Rental Application and Tenant-Screening Fee Requirements in Connecticut

At a glance

Application fees are banned; screening-report fees are separate

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-1(c) defines the covered dwelling unit as a house, building, or portion designed, rented, or used as a home or residence, while § 47a-1(d) defines landlord to include an owner, lessor, or sublessor. Section 47a-2 lists institutional, purchaser, specified organization-member, transient- lodging, condominium-owner, and personal-care-assistant arrangements outside the chapter.

Connecticut General Statutes § 47a-4d(b) bars a landlord from demanding any payment, fee, or charge for processing, reviewing, or accepting a rental application. It also bars other charges before or at the beginning of the tenancy except for the listed categories: a statutory security deposit, first month's rent in advance, a key or special-equipment deposit, and the tenant- screening-report fee allowed by subsection (c). Move-in and move-out fees are separately prohibited.

The screening exception is defined narrowly by purpose. Under subsection (a), a "tenant screening report" is a credit report, criminal-background report, employment-history report, rental-history report, or any combination of those, used by a landlord to decide a prospective tenant's suitability.

Maximum charge and annual adjustment

Section 47a-4d(c) sets the ceiling at $50 plus an adjustment reflecting any increase in the consumer price index for urban consumers, as determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing. The statute does not call this an actual-cost cap; subsection (d)'s invoice-copy duty does not change the formula into one.

No current official Department of Housing posting stating a separate adjusted dollar ceiling was found. The operative answer therefore remains the statutory formula—not an unofficial calculation or a frozen prior-year number. Before collecting the fee, confirm the Commissioner's current annual determination.

Report or retrieval information, plus the vendor receipt

If the landlord charges the screening fee, subsection (d) requires two things:

• a copy of the tenant screening report, or, if the landlord is prohibited from providing it, information that lets the applicant request a copy from the service provider; and
• a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity that conducted the screening.

The section states no deadline or required delivery method. It also states no unused-fee, excess-fee, duplicate-fee, or unconsidered-application refund process.

What the section does not add

Section 47a-4d does not require a precharge disclosure of unit availability, the fee basis, screening criteria, report source, dispute rights, or application order. It creates no applicant-supplied or reusable-report acceptance procedure, no first-in-order or first-qualified rule, and no separate state denial-reason notice. Federal consumer-reporting duties may apply separately.

The section also states no fee-specific damages formula, fixed penalty, attorney- fee provision, enforcement agency, or local-preemption clause. Other generally applicable remedies or local rules require separate analysis.

What trips people up

An application fee and a screening-report fee are not interchangeable. A landlord cannot relabel payment for processing, reviewing, or accepting the application as screening. The allowed fee must be for a report within the statutory definition.

The receipt does not create an actual-cost ceiling. Connecticut requires the screening entity's receipt or invoice, but § 47a-4d(c) states a $50-plus-CPI ceiling rather than the lesser of actual cost and that ceiling.

The report-copy alternative is conditional. The landlord may substitute provider-request information only if the landlord is prohibited from giving the report copy.

Common questions

Can a landlord charge both an application fee and a screening fee? No. The application processing/review/acceptance fee is prohibited. A qualifying tenant- screening-report fee may be charged within the statutory ceiling.

What reports count? Credit, criminal-background, employment-history, and rental-history reports, alone or combined, when used to determine the prospective tenant's suitability.

Must the applicant receive the underlying report? Ordinarily yes. If the landlord is prohibited from providing it, the applicant instead receives enough information to request it from the provider. The vendor receipt or invoice is also required.

Is the cap exactly $50 today? The statute says $50 plus an annual CPI-U adjustment determined by the Commissioner of Housing. Confirm the current official determination rather than assuming the unadjusted base or calculating an amount independently.

Statutes and sources

• Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-4d(a)-(b) — report definition, application-fee ban, permitted beginning-of-tenancy charges, and move-in/move-out-fee ban.

  No landlord may demand from a prospective tenant any payment, fee or charge for the processing, review or acceptance of any rental application ...

Official source: https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_830.htm (accessed 2026-07-21) - Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-4d(c) — screening-fee ceiling and annual adjustment.

A landlord may charge a fee not exceeding fifty dollars plus an adjustment reflecting any increase in the consumer price index for urban consumers, as determined by the Commissioner of Housing on an annual basis ...

Official source: https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_830.htm (accessed 2026-07-21) - Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-4d(d) — report access and vendor receipt or invoice.

A landlord that charges a fee ... shall provide the prospective tenant with (1) a copy of the tenant screening report or ... information ... that would allow such tenant to request a copy ... and (2) a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity conducting the tenant screening report ...

Official source: https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_830.htm (accessed 2026-07-21) - Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 47a-1 and 47a-2 — landlord/dwelling coverage and arrangements outside the chapter.

"Landlord" means the owner, lessor or sublessor of the dwelling unit, the building of which it is a part or the premises.

Official source: https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_830.htm (accessed 2026-07-21)

Because direct cga.ct.gov retrieval failed with an SSL error, the quoted current official text was fetched through a Wayback capture of that same CGA page made July 1, 2026: https://web.archive.org/web/20260701000000/https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_830.htm.