State Tenant Screening Laws: Reusable Reports, Fee Caps and Criminal History Limits in Colorado, Washington and Oregon

Where State Law Adds to the FCRA

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act is mostly about the screening company: how accurate its reports are, how old the records in them can be, and how it handles disputes. The landlord appears in it mainly as the recipient of a duty to send an adverse action notice. The state statutes described here work the other way around. They are written into landlord-tenant codes and regulate the landlord's side of the application: money taken from applicants, the criteria used to judge them, and the paperwork that follows a denial.

Three states' statutes were read for this post from their legislatures' own publications: Colorado's Rental Application Fairness Act, part 9 of article 12 of title 38 of the Colorado Revised Statutes; the tenant screening provisions of Washington's Residential Landlord-Tenant Act in chapter 59.18 RCW; and Oregon's applicant screening sections in chapter 90 of the Oregon Revised Statutes. A fourth, California, was attempted and is addressed in the last section. The federal side of the same transaction is covered in the companion post on FCRA tenant screening reports, and Massachusetts, which regulates landlord access to state criminal records through its CORI law, has a post of its own.

Colorado needs a note on currency. The free compilation the General Assembly publishes is the 2024 edition of the statutes, and part 9 has been amended twice since: by House Bill 25-1236 (2025 Session Laws, chapter 399, effective January 1, 2026) and by House Bill 26-1196 (2026 Session Laws, chapter 326, effective January 1, 2027). The Colorado text below is the 2024 compilation read together with those two session laws as published on the legislature's site.

Reusable Screening Reports

The problem these provisions answer is stated in a Washington legislative finding attached to RCW 59.18.257: tenant screening reports are paid for by applicants, so "applicants who apply for housing with multiple housing providers pay repeated screening fees for successive reports containing essentially the same information." Washington and Colorado both answered it with a report the applicant buys once. They differ on whether the landlord has to take it.

Washington. RCW 59.18.030 defines a "comprehensive reusable tenant screening report" as one prepared by a consumer reporting agency at the direction of and paid for by the prospective tenant, made available directly to the landlord at no charge, and containing a consumer credit report prepared within the past 30 days, criminal history, eviction history, an employment verification, and address and rental history. RCW 59.18.257(1)(a)(iv) does not require a landlord to accept one. It requires the landlord, before obtaining any information about an applicant, to say in writing or by posting whether it will. Subsection (2) adds that a landlord with a website advertising units or informing tenants must state on the property's home page whether it accepts the report. A landlord that accepts it may still run its own screening, as long as the applicant is not charged for that report.

Colorado. Colorado went further. Under section 38-12-904(1.5)(a) of the Colorado Revised Statutes, a landlord "shall accept" a portable tenant screening report, defined in section 38-12-902(2.5) to include name, contact information, verification of employment and income, last-known address, and for each prior jurisdiction of residence a rental and credit history report and a criminal history record check for convictions. The landlord may require that the report was completed within the previous 30 days, that it is available at no cost to access or use, and a statement from the applicant that nothing material has changed since it was generated. Section 38-12-903(2)(b) then bars charging a rental application fee to an applicant who provides one, and 38-12-904(1.5)(c) bars charging a fee to access or use it.

The 2025 amendments narrowed what a landlord may insist on. Chapter 399 repealed the paragraph that let a landlord require the report to be made directly available by the consumer reporting agency or through a third-party website, and amended the definition so that a credit history report, credit score or adverse credit event is not required in a portable report from an applicant renting with a housing subsidy. The act applies to applications submitted on or after January 1, 2026.

Colorado's acceptance duty has an exemption. Under section 38-12-904(1.5)(f), it does not apply to a landlord that accepts no more than one application fee at a time for a unit (or one per applicant or tenant group, for a unit rented to several occupants) and refunds the whole fee within 20 calendar days after either side declines to enter a lease.

Screening Fee Limits and Disclosure

All three states tie what an applicant can be charged to what screening actually costs, and all three condition the charge on telling the applicant something first.

• Colorado, section 38-12-903: the whole fee must go to the landlord's costs of processing the application, measured either as actual cost or as an average across applicants; the fee must be the same for every applicant for the unit (or for all units offered at the same time); the landlord gives a receipt and either a disclosure of anticipated expenses or an itemization of actual ones; unused money is remitted, with a good-faith effort to do so within 20 calendar days.
• Washington, RCW 59.18.257(1)(b): a landlord may charge for a screening report only if it first gave the subsection (1)(a) notice, which lists the types of information to be accessed, the criteria that may result in denial and, where a consumer report is used, the agency's name and address and the applicant's rights to a free copy and to dispute it. A landlord doing its own screening may charge actual costs, capped at what a screening service in the area customarily charges.
• Oregon, ORS 90.295: one applicant screening charge within any 60-day period regardless of how many of the landlord's units the applicant applies for; no more than the landlord's average actual cost or the customary amount charged by screening companies; no charge at all unless the landlord has adopted written screening criteria and given written notice of the amount, the criteria, the screening process, dispute and appeal rights, nondiscrimination policies, rent and deposits, renter's insurance requirements and the refund and damages rights.

