Sponsors
The bill improves renters' privacy and access to housing by banning credit-based tenant screening, especially helping low-income and minority applicants, but it removes a screening tool landlords rely on—likely shifting screening costs or methods, creating administrative burdens, and potentially affecting housing availability or pricing.
Renters and other consumers: The bill bans use of credit-based consumer reports for tenant screening, protecting credit privacy and reducing denials or demands for higher deposits based on credit histories.
Low-income individuals and people with thin or poor credit histories: The bill lowers a common barrier to housing access, which is likely to improve housing stability for those groups.
Renters and racial/ethnic minorities: By encouraging housing decisions based on non-credit factors, the bill can reduce disparate impacts tied to credit disparities and advance housing equity.
Housing providers and small landlords: They lose a commonly used credit-based screening tool, which may prompt higher rents, stricter screening requirements, or reduced willingness to rent, potentially increasing costs or limiting housing availability.
Renters and applicants: Landlords may substitute other intrusive checks (e.g., employment verification or expanded criminal-background checks), which can continue to burden applicants and raise fairness concerns.
Housing providers: Implementing required individualized reconsideration procedures and complying with new definitions will increase administrative burden, paperwork, and potential disputes.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits housing providers from using consumer credit or investigative reports containing credit information for tenant screening, with a narrow reconsideration exception.
Prohibits housing providers from using consumer reports or investigative consumer reports that contain credit-related information to screen, approve, set deposits or lease terms, or retain tenants. The only exception allows a housing provider to use a consumer report previously provided to it solely to reconsider a rental application it had earlier denied. The change is made by amending the Fair Credit Reporting Act to add a specific ban on credit-report–based tenant screening and to define key terms like “tenant screening purposes” and “housing provider.” No funding or effective date is specified in the text provided.
Introduced July 14, 2025 by Maxwell Frost · Last progress July 14, 2025