Connecticut: Rental Application and Tenant-Screening Fee Requirements
The short answer
Connecticut prohibits a landlord from charging a prospective tenant for processing, reviewing, or accepting a rental application. A landlord may charge for a tenant screening report—defined to include credit, criminal-background, employment-history, and rental-history reports—but the fee cannot exceed $50 plus the annual CPI-U adjustment determined by the Commissioner of Housing. If the landlord charges it, the applicant must receive the report or information for obtaining it from the provider, plus the screening entity's receipt or invoice.
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This is the general rule in Connecticut. Ezel applies current Connecticut law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and coverage | Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 47a-1, 47a-2, and 47a-4d; owners, lessors, and sublessors charging prospective tenants for suitability reports on residential dwelling units, subject to § 47a-2 exclusions |
|---|---|
| Fees allowed or prohibited | Application processing/review/acceptance fees prohibited; tenant-screening-report fee allowed; other pre/beginning-of-tenancy charges limited to security deposit, first month's rent, and key/special-equipment deposit (§ 47a-4d(b)) |
| Maximum charge and adjustment | $50 plus an adjustment reflecting any CPI-U increase, determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing; no unofficial adjusted dollar figure substituted (§ 47a-4d(c)) |
| Permitted costs and charge timing | Fee may be charged for a report concerning the prospective tenant; statute does not impose an actual-cost ceiling or state when within the application process the screening fee may be collected (§ 47a-4d(c)) |
| Before-screening disclosures | No special unit-availability, fee-basis, screening-criteria, report-source, dispute-right, or application-order disclosure before charging in § 47a-4d |
| Receipt, report copy, and refund | Charging landlord must provide report copy—or provider-request information if prohibited from providing it—and screening entity's receipt/invoice; no statutory deadline, delivery method, unused-fee refund, or unconsidered-application refund (§ 47a-4d(d)) |
| Applicant-supplied or reusable reports | No applicant-supplied or reusable screening-report acceptance/no-fee procedure in § 47a-4d |
| Application order and adverse action | No first-in-order, first-qualified, single-application, or separate state denial-reason notice process in § 47a-4d |
| Remedies and stronger local rules | Section 47a-4d states no fee-specific damages, fixed penalty, attorney-fee rule, agency enforcement mechanism, or local-preemption clause |
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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 surfaced in this session. 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.
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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