Free Connecticut Application Screening Fee Receipt
Connecticut does two opposite things to the money a landlord takes from an applicant. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-4d a processing or application fee is banned outright — along with any other pre-tenancy charge outside a closed list of four, and move-in and move-out fees — while a tenant screening fee is permitted but capped at fifty dollars plus a consumer-price-index adjustment determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing, so fifty dollars is the base and not today’s ceiling. The practical work is classification: decide which of the two your charge really is before you take it. Charging the screening fee also obliges you to hand the applicant a copy of the screening report and a copy of the vendor’s receipt or invoice. All of it runs on a letting chapter 830 governs: § 47a-2 exempts six arrangements from that chapter — transient hotel, motel or similar lodging, a condominium owner’s own occupancy and institutional residence among them — plus a mobile manufactured home park lot let to a resident home-owner. This generator produces a plain record of the charge, what it paid for, and the vendor cost behind it.
Most states that regulate the rental application fee do it with a single instrument: they cap the charge, or they tie it to cost, or they require a refund. Connecticut does something structurally different, and it is the reason a landlord can comply with the number and still be charging unlawfully. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-4d, enacted by Public Act 23-207 and confirmed unamended through the 2025 session, separates the money an applicant hands over into two categories and treats them oppositely. A processing or application fee — the charge for the administrative work of taking and reviewing the application — is banned, and so is any other payment, fee or charge demanded before or at the beginning of the tenancy apart from a security deposit under § 47a-21, advance first month’s rent, a deposit for a key or special equipment, and the screening fee itself; move-in and move-out fees are banned by name. A tenant screening fee — the charge for obtaining screening information about the applicant — is permitted, but capped at a figure the statute expresses as fifty dollars plus an adjustment for any increase in the consumer price index for urban consumers, as determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing. Charging that fee also obliges the landlord to give the applicant a copy of the screening report, or the means of obtaining it, together with a copy of the screening company’s receipt or invoice. The consequence is that the first question a Connecticut landlord has to answer is a classification question rather than an arithmetic one. A fee for your own labour in reviewing an application is unlawful at any amount, so a landlord who charges a modest sum for paperwork handling has not merely over-charged; it has charged something the statute does not permit at all. Meanwhile the screening fee, which is allowed, carries a ceiling that moves. Fifty dollars is the base the index runs on, not the amount in force, and a page that reports “Connecticut caps the application fee at fifty dollars” is quoting a figure the statute itself supersedes by its own indexing clause. This page states the mechanism and declines to state a number it has not verified. One question precedes both halves. § 47a-4d is a section of chapter 830, so it governs what that chapter governs, and § 47a-2 — “Arrangements exempted from application of title” — provides that six arrangements are not governed by it: institutional residence incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counselling or religious service; occupancy under a contract of sale by the purchaser or a successor; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in the part of a structure run for its benefit; transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging; occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit; and occupancy by a personal care assistant housed in the residence of the person with a disability who employs them. Subsection (b) adds the rental of a space or lot in a mobile manufactured home park to a resident who owns the home — though the chapter does apply where the home and premises are let by someone other than the home’s owner. On an ordinary residential letting the ban is unqualified; whether yours is one is a question of fact this page cannot decide for you.
Build the record
Fill in the fields below and the generator produces a dated PDF you can print, sign and give to the applicant, keeping a copy for your file. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields you leave blank print as a dash so you can complete them by hand.
