How to Fill Out and Submit an Oregon Rental Application Form

An Oregon rental application is the form a landlord uses to screen you before offering a lease, and Oregon Revised Statutes chapter 90 controls what the landlord can charge, ask, and consider at every step. You bring identification, income documentation, and rental and employment history. The landlord, in return, owes you written disclosures before taking a screening fee, has to stay inside legal limits on what they can hold against you, and must tell you in writing why if they say no.

What to Have Ready Before You Apply

Most Oregon applications ask for the same core information whether the form comes from a large forms provider or a landlord drafted it themselves. Pull these together before you sit down with the form:

Government-issued photo ID and your Social Security number, which the landlord needs to run credit and background checks through consumer reporting agencies.
Proof of income: recent pay stubs, tax returns if you’re self-employed, benefit award letters, or similar documentation. Many landlords look for gross monthly income of at least three times the rent.
Rental history covering at least the past two to three years, with addresses, dates, and contact information for previous landlords.
Employment details, including your employer’s name, address, phone number, and your supervisor’s name.
Information and income documentation for any co-applicant or other adult who will live in the unit.

If your employment or rental history has gaps, attach a short written explanation. Incomplete applications are the easiest ones to set aside, and a landlord with other applicants in line usually will not chase you for missing pieces.

What the Landlord Must Give You Before Taking a Screening Fee

Oregon law prohibits a landlord from collecting a screening fee until they hand you a written notice with a specific list of items. Under ORS 90.295, that notice must include:

The amount of the screening fee.
The screening criteria the landlord will apply, such as minimum credit score, income multiple, or rental history standards.
The screening process, including whether the landlord uses a tenant screening company, pulls credit reports, checks criminal records, or contacts employers and prior landlords.
Your right to dispute inaccurate information held by a screening company or credit reporting agency.
Any right to appeal a denial, if one exists.
The nondiscrimination policy, covering federal, state, and local protections.
The rent and deposit amounts the landlord will charge.
Any renter’s liability insurance requirement, including the coverage amount.
Your refund rights if the landlord never screens you or fills the unit first.
An estimate of how many units of the type you want are available and how many applications are already being considered.

That last item matters more than it sounds. If a landlord already has ten strong applications on one unit and you’re number eleven, you deserve to know before you hand over money. A good-faith error in the estimate doesn’t expose the landlord to liability, but skipping the disclosure entirely does.¹

Screening Fee Limits and Refunds

Oregon doesn’t cap the screening fee at a fixed dollar amount. The fee cannot exceed the landlord’s average actual cost of screening applicants or the customary rate charged by tenant screening companies for comparable screening. Actual costs can include the screening company’s charge plus the reasonable value of time the landlord or their agent spends gathering information. Most fees fall in the $30 to $50 range.¹

You’re entitled to a receipt. If the landlord fills the unit before screening you, or if you withdraw your application in writing before any screening has been ordered, the landlord must refund the full amount within 30 days.¹

A landlord who violates any part of the screening-fee rules — failing to give the required disclosures, overcharging, or missing the 30-day refund deadline — owes the applicant twice the screening fee plus $250.¹ Landlords also cannot charge a fee simply to put you on a waiting list for a unit that isn’t available, unless you explicitly agree to be screened anyway.

What a Landlord Can Consider About Your Criminal Record

Oregon narrows what a landlord may weigh. Under ORS 90.303, a conviction or pending charge counts only if the underlying conduct is currently illegal in Oregon and falls into one of these categories:

Drug-related crimes, but not convictions based solely on using or possessing marijuana.
Person crimes involving harm or threat of harm to another person.
Sex offenses.
Financial fraud, including identity theft and forgery.
Any other crime where the conduct would adversely affect the landlord’s or another tenant’s property, or the health, safety, or peaceful enjoyment of the premises.

A landlord cannot consider an arrest that didn’t lead to a conviction or pending charge. Holding a medical marijuana card is also off-limits.²

If something in your record falls within one of the permitted categories, disclosing it on the application is usually the stronger play. A landlord who finds a concealed conviction through a screening report is far less likely to exercise discretion in your favor than one who sees an honest disclosure with context: completed treatment, years of clean history, or character references.

What a Landlord Cannot Ask or Hold Against You

The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.³ Oregon law adds sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and source of income. A landlord who asks about any of these on the application, or uses them to deny, delay, or condition an offer, is violating the law.

In practical terms, an application should never ask your religion, whether you have children, what country you’re from, or whether you receive housing assistance. Source-of-income protection means a landlord generally cannot reject you solely because your rent would be paid through a housing voucher or public benefit rather than employment income. Questions along these lines on an application are a signal about how the landlord operates.

After You Submit

Once you turn in a completed application and pay the screening fee, the landlord runs the background and credit checks. Oregon law does not set a specific deadline for the decision itself. Most landlords respond within one to two weeks, depending on how fast reports come back and how many applications they’re working through.

If You Are Denied

Under ORS 90.304, a landlord who denies your application must give you a written statement with one or more reasons within 14 days. The notice can be delivered by personal delivery, first-class mail, or email. A landlord who fails to provide it owes the applicant $100 plus a refund of any screening charge paid.⁴

The Federal Adverse Action Notice

If a consumer report (credit report, background check, or tenant screening report) played any part in the denial, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requires a separate notice. It must give you the name, address, and phone number of the reporting agency that supplied the report, state that the agency did not make the decision, and inform you of your right to dispute inaccurate information and to obtain a free copy of the report within 60 days.⁵ If a credit score factored in, the landlord must also disclose the score and the key factors that hurt it.

The Oregon denial statement and the federal adverse action notice are separate obligations triggered by different laws. You’re entitled to both when a screening report played a role.

Extra Rules If You’re Applying in Portland

Portland’s Fair Access in Renting (FAIR) ordinance layers additional protections on top of state law and changes how the application process works inside city limits.

Portland landlords may process multiple applications at the same time but must accept, conditionally accept, or deny applicants in the order their applications were received. For accessible dwelling units, an applicant with a household member who has a mobility disability gets priority if the application arrives during the first eight hours of the open application period.⁶

Portland also encourages landlords to use low-barrier screening criteria. A landlord using those criteria agrees not to reject applicants over credit scores of 500 or above, insufficient credit history (absent bad-faith withholding), past-due debts under $1,000, prior rental damage balances under $500, discharged bankruptcies or active Chapter 13 plans, medical or education debt, misdemeanor convictions with sentencing dates older than three years, or felony convictions with sentencing dates older than seven years. A landlord who uses stricter standards must conduct an individualized assessment before denying an applicant.⁶

If you’re denied in Portland, you have 30 days to submit supplemental evidence to the landlord — written information beyond the original application that bears on your likelihood of being a good tenant. The landlord must reconsider the denial after receiving it. This appeal right is specific to Portland; state law does not guarantee one, though some landlords elsewhere in Oregon offer an appeal voluntarily.⁶

1
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Code 90.295 – Applicant Screening Charges; Screening Criteria
2
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Code 90.303 – Evaluation of Applicant
3
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Housing Discrimination Under the Fair Housing Act
4
Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Code 90.304 – Statement of Reasons for Denial; Remedy
5
Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know
6
City of Portland. Portland City Code 30.01.086 – Evaluation of Applicants for Dwelling Units