How to run a background check on a rental applicant

A stack of rental applications just hit your inbox. Six people want your place, and you need to figure out which one will pay on time, treat the home well, and stick around.

A background check is how you find out. But the order you run each piece in, what you’re allowed to look at, and what you tell applicants matter just as much as the reports themselves.

That’s especially true in D.C., where the screening rules are some of the strictest in the region. A lot of owners we talk to assume they can pull every report on day one and decide from there. Here, that approach can get you fined.

This post is for self-managing owners, accidental landlords, and investors who are new to this market. We’ll go through the process in order: the written notice, the fee, income and credit, eviction history, landlord references, the criminal check, and what to do when the answer is no. By the end you’ll have a screening process you can defend if anyone ever asks.

In This Guide

Put Your Screening Criteria in Writing First

Before you ask an applicant for a single document or a single dollar, local law requires a written screening notice. You can hand it to them or post it where applicants will see it, like your listing page.

It has to cover a lot:

• Fees and deposits: Every one, what it pays for, and whether it’s refundable.
• What you’ll check: The types of information you plan to review.
• Automatic denials: Any criteria that mean an automatic no.
• Other denial criteria: Things that might lead to a denial but aren’t automatic.
• The reporting agency: Its name and contact info, plus the applicant’s right to a free copy of the report if denied.
• Your timeline: How many units you expect to have open and how many days you’ll take to decide.
• Applicant rights: The right to dispute wrong or prohibited information, the right to a refund of any unused fee, and the right to complain to the Office of Human Rights (OHR) or sue in Superior Court.

There’s a second layer, too. The criminal record screening law says that before you accept a fee, you must disclose your financial, employment, criminal, and rental-history criteria in writing. You also have to tell applicants they can give you evidence that their record is wrong, or evidence of rehabilitation or other mitigating factors.

Think of it like posting the house rules before anyone sits down at the card table. Nobody can say you changed the game halfway through.

Write it once. Use it every time.

Keep the Application Fee Small and Honest

For calendar year 2026, the application fee cap is $54. The statute sets a $50 base and lets the number rise each year with inflation, and the Rental Housing Commission publishes the new figure. The cap applies whether the unit is rent-controlled or not.

A few more fee rules that catch out-of-area owners off guard:

• One fee only. Before the lease is signed, the application fee is the only fee you can charge. No admin fees, no holding fees.
• Voucher holders. You can’t require a holding deposit from an applicant using a government-funded housing voucher.
• Multiple units. If someone applies for more than one of your units within 30 calendar days, you get one fee unless you actually have to run more than one screening.
• No screening, no fee. If you don’t screen an applicant for any reason, you owe them a refund within 14 days.

So charging $75 because that’s what your screening service costs isn’t a defense. Pick a tool that fits under the cap, or absorb the difference.

Start With Income and Credit

Once your notice is out and the fee is in, the financial review comes first. It’s the least sensitive piece and often answers the biggest question fast.

The income check

Three times the monthly rent in gross income is a common baseline. Our average rent is around $2,500 a month, so a typical applicant would need roughly $7,500 a month before taxes to clear that bar.

Verify it. Pay stubs, an offer letter, a quick call to the employer. A number on an application form is a claim, not proof.

Our tenant pool has a quirk worth knowing. Plenty of applicants are federal employees, contractors, and consultants with strong, documented income. Some of them also plan to be in town for a year and then move on. So ask about intended lease length alongside income. A well-paid tenant who leaves after 12 months still means a turnover.

That matters even more if your unit falls under rent control. Rent-controlled units limit how much you can raise rent over time, so the tenant you pick may be with you at roughly that rent for a long while. Choose carefully.

Why the credit score isn’t the verdict

Here’s a take some owners don’t love. A 720 credit score tells you someone is good at managing debt. It doesn’t tell you whether they’ll pay rent on time, report a leak, or keep the music down at 1 a.m.

Local law backs this up. You can’t deny an applicant based only on their credit score, or because they have no score at all. You can rely on information in the report that bears directly on whether they’ll be a good tenant, like unpaid rent owed to a prior landlord.

Lots of high earners here carry big student loans. That can drag a score down without saying anything about how they treat a rental.

Check Eviction History, but Only the Part You Can Use

Eviction records are useful. They’re also one of the easiest places to break the rules without realizing it.

You may not ask about, require disclosure of, or deny based on an eviction case unless it ended in a judgment for possession for the landlord and was filed less than 3 years ago.

Running a DC Landlord Tenant Court Case search on an applicant’s name might turn up filings you legally can’t consider. Seeing an old filing isn’t the problem. Basing a decision on it is.

Now picture a landlord who skips this check entirely to save a day. The tenant they place had a judgment for possession entered against them 18 months ago. Four months in, rent stops. Evictions can take months from notice to judgment, so six months of lost rent on a $2,500 unit could easily run $15,000 or more before the owner gets the keys back.

One legal check could have flagged it.

Call the Previous Landlords. Actually Call Them.

Imagine an owner whose new tenant looked perfect on paper. Solid income, clean credit, good job. Nobody ever called the past landlords. Two months later the neighbors are complaining about noise and damage in the hallway.

A single phone call might have surfaced that pattern. Credit reports don’t track how loud someone is.

When you call, ask simple questions:

1. Did they pay rent on time, every month?
2. Did neighbors complain about them?
3. What condition was the unit in at move-out?
4. Would you rent to them again?

That last one is the most telling. Listen for the pause.