The classification is the whole rule: one charge is banned, the other is only capped
Start one section earlier than the ban, with the chapter it lives in. § 47a-4d is part of chapter 830, and § 47a-2 is that chapter’s scope section, captioned “Arrangements exempted from application of title”. Six arrangements “are not governed by this chapter”: residence at an institution, public or private, if incidental to detention or the provision of medical, geriatric, educational, counselling or religious service or any similar service; occupancy under a contract of sale of a dwelling unit or the property of which it is a part, if the occupant is the purchaser or a person who succeeds to that interest; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in the portion of a structure operated for that organization’s benefit; transient occupancy in a hotel or motel or similar lodging; occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit; and occupancy by a personal care assistant or other person employed by a person with a disability to assist with daily living activities or housekeeping and provided dwelling space in that person’s residence as a benefit or condition of the employment. Subsection (b) removes one more: the rental of a space or lot in a mobile manufactured home park by a resident of the park who is also the owner of the mobile manufactured home. Read that second one carefully in both directions, because the same subsection says the chapter does apply to the rental of a mobile manufactured home and premises in such a park by a person other than the home’s owner. Two limits sit inside the exemption itself. Subsection (a) opens with an anti-avoidance clause — an arrangement created to avoid the chapter’s application is governed by it after all — and subsection (c) defines the transient limb rather than leaving it to impression: occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging for less than thirty days is transient, except where the unit is occupied as the occupant’s primary residence from the beginning; occupancy for thirty days or more is not transient, except where the unit is not the occupant’s primary residence and the occupancy is for less than ninety days. That is a gate on this page, not a doubt about the ban. Inside the chapter the prohibition below is absolute; outside it, chapter 830 does not reach the arrangement at all and this page does not describe what does. The classification is a question of fact about your particular letting and no page can settle it for you. Start from what the two labels actually describe, because they are doing different work. A processing or application fee is a charge for the landlord’s own administration — receiving the form, reading it, checking the references, keeping the file, answering the applicant. It is a charge for your time. A tenant screening fee is a charge for obtaining screening information about the applicant — the consumer report, the background product, the search you pay a vendor to run. It is a charge for a thing you buy. Connecticut bans the first and permits the second up to a ceiling, so the label is not cosmetic. It decides lawfulness. The practical trap is the single undifferentiated charge. Most landlords ask for one sum at the point of application and think of it as one fee. If that sum is set at a level that covers a vendor product plus something for the office work, then part of it is a processing fee whatever it is called on the form. Calling the whole thing a screening fee does not convert it into one; the label follows what the money pays for, not what the receipt says. The reverse is equally true — a charge described as an application fee that in fact does nothing but reimburse a screening product is being mislabelled in a way that invites a complaint the substance would not support. So the defensible practice is to charge for the screening, and to be able to point at what the screening cost. Take the vendor invoice, set the charge against it, and say on the record what product was bought and from whom. § 47a-4d does not impose an itemization duty, and this page does not claim one — but it does require you to give the applicant a copy of that receipt or invoice, along with a copy of the screening report or the information needed to obtain it from the provider. So the invoice is doing two jobs at once: it is the fact that answers the classification question, and it is a document the applicant is entitled to receive. A landlord who can produce the invoice has an answer. A landlord holding a round number with nothing behind it has a charge that looks like a fee for its own sake, and nothing to hand over. And the ceiling is a ceiling, not an entitlement. The statute permits a screening fee up to the indexed maximum; it does not tell you that the maximum is what you may routinely collect. Where the screening genuinely cost less, charging the ceiling anyway pushes the surplus back toward the category Connecticut prohibits, because a sum above what the screening cost is by definition paying for something other than the screening. Whether Connecticut would treat that surplus as a banned processing fee was not established by the research behind this page, and it is not asserted here — but it is the obvious argument, and it costs a landlord nothing to avoid making it available.
Watch: Connecticut Rental Application Fee Receipt explained
Connecticut application fee at a glance
Settle this first: is your charge a banned fee or a capped one?
Connecticut has two answers, not one. A processing or application fee — a charge for the administrative work of receiving, reviewing and handling an application — is prohibited, and no amount makes it lawful; so is any other payment, fee or charge demanded before or at the beginning of the tenancy outside the statute’s closed list of four. A tenant screening fee — a charge for obtaining screening information about the applicant — is allowed up to a ceiling the statute states as fifty dollars plus a CPI-for-urban-consumers adjustment determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing. Getting the label right therefore decides whether the money may be taken at all. This page deliberately does not state a current dollar amount, because the operative figure is the Commissioner’s determination and it was not retrieved for this page. And settle one thing ahead of the classification. § 47a-4d is a section of chapter 830, and § 47a-2, “Arrangements exempted from application of title”, puts six arrangements outside that chapter — among them transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging, occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit, and institutional residence incidental to detention or care — along with a mobile manufactured home park lot rented to a resident who owns the home. Which one your letting is, is a question of fact about your property that this page cannot answer for you