Oregon adds rules about timing that the other two do not have in the sections read. ORS 90.295(4) bars a screening charge when the landlord knows or should know no units are or soon will be available, unless the applicant agrees otherwise in writing, and subsection (3)(c) requires an estimate of how many comparable units are available and how many applications are already under consideration. Subsection (5) requires a refund within 30 days if the unit is filled before screening or the applicant withdraws in writing before any screening is ordered.

Colorado's 2026 act adds a disclosure that is not a fee rule. From January 1, 2027, chapter 326 adds section 38-12-904(1.7), requiring every rental application to include a notice of the information the landlord will try to access, a general description of the factors it will consider (credit history, rental history, income and criminal background, if applicable), and whether it uses a third-party screening service and, if so, which. The same subsection states that it does not require a landlord to adopt or disclose fixed disqualifying criteria.

Criminal History in Rental Decisions

The FCRA limits how old a reported arrest can be. It does not limit what a landlord does with a conviction. Colorado and Oregon do.

Colorado, section 38-12-904(1)(b): a landlord that uses criminal history may not consider an arrest record "from any time," or any conviction more than five years before the application, except convictions or deferred judgments for methamphetamine distribution or manufacture, possession of materials to make methamphetamine, an offense requiring sex offender registration, and offenses in parts 1 and 6 of article 3 of title 18. Rental and credit history is separately limited to the seven years before the application by paragraph (1)(a).

Oregon, ORS 90.303: an arrest may be considered only if it led to charges in the listed categories and either produced a conviction or is still pending without the applicant being in a diversion, conditional discharge or deferral program. Convictions and pending charges may be considered only for conduct presently illegal in Oregon that is a drug-related crime (excluding convictions based solely on marijuana use or possession), a person crime, a sex offense, a financial fraud crime, or another crime whose conduct would adversely affect property or residents' health, safety or peaceful enjoyment. The same section bars considering an eviction action that was dismissed or ended in a judgment for the applicant, or a judgment against the applicant entered five or more years before the application. ORS 90.304(5) adds a procedure: before denying on criminal history, the landlord must let the applicant submit supplemental evidence and conduct an individualized assessment weighing the nature and severity of the incidents, their number and type, the time elapsed and the applicant's age at the time.

Washington. None of the RCW chapter 59.18 sections read for this post limits criminal history as a screening criterion. Two adjacent provisions limit what a screening company may report. RCW 59.18.367 lets a court order an unlawful detainer action to be of limited dissemination, after which a screening company may neither disclose it nor use it in a score or recommendation. RCW 59.18.580 bars disclosure of an applicant's status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

Notice When an Application Is Denied

Each state requires a written explanation and each specifies a different amount of detail.

• Colorado, section 38-12-904(2): a written notice stating the reasons for denial; where the application led the landlord to obtain a consumer report, a copy of that report and an advisement of the right to dispute it under the Colorado consumer credit reporting statute; where a proprietary scoring system prevents citing criteria, the screening company's report with only proprietary information redacted. Electronic delivery is allowed unless the applicant asks for paper, and the landlord makes a good-faith effort to send it within 20 calendar days of the decision.
• Washington, RCW 59.18.257(1)(c): a written adverse action notice stating the reasons, in a format substantially similar to a statutory form that marks the application rejected or approved with conditions (an increased deposit, a guarantor, last month's rent or higher rent) and checks the basis: a consumer report (with the agency's name, address and phone), insufficient credit information, rental history, a criminal record, a civil record or employment verification.
• Oregon, ORS 90.304: a written statement of one or more reasons within 14 days, which may be a checklist; it must name any screening company or credit reporting agency whose report was relied on (if not previously disclosed), describe any supplemental evidence the applicant offered and why it did not outweigh the negative factors, and state any appeal right.

Remedies the Statutes Provide

These are private statutes with fixed-dollar remedies, which is the main structural difference from the FCRA's actual-damages model. Colorado section 38-12-905 makes a landlord who violates part 9 liable for $2,500 plus court costs and reasonable attorney fees, requires seven days' notice before suit, and limits a landlord who cures within seven days to a $50 penalty; a person who brings a meritless claim purposefully and in bad faith pays the landlord's costs and fees. Washington RCW 59.18.257(3) caps liability for violating the subsection (1) notice and fee rules at $100, plus court costs and attorneys' fees to the prevailing party. Oregon ORS 90.295(6)(b) sets twice the screening charge plus $250, and ORS 90.304(6) sets $100 for a failure to comply with the denial-notice section.

What These Statutes Do Not Reach

California was reserved for this post along with Colorado and Washington. Its official code site, leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, returned an automated-access block on every request made during research, so no California statute was read and none is described or tagged here. That is a gap in this survey, not a statement that California has no such rules.

Several limits follow from the sources themselves. Oregon's ORS 90.303 carries a legislative note that a different version of the section becomes operative January 2, 2028, which drops the paragraph excluding judgments on claims that arose between April 1, 2020 and March 1, 2022 and the parallel rule on unpaid rent from that period. City ordinances, including local fair-chance housing rules, sit outside all three state codes and were not surveyed. And none of these statutes displaces the FCRA: Washington's section says so in terms at RCW 59.18.257(4), preserving rights and duties under the state's own credit reporting chapter, 19.182 RCW.

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