Oh, and try to reach the landlord before the current one. A current landlord who wants a problem tenant gone has every reason to give a glowing review.

Keep the limits in mind here, too. You can’t use an alleged lease breach from 3 or more years ago. You also can’t use one tied to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking, one where the applicant was a crime victim in the unit, or one related to a disability in the household.

Our pet policy is case by case, so for applicants with animals we also ask past landlords how the pet behaved and whether it caused any damage.

Run the Criminal Check Last, After a Conditional Offer

This is the step where owners from other markets get into the most trouble.

The order matters

You may not ask about criminal history or run a criminal check until you’ve made a conditional offer. That’s an approval that depends on the criminal check or other remaining criteria. You can have the applicant sign the authorization forms up front, but you can’t run the check until the offer is made.

Two more hard lines. You may never ask about or consider an arrest that didn’t lead to a conviction. And you can’t ask about pending charges or convictions for household members under 18.

What you can actually consider

After the conditional offer, you may consider only pending charges or convictions from the past 7 years, and only for the 48 offenses listed in the law. These include arson, burglary, serious assaults, robbery, kidnapping, sexual abuse, trafficking, fraud, forgery, and certain drug distribution offenses. Anything else is off the table.

Even a listed offense isn’t an automatic no. You can withdraw the offer only if doing so serves a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest, judged against six factors:

• Seriousness: How serious the offense was.
• Age: How old the applicant was at the time.
• Time: How long ago it happened.
• Rehabilitation: Any evidence the person has moved forward.
• Risk: The actual risk to other tenants or the property.
• Connection: Whether it happened on, or was tied to, property the applicant rented.

If you withdraw, you must explain why in writing, with specifics, and tell the applicant they can file a complaint with OHR. They have 20 days to ask for everything you relied on, and you must provide it free within 10 days of a timely request.

One narrow exemption exists. An owner who owns and lives in a building with 3 or fewer rental units is exempt from the criminal-screening rules. That exemption does not cover the general screening rules from earlier sections.

If You Say No, Your Paperwork Has to Say Why

Denials get their own set of D.C. landlord-tenant rules, and it’s not enough to send a quick “sorry, we went another way” text.

By the response date you promised in your screening notice, you must send written notice with:

• The specific reasons for the denial
• A free copy or summary of any third-party information you relied on
• A statement of the right to dispute that information’s accuracy, and whether you were allowed to use it
• A statement of the right to complain to OHR

If a denied applicant sends evidence that something was wrong, belonged to someone else, or was prohibited, you have 10 days to answer in writing.

Federal law layers on its own adverse action notice when a consumer report played any part in the decision. It covers things like the reporting agency’s contact information, a statement that the agency didn’t make the decision, and the applicant’s right to a free copy of the report and to dispute it. Check the current federal text before you build your template. One notice doesn’t replace the other. You need both.

Consistency Is Your Best Protection

Say an owner self-manages a townhome in Petworth and gets six applications over a weekend. They like one applicant’s vibe, wave off another for “a gut feeling,” and never wrote down their criteria. If the rejected applicant belongs to a protected class, that owner may have a hard time showing the rejection had nothing to do with it.

Gut feelings don’t hold up. Written criteria do.

So run every applicant through the same steps, in the same order, against the same standards. Save your notes and the reports. If a question ever comes up, your file should tell the whole story without you in the room.

If you’re self-managing and unsure your process holds up, look into free landlord tenant legal advice DC resources or talk with an attorney before you finalize your criteria. It’s a lot cheaper than finding out the hard way.

How We Handle Screening for Our Owners

Eric, who owns and runs Urban to Suburban, has worked in leasing and compliance in this market since 2008 and started the company in 2011. That background is why our screening starts with the written notice and ends with the paperwork, not the other way around.

We run applications through AppFolio and Buildium, both of which have screening tools built in for credit, criminal, and eviction history. The software handles the reports. A person who knows the rules makes the call, in the right order.

With 230 properties under management, we see a lot of applications, and our vacancy rate sits at 3.0%. One owner couple who has worked with us for almost two years described the goal well. They said they’ve been impressed with Eric’s ability to keep their “units rented by qualified quality tenants.”

Another long-term client mentioned something we take seriously. Eric “always keeps us aware of new rules and policies.” Screening law here changes, and owners shouldn’t have to track every update alone.

Screening is part of our leasing fee, which is 80% of one month’s rent. Management runs 8% of collected rent. No extra screening or admin fees stacked on top.

If screening applicants feels like more legal homework than you signed up for, we’re open to a conversation.

FAQ

How much can I charge for a rental application fee?

For 2026, the cap is $54, and it applies to both rent-controlled and other units. The Rental Housing Commission adjusts the figure each year, so check the current number before you list.

Can I deny an applicant because of bad credit?

Not based on the score alone, and not because they have no credit history. You can rely on specific information in the report that relates to being a good tenant, like money owed to a past landlord.

When am I allowed to run a criminal background check?

Only after you make a conditional offer. You can collect the signed authorization earlier, but the check itself has to wait, and you can only consider listed offenses from the past 7 years after an individual review.

How far back can I look at eviction records?

Only cases filed less than 3 years ago that ended in a judgment for possession for the landlord. Dismissed cases, settled cases, and older judgments can’t be part of your decision.

Do these rules apply if I rent out part of the home I live in?

If you own and live in a building with 3 or fewer rental units, you’re exempt from the criminal-screening rules. The general screening rules, including the written notice, fee cap, and denial notice, still apply to you.