The outright ban
a processing or application fee may not be charged. This is not a cap that a small figure satisfies; it is a prohibition, so a modest administrative charge is in the same position as a large one. The same subsection goes further and bars any other payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy except a § 47a-21 security deposit, advance first month’s rent, a key or special-equipment deposit and the screening fee — and bans move-in and move-out fees outright
The capped permission, and what charging it obliges you to hand over
a tenant screening fee is permitted, subject to a maximum the statute sets at fifty dollars plus an adjustment for any increase in the consumer price index for urban consumers, as determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing. Fifty dollars is the base the index runs on, which is why quoting it flat as the ceiling mis-states the law. And a landlord that charges the fee must give the applicant a copy of the tenant screening report — or the information needed to request it from the provider, where the landlord is prohibited from supplying a copy — and a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity that conducted the screening
The classification problem in between
one payment often covers both things at once. If an applicant hands over a single sum that pays for a credit report and for your time reviewing the file, part of that payment is a fee Connecticut does not allow you to charge. Splitting the charge on paper is the only way to show which side of the line it sits on
What § 47a-4d establishes, the chapter it sits in, the figure this page will not give you, and where the research stops
§ 47a-2 — Arrangements exempted from application of title. This is the gate on everything below, because § 47a-4d is a section of chapter 830. Unless created to avoid the application of the chapter and a named list of sections, “the following arrangements are not governed by this chapter”: residence at an institution, public or private, if incidental to detention or the provision of medical, geriatric, educational, counselling or religious service, or any similar service; occupancy under a contract of sale of a dwelling unit or the property of which such unit is a part, if the occupant is the purchaser or a person who succeeds to that interest; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in the portion of a structure operated for the benefit of that organization; transient occupancy in a hotel or motel or similar lodging; occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit; and occupancy by a personal care assistant or other person employed by a person with a disability to assist with daily living activities or housekeeping chores and provided dwelling space in that person’s personal residence as a benefit or condition of the employment. Subsection (b): except as otherwise provided in chapter 412 or in chapter 830, the chapter does not apply to the rental of a space or lot in a mobile manufactured home park by a resident of the park who also owns the mobile manufactured home — but it does apply to the rental of a mobile manufactured home and premises in such a park by a person other than the home’s owner. Subsection (c) defines the transient limb: occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging for less than thirty days is transient unless the unit is occupied as the occupant’s primary residence from the beginning; occupancy for thirty days or more is not transient unless the unit is not the occupant’s primary residence and the occupancy is for less than ninety days. History: P.A. 76-95; 76-435; P.A. 79-571; P.A. 91-383; P.A. 98-61; P.A. 02-30; P.A. 03-278. The definition. A tenant screening report means a credit report, a criminal background report, an employment history report, a rental history report or any combination of those, used to determine an applicant’s suitability. The prohibition. A landlord may not demand any payment, fee or charge for the processing, review or acceptance of a rental application. This is a ban rather than a limit, so it is not satisfied by keeping the amount small. The same subsection also bars any other payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy, with only four exceptions — a security deposit under § 47a-21, advance payment of the first month’s rent, a deposit for a key or any special equipment, and the screening fee below — and it bans move-in and move-out fees by name. The permission. On and after 1 October 2023 a tenant screening fee is permitted. The ceiling, and its index. That screening fee may not exceed 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. Fifty dollars is the base figure the adjustment runs on, not the operative maximum. This page does not print a current figure. The Commissioner’s determination was not retrieved in preparing this page, and publishing an unverified dollar ceiling into a form a landlord will rely on is precisely the error the indexing creates. Note that the code prints only the fifty-dollar base, so the operative amount has to come from the Commissioner’s annual determination rather than from the statute as published. The two deliveries. A landlord that charges a fee for a tenant screening report must give the prospective tenant a copy of that report — or, if the landlord is prohibited from providing a copy, information about the report that would let the tenant request a copy from the service provider that produced it — and a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity conducting the screening. The provenance. The section comes from Public Act 23-207, enacted in 2023, and was confirmed unamended through the 2025 session; the text was retrieved from the General Assembly’s own publication of the chapter, with a content-based control proving the host was serving the section rather than a shell. The unit of the charge. Subsections (c) and (d) both run on the phrase “a tenant screening report concerning a prospective tenant”, so the fee and its ceiling attach per prospective tenant, not per household or per unit; § 47a-1(l) defines a tenant as the lessee, sublessee or person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy, so an adult who will not be a party to the agreement is not one. The section does not address a single report covering two or more prospective tenants. And the limits of this page, stated plainly. The section contains no refund duty, no itemization duty, no penalty or damages provision, no enforcement route, no deadline for making the two deliveries, and no bar on charging when no unit is available. Those questions are not answered here. No Connecticut case law was researched, and no municipal ordinance was researched.
