portable reports are accepted and that no fee applies if one is provided. The notice must appear in rental advertisements in at least 12-point bold type, on the landlord’s website, in the rental application itself, or be given orally with written confirmation.¹

One exemption applies. Landlords who only accept one application fee at a time per unit, and who refund the full fee within 20 days if either party declines to enter the lease, are not required to accept portable reports or provide the advisement.

What a Landlord May Not Consider at All

Colorado protects a broader list of applicants than the federal Fair Housing Act. Under C.R.S. § 24-34-502, a landlord cannot discriminate based on race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation (including transgender status), gender identity and expression, marital status, familial status, disability, national origin, ancestry, veteran or military status, or source of income.⁴

Source of Income

Since January 1, 2021, a landlord cannot refuse to rent based on how a tenant pays rent. “Source of income” covers any lawful, verifiable source of money paid directly, indirectly, or on behalf of a person, including housing choice vouchers (Section 8), Social Security, disability payments, and child support.⁵ Lease terms and conditions cannot vary based on a tenant’s participation in a public housing assistance program, and advertisements cannot state any limitation or preference based on source of income.

Two narrow exemptions apply. Landlords with three or fewer rental units are exempt from the source of income rule entirely, and landlords with five or fewer single-family rental homes are not required to accept federal housing choice vouchers for those homes.

If Your Application Is Denied

Colorado requires a landlord who denies an application to send a written notice stating the reasons. If the landlord used a proprietary screening system that makes it impractical to cite specific criteria, the landlord must instead provide a copy of the screening company’s report. The landlord has to make a good-faith effort to deliver this notice within 20 calendar days of the decision, electronically unless the applicant asks for paper.¹

Federal law adds a second notice. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, if a landlord takes any adverse action based on a consumer report (denial, higher deposit, or a required co-signer), the landlord must provide an adverse action notice including the reporting agency’s name, address, and phone number, a statement that the agency did not make the decision, and notice of the applicant’s right to a free copy of the report within 60 days and to dispute inaccuracies.⁶ Both obligations run together whenever a consumer report was involved.

Penalties and Enforcement

A landlord who violates any provision of the Rental Application Fairness Act is liable to the affected applicant for $2,500, plus court costs and reasonable attorney fees.⁷ Before filing suit, the tenant must give the landlord at least seven calendar days’ notice of the intended action. If the landlord cures the violation within those seven days, the penalty drops to $50 and the larger damages are off the table. The cure period rewards a quick fix on a first response but will not shield a landlord from broader liability for a pattern of violations followed by last-minute corrections.

For violations of certain portable screening report provisions, the structure flips: an initial $50 penalty, and if the violation is not cured within seven days, an additional $2,500 on top of any economic damages, court costs, and attorney fees. These remedies are in addition to any other relief available by law, and a tenant does not need to exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit. A person who files a bad-faith, meritless claim can be held liable for the landlord’s court costs and attorney fees.

Discrimination Complaints

Discriminatory screening is enforced separately by the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which handles housing discrimination complaints through mediation, investigation, and formal proceedings.⁸ A court that finds a discriminatory housing practice may award actual and punitive damages. Non-economic damages are available up to $50,000, with a potential 50 percent reduction if the landlord corrects the violation within 30 days and the violation was not knowing or intentional. In the alternative, the court may impose a statutory fine of $5,000 per violation per affected person, along with attorney fees and costs.⁹

1
Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-904 – Consideration of Rental Applications
2
Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-903 – Rental Application Fee – Limitations
3
Colorado General Assembly. HB23-1099 Portable Screening Report for Residential Leases
4
Justia. Colorado Code 24-34-502 – Unfair Housing Practices Prohibited
5
Colorado Civil Rights Division. Source of Income Press Release
6
Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know
7
Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-905 – Notice Required
8
Colorado Civil Rights Division. Colorado Civil Rights Division – Home
9
Colorado Civil Rights Division. Housing Discrimination