Rental Application and Tenant-Screening Fee Requirements in Tennessee

At a glance

Tennessee's statewide rule

Tennessee does not have a special statewide statute setting a dollar or actual-cost ceiling for an ordinary residential rental-application or tenant-screening fee. The current residential statutes also do not prescribe when such a charge may be collected, what screening expenses it may include, what must be disclosed first, or whether the applicant must receive a receipt, report copy, refund, or reusable-report option.

That conclusion follows from a section-by-section audit, not from treating silence in one section as permission. Title 66, Chapter 28 contains the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (URLTA); Title 66, Chapter 7 contains the general lease provisions used outside URLTA's county coverage. Neither chapter contains an application-fee or tenant-screening process. The real-estate licensing scheme in Title 62, Chapter 13 likewise supplies no special applicant fee rule. Its § 62-13-204 says the Real Estate Commission may not set fees or commissions for real-estate contracts or transactions.

Coverage and the county split

URLTA coverage is fixed to counties with more than 75,000 people under the 2010 federal census. Public Chapter 182 deleted the former words "or any subsequent federal census" from § 66-28-102(a), so a later population increase does not newly bring a county into the Act.

Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-28-102(c)-(d) also excludes specified arrangements, including institutional residence incidental to services, occupancy under a contract of sale, transient hotel or motel occupancy, owner occupancy of a condominium or proprietary cooperative lease, and primarily agricultural premises. Regulated public or nonprofit housing is excluded only to the extent federal housing regulation conflicts with state law.

What the statutes do—and do not—cover

Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-28-104 defines a security deposit as an escrow payment under the rental agreement securing the landlord against specified financial loss. That security-deposit regime should not be turned into an unstated application-fee cap or refund rule. Conversely, the absence of a special application-fee statute does not decide whether a differently purposed payment is really a security or holding deposit.

The audited statutes state no special statewide requirement to:

• limit an application or screening charge to a flat amount or actual cost;
• wait until the application is considered or a unit is available;
• disclose screening criteria, report sources, or processing order;
• provide an itemized receipt or a copy of a screening report;
• refund an unused, duplicate, unconsidered, or denied-applicant fee;
• accept an applicant-supplied or reusable screening report; or
• follow first-in-order processing or issue a Tennessee application-denial notice.

Separate federal consumer-reporting law may require an adverse-action notice when a consumer report contributes to a denial or less favorable terms. That is not a Tennessee application-fee procedure and is outside this state-law cell.

Local regulation in URLTA counties

Public Chapter 182 added a broad field-preemption rule to § 66-28-102. In each county where URLTA applies, Chapter 28 "occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation concerning the regulation of landlords and tenants," and the county governing body may not add regulations or enforce conflicting ones. This is broader than an application-fee-specific clause, but it matters before assuming a covered county may create an additional applicant-fee process.

The 2026 companion bills HB 955 and SB 961 would have expressly allowed local governments to regulate maximum rents and rental application fees. Neither passed before the 114th General Assembly adjourned sine die, so they did not change current law.

Common questions

Is there a statewide $25, $50, or actual-cost cap? No special Tennessee statute in the audited landlord-tenant and real-estate licensing schemes sets one.

Must a landlord return the fee after denying the application? The audited Tennessee statutes create no denial-based application-fee refund rule.

Must a landlord accept my recent screening report? No Tennessee applicant-supplied or reusable-report procedure appears in the audited statutes.

Can a covered county add its own applicant protections? Section 66-28-102 bars a county subject to URLTA from adding to or conflicting with Chapter 28's landlord-tenant regulation. Local application requires careful review because the preemption language is broad rather than fee-specific.

Statutes and sources

• 2021 Tenn. Pub. Acts ch. 182, §§ 1-2 — current county-coverage amendment and URLTA field preemption.

  In the counties in which this chapter applies, this chapter occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation concerning the regulation of landlords and tenants.

Official source: https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/acts/112/pub/pc0182.pdf (accessed 2026-07-21) - Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 66-28-102, 66-28-104 — exclusions, coverage concepts, and residential definitions.

“Rental agreement” means all agreements, written or oral ... embodying the terms and conditions concerning the use and occupancy of a dwelling unit and premises.

Code source: https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-tn/transforms/tn/octn/r75/gov.tn.tca.title.66.html (accessed 2026-07-21) - Tenn. Code Ann. § 62-13-204 — Real Estate Commission cannot set transaction fees or commissions.

Nothing in this chapter shall allow the commission to set fees or commissions for real estate contracts or transactions.

Code source: https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-tn/transforms/tn/octn/r75/gov.tn.tca.title.62.html (accessed 2026-07-21)