How to take a Connecticut screening fee correctly
Classify the charge before you name it on the form
First check that chapter 830 governs the letting at all — § 47a-2 exempts six arrangements from it, transient hotel, motel and similar lodging and a condominium owner’s own occupancy among them, plus a mobile manufactured home park lot let to a resident home-owner. Then ask what the money pays for. If any part of it pays for your own administration — handling, reviewing, filing, corresponding — that part is a processing fee, and Connecticut does not permit it at any amount. Only the part that pays for obtaining screening information is the charge § 47a-4d allows. Apply the same test to everything else you were planning to collect before the tenancy starts: outside a security deposit, advance first month’s rent and a key or special-equipment deposit, no other pre-tenancy charge is permitted, and a move-in or move-out fee is banned by name.
Set the amount from the vendor invoice, not from a round number
The screening fee is the charge for a product you buy, so the invoice is the fact that tells you what the charge is for. Setting the figure first and finding a justification afterwards is how a permitted screening fee quietly becomes a prohibited processing fee with a better name.
Check the current indexed ceiling — never the base figure
The cap is fifty dollars plus an adjustment for any increase in the consumer price index for urban consumers, and that adjustment is determined by the Commissioner of Housing on an annual basis — it is not printed in the code, which carries only the fifty-dollar base. Take the amount for the year you are charging in from the Commissioner’s determination, and record which year’s figure you applied.
Give the applicant the report and the vendor receipt, and keep a copy
Charging the screening fee triggers § 47a-4d(d): the applicant must be given a copy of the tenant screening report — or, where you are prohibited from supplying it, the information they need to request a copy from the service provider — and a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity that conducted the screening. Name the screening company and the product, note the date, and keep your own copy of what you handed over.
Do not assume the rest of the machinery other states have
§ 47a-4d contains no refund duty, no penalty, no enforcement route and no deadline for making the two deliveries. If you need one of those answers — whether you must refund an unused fee, for instance — get it from the current statute or from Connecticut counsel rather than from a summary that may have imported it from a neighboring state.
About the Connecticut screening fee record
The generator above produces a plain record of the charge: the parties and the unit, the date, the amount taken, the screening company and product it paid for, and the vendor cost it was set against. Connecticut prescribes no form for this and § 47a-4d does not require an itemized landlord receipt, so this is not a statutory form and is not captioned as one. What it does is answer the question the statute turns on — what did this money buy — and record the two things § 47a-4d(d) obliges you to hand the applicant when you charge the fee: a copy of the tenant screening report, or the information needed to request it from the provider, and a copy of the screening company’s receipt or invoice. Those go to the applicant; this record is your copy of the transaction. Deliberately, it prints no dollar ceiling, because the statutory figure is indexed to the Consumer Price Index and any number hard-coded into a form would be wrong within a year and may be wrong today. And one thing it assumes. It is written for a letting chapter 830 governs; § 47a-2 exempts six arrangements from that chapter, plus a mobile manufactured home park lot let to a resident home-owner, and the record does not ask which yours is because that is a question of fact about the property rather than a field. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields left blank print as a dash.
What a Connecticut landlord should be able to show
- That your letting is one chapter 830 governs. § 47a-4d is a section of that chapter, and § 47a-2 — ‘Arrangements exempted from application of title’ — puts six arrangements outside it, along with a mobile manufactured home park lot rented to a resident who owns the home. An arrangement created to avoid the chapter is governed by it regardless.
- That the charge was a screening fee and not a processing fee. This is the question § 47a-4d turns on, and it is answered by what the money bought rather than by what the charge was called.
- That the applicant was given a copy of the screening report and a copy of the vendor’s receipt or invoice. § 47a-4d(d) makes both deliveries mandatory once you charge the fee — where you are prohibited from supplying the report itself, the information the applicant needs to request it from the provider takes its place. Keep your own copy of what you handed over, and of the invoice behind the charge: it is also the fact that makes the fee a screening fee.
- The screening company and product named on the record. A charge attributed to a named report is far easier to classify than a bare amount.
- The current indexed ceiling you applied, and its year. Because the cap is fifty dollars plus a consumer-price-index adjustment determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing, the defensible record notes which year’s determined figure was used rather than assuming the base figure.
- That no other pre-tenancy charge was added. A processing fee is banned outright, so a second line for office time is the error the statute is aimed at — but the ban is wider than that. Outside a § 47a-21 security deposit, advance first month’s rent and a key or special-equipment deposit, no other payment, fee or charge may be demanded before or at the beginning of the tenancy, and move-in and move-out fees are banned by name.
- The date the fee was taken and the unit it related to. Basic, but it is what ties the charge to a real vacancy and a real screening.
- Your written qualification criteria. Not a § 47a-4d requirement on the research behind this page, but the criteria are what the screening is measured against and they are the first thing asked for in a fair-housing complaint.
- Your adverse-action record where a consumer report drove a rejection. Federal consumer-report law applies alongside Connecticut law; it is described here in general terms only and was not researched from primary sources for this page.
- Consistency across applicants. Charging some applicants and not others, or charging different amounts without a cost reason, is the pattern that turns a fee question into a discrimination question.
- A note of any local requirement you are also meeting. Connecticut municipal ordinances were not researched for this page.
Common mistakes with Connecticut application fees
- Treating the rule as a single cap. Connecticut does not simply cap the application fee. It bans the processing or application fee and separately caps the screening fee, and a landlord who complies with the number while charging the banned category has still charged something the statute does not permit. Nor does the ban stop at the application fee: § 47a-4d(b) bars any other payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy except four — a § 47a-21 security deposit, advance first month’s rent, a key or special-equipment deposit, and the screening fee — and bans move-in and move-out fees by name, so a holding deposit, an amenity or administration charge, a pet fee, a lease-preparation charge and last month’s rent are all outside the list.
- Quoting fifty dollars as the ceiling. The statute sets fifty dollars plus an adjustment for any increase in the consumer price index for urban consumers, determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing, so the base figure is not the operative maximum. Quoting it flat is the same error as quoting any other indexed statutory figure, and it is common in state-by-state summaries.
- Charging one undifferentiated sum for “the application”. If that sum covers both a vendor product and your own administration, part of it is a processing fee no matter what the form calls it.
- Adding an administrative or handling line on top of the screening fee. That second line is the prohibited charge in its clearest form.
- Relabelling a processing fee as a screening fee. The category follows what the money pays for. Renaming the charge does not move it.
- Charging the ceiling regardless of what the screening cost. The cap is a maximum, not an entitlement, and a surplus above the actual screening cost is paying for something other than the screening.
- Keeping the screening report and the vendor invoice in your own file and nowhere else. § 47a-4d(d) requires a landlord that charges the fee to give the applicant a copy of the tenant screening report — or the information needed to request it from the provider — and a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity that conducted the screening. Filing them is not performing the duty; handing them over is. The section still carries no refund duty and no itemization duty, so do not assume those either.
- Relying on pre-2023 guidance. The section comes from Public Act 23-207, so anything describing Connecticut as having no application-fee rule is describing the position before that Act.
- Forgetting the federal layer. Consumer-report and fair-housing obligations apply to the screening decision whatever Connecticut says about the fee; they are outlined here in general terms and were not researched from primary sources for this page.
- Ignoring the local layer. Connecticut municipalities were not researched for this page, and a local requirement can sit on top of § 47a-4d.
- Assuming the ban reaches every arrangement you let. § 47a-4d sits inside chapter 830, and § 47a-2 puts six arrangements outside that chapter — institutional residence incidental to detention or care, occupancy under a contract of sale, a fraternal or social organization’s own member, transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging, a condominium owner’s occupancy of the unit, and a personal care assistant housed in the residence of the person who employs them — plus, under subsection (b), a mobile manufactured home park lot let to a resident who owns the home. That does not weaken the prohibition on a letting the chapter covers; it means the classification question comes first, and it is a question of fact about your property. Two traps run the other way: an arrangement created to avoid the chapter is governed by it anyway, and the same subsection (b) says the chapter does apply where a mobile manufactured home and its premises are let by someone other than the home’s owner.
Can a Connecticut landlord charge a rental application fee?
Not if it is a processing or application fee. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-4d a Connecticut landlord may not demand any payment, fee or charge for the processing, review or acceptance of a rental application. That is a prohibition rather than a limit, so it is not answered by keeping the amount modest — a small administrative charge and a large one are in the same position.
One boundary belongs on that answer, and it comes before everything else on this page. § 47a-4d is a section of chapter 830 of the General Statutes, “Rights and Responsibilities of Landlord and Tenant”, so it reaches what the chapter reaches and no further. § 47a-2, captioned “Arrangements exempted from application of title”, provides that — unless created to avoid the application of the chapter — six arrangements are not governed by it: residence at an institution, public or private, if incidental to detention or the provision of medical, geriatric, educational, counselling or religious service, or any similar service; occupancy under a contract of sale of a dwelling unit or the property of which it is a part, where the occupant is the purchaser or a person who succeeds to that interest; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in the portion of a structure operated for the benefit of that organization; transient occupancy in a hotel or motel or similar lodging; occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit; and occupancy by a personal care assistant or other person employed by a person with a disability to assist with daily living activities or housekeeping chores and provided dwelling space in that person’s personal residence as a benefit or condition of the employment.
Subsection (b) removes one more arrangement, and it has to be read in both directions. Except as otherwise provided in chapter 412 or in chapter 830, the chapter does not apply to the rental of a space or lot in a mobile manufactured home park by a resident of the park who is also the owner of the mobile manufactured home. But the same subsection provides that the chapter does apply to the rental of a mobile manufactured home and premises in such a park by a person other than the owner of the home. Subsection (c) then defines the transient limb rather than leaving it to impression: occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging for less than thirty days is transient, except where the unit is occupied as the occupant’s primary residence from the beginning of the occupancy; occupancy for thirty days or more is not transient, except where the unit is not the occupant’s primary residence and the occupancy is for less than ninety days.
Read that as a gate, not as a doubt. Where your letting is one the chapter covers — the ordinary residential tenancy this page is written for — the prohibition is unqualified and everything below applies to you exactly as stated. Where it is one of the exempted arrangements, chapter 830 does not govern it at all, and whatever law does is not described here. Which side of that line a particular property falls on is a question of fact about the letting, and it is not one this page can settle for you — note in particular that the exemption is defeasible against you, because an arrangement created to avoid the chapter’s application is governed by the chapter anyway.
Back to § 47a-4d itself. The subsection that bans the application fee is wider than the application fee, and this is the half most summaries drop. It also bars a landlord from demanding any other payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy, with a closed list of four exceptions: a security deposit under § 47a-21, advance payment of the first month’s rent, a deposit for a key or any special equipment, and the tenant screening fee described below. And it bans move-in and move-out fees by name. So a holding deposit, an amenity or administration charge, a pet fee, a lease-preparation charge and last month’s rent are all outside what may lawfully be collected before the tenancy begins.
What a Connecticut landlord may charge is a tenant screening fee, and that one is permitted subject to a cap. Since 1 October 2023 the statute has set that cap at 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. So the state’s answer to “can I charge an application fee” is really two answers, and which one applies depends on what the charge is for.
This is why the practical question in Connecticut is a classification question and not an arithmetic one. Before you decide how much, decide which of the two charges you are actually making, because one of them cannot be made lawfully at any figure.
What is the difference between a processing fee and a screening fee?
A processing or application fee is a charge for the landlord’s own administration: taking the application in, reading it, chasing references, keeping the file, corresponding with the applicant. It is a charge for your time and your office work. Connecticut bans it.
A tenant screening fee is a charge for obtaining screening information about the applicant — the consumer report, the background product, the search a vendor runs and invoices you for. The statute defines a tenant screening report as a credit report, a criminal background report, an employment history report, a rental history report or any combination of those, used to determine an applicant’s suitability. It is a charge for something you buy on the applicant’s behalf. Connecticut permits it, up to the indexed cap.
The way out is unglamorous: charge for the screening, set the amount against the vendor invoice, and record what was bought and from whom. § 47a-4d imposes no itemization duty and this page does not claim one — but it does require you to give the applicant a copy of that receipt or invoice, so the document that answers the classification question is also a document the applicant is entitled to receive.
How much is the Connecticut tenant screening fee cap?
The statute sets it at 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. That sentence has two halves and both matter. Fifty dollars is the base figure written into the section. The adjustment is what turns that base into the number actually in force, which means the operative ceiling is not the printed one.
This page does not tell you the current adjusted figure, and that is deliberate rather than unhelpful. The Commissioner’s determination was not retrieved in preparing this page, and a dollar ceiling hard-coded into a landlord form would be wrong within a year of being written and may be wrong today. Note where the current amount is not to be found: the code prints the fifty-dollar base and nothing else, so reading the statute as published returns you to exactly the figure that is not the ceiling. The operative number comes from the Commissioner of Housing’s annual determination, and that is the authority to ask.
Two consequences follow for a landlord who wants to be safe rather than merely close. First, do not build the base figure into your application forms, your listings or your standing instructions to staff, because a hard-coded number is a number that will silently go stale. Second, record which year’s adjusted figure you applied when you set the fee, so that the charge can be explained against the ceiling that was in force at the time rather than the one in force when the question is asked.
Does Connecticut require a receipt or a refund for the screening fee?
The two questions have different answers, and the receipt one is the duty landlords most often miss. § 47a-4d(d) provides that a landlord that charges a fee for a tenant screening report shall provide the prospective tenant with (1) a copy of the tenant screening report — or, if the landlord is prohibited from providing such a copy, information about the report that would allow the tenant to request a copy from the service provider that produced it — and (2) a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity conducting the tenant screening report.
Note what triggers those deliveries: charging the fee, and nothing else. There is no requirement that the applicant be denied, that an adverse action be taken, or that the applicant ask. So a landlord who charges a screening fee and files the report and the vendor invoice in its own records has not performed the duty — the applicant is entitled to a copy of both. What § 47a-4d does not require is an itemized landlord-issued receipt of the kind some other states prescribe; the copy that must be handed over is the screening company’s receipt or invoice.
Refunds are the other half of the question, and there the answer is genuinely negative: § 47a-4d contains no refund duty, no penalty or damages provision, no enforcement route and no deadline for making the two deliveries. If you need to know whether Connecticut requires a refund when the screening is not run, or when the applicant withdraws, or when the unit is taken, that question should be answered from the current statutory text or by Connecticut counsel — not from a summary, and not from this page.
The question landlords ask most often after the cap — does the ceiling apply per applicant, per adult, or per household — is different, because the section does answer most of it. Read the phrase that subsections (c) and (d) share. (c) permits a fee “for a tenant screening report concerning a prospective tenant”. (d) opens “[a] landlord that charges a fee for a tenant screening report concerning a prospective tenant shall provide the prospective tenant with” the two documents. And (a) defines the report itself by what it is used for: determining “the suitability of a prospective tenant”. The unit the section works in is the prospective tenant. So the ceiling is not a household ceiling — screen two applicants for one vacancy and you may charge each of them for the report concerning them, each fee under the cap, with the copy and the invoice owed to each of them separately.
The “per adult” version of the question falls away for a related reason. § 47a-1(l) defines a tenant as “the lessee, sublessee or person entitled under a rental agreement to occupy a dwelling unit or premises to the exclusion of others or as is otherwise defined by law”. A prospective tenant is someone who would become that. An adult who will live in the unit but will not be a party to the agreement is not a prospective tenant, and the section does not authorise a fee for screening them.
What genuinely remains open is narrower than the question as usually asked: the section says nothing about a single report covering two or more prospective tenants. Where one product screens a couple jointly, whether that supports one fee or two is not addressed in the text, and no Connecticut case law was researched for this page.
None of that means a record is pointless. A landlord who can produce a dated record naming the screening company, the product, the amount charged and the invoice behind it is in a materially better position than one holding a round number with nothing attached. That is what the generator on this page produces — your own copy of the transaction, alongside the two documents § 47a-4d(d) requires you to hand the applicant.
What a Connecticut landlord should actually change
If you take one thing from § 47a-4d, take the split. Look at your current application paperwork and ask what the money you collect is described as buying. If the answer is “processing”, “administration”, “handling” or “application”, that is the charge Connecticut prohibits, and renaming it is not a fix unless what it pays for changes too.
If the answer is a screening product, then the charge is the permitted one, and the remaining work is to keep it under the current indexed ceiling, to be able to show the invoice it was set against, and to give the applicant a copy of that invoice and of the screening report. Do not print the base figure on your forms as though it were the cap, and do not let a staff instruction sheet freeze a number that the Commissioner’s annual determination will move.
Where this page cannot help you is on what § 47a-4d does not reach. Refunds, penalties, enforcement, a deadline for the two deliveries and the treatment of a single report covering two or more prospective tenants are all outside the section, and a summary that answers them confidently without a citation is worth checking before you act on it. Note that the per-applicant question itself is not in that list: (c) and (d) both run per prospective tenant, which is where the charge and the ceiling attach.
Where the screening fee sits in the rest of Connecticut law
The criteria you publish are the same criteria the screening decision is measured against, and the federal rules on consumer reports and adverse action apply to that decision whatever Connecticut requires about the fee. Our guide to Connecticut tenant screening laws covers what may be considered and what a denial involves.
A screening fee is not a security deposit, and confusing the two is a separate and more expensive mistake: deposit money is the tenant’s, held under its own regime with its own limits and its own return obligations. See Connecticut security deposit laws for the money taken at signing.
For the wider framework — notice periods, entry, repairs and the rest of the landlord-tenant relationship — see Connecticut landlord-tenant laws.
Bottom line
Connecticut splits the application charge in two and treats the halves in opposite directions. Under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-4d a landlord may not charge a processing or application fee at all — and may not demand any other payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy apart from four things: a § 47a-21 security deposit, advance payment of the first month’s rent, a deposit for a key or special equipment, and the screening fee itself. Move-in and move-out fees are separately banned. What is permitted is a tenant screening fee, subject to a cap the statute sets at fifty dollars plus an adjustment for any increase in the consumer price index for urban consumers, as determined annually by the Commissioner of Housing. So the question is not “how much may I charge” but “which of the two charges is this” — because a fee for the work of processing an application is unlawful at any amount, while a fee for the screening itself is lawful up to the indexed ceiling. This page does not print a current dollar ceiling. Fifty dollars is the base figure the statute indexes, not the number in force, and the operative amount comes from the Commissioner’s annual determination. And charging the screening fee triggers two deliveries to the applicant: a copy of the tenant screening report — or, where you are prohibited from supplying it, the information they need to request it from the provider — and a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity that conducted the screening. Check the gate before any of that. § 47a-4d is a section of chapter 830, and § 47a-2 — “Arrangements exempted from application of title” — puts six arrangements outside that chapter: institutional residence incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counselling or religious service; occupancy under a contract of sale by the purchaser or a successor; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in the part of a structure run for its benefit; transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging; occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit; and occupancy by a personal care assistant housed in the residence of the person with a disability who employs them. Subsection (b) separately takes out the rental of a space or lot in a mobile manufactured home park to a resident who owns the home — though the chapter does apply where someone other than the home’s owner rents out the home and premises. And an arrangement created to avoid the chapter is governed by it regardless.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a Connecticut landlord charge a rental application fee?
Not as a processing or application fee. Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 47a-4d bars a landlord from demanding any payment, fee or charge for the processing, review or acceptance of a rental application, which is a ban rather than a cap, so a small charge is in the same position as a large one. The same subsection bars any other payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy except four – a Sec. 47a-21 security deposit, advance first month’s rent, a deposit for a key or special equipment, and a tenant screening fee – and bans move-in and move-out fees by name. The tenant screening fee is the one permitted charge, subject to a cap. All of that applies on a letting chapter 830 governs: Sec. 47a-4d is a section of that chapter, and Sec. 47a-2, ‘Arrangements exempted from application of title’, puts six arrangements outside it – institutional residence incidental to detention or care, occupancy under a contract of sale, a fraternal or social organization’s own member, transient occupancy in a hotel, motel or similar lodging, a condominium owner’s occupancy, and a personal care assistant housed by the person with a disability who employs them – along with a mobile manufactured home park lot rented to a resident who owns the home. Which one a particular property is, is a question of fact about the letting that this page does not answer, and an arrangement created to avoid the chapter is governed by it regardless.
What is the Connecticut tenant screening fee cap?
Since 1 October 2023 the statute has set the cap at 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. Fifty dollars is the base figure the adjustment runs on rather than the operative ceiling, so quoting it flat mis-states the law. This page does not give a current amount because the Commissioner’s determination was not retrieved for it – and the code itself prints only the fifty-dollar base, so the operative figure has to come from that annual determination.
What is the difference between a processing fee and a screening fee in Connecticut?
A processing or application fee pays for the landlord’s own administration – receiving, reviewing and handling the application. A tenant screening fee pays for obtaining screening information about the applicant, such as a consumer report bought from a vendor. Connecticut bans the first and permits the second up to the indexed cap, so the category the money falls into decides whether it may be charged at all.
Does Connecticut require a receipt for a screening fee?
Yes, in a specific form. Sec. 47a-4d(d) requires a landlord that charges a fee for a tenant screening report to give the prospective tenant a copy of the receipt or invoice from the entity that conducted the screening, together with a copy of the screening report itself – or, where the landlord is prohibited from providing a copy, the information the tenant needs to request one from the service provider. Both are triggered by charging the fee, with no denial, adverse action or request required. The section does not require an itemized landlord-issued receipt, and this page does not assert one.
Does a Connecticut landlord have to refund a screening fee?
Sec. 47a-4d contains no refund duty, so none is asserted here – though it does require the landlord to give the applicant a copy of the screening report and of the vendor’s receipt or invoice. Refund rules travel easily between state summaries, so a source that states one for Connecticut is worth checking against the current statutory text or with Connecticut counsel.
When did the Connecticut application fee rule take effect?
Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 47a-4d was enacted by Public Act 23-207 in 2023 and was confirmed unamended through the 2025 session; the screening-fee cap in subsection (c) applies on and after 1 October 2023. Guidance describing Connecticut as having no application-fee rule is describing the position before that Act.
Can a Connecticut landlord charge the maximum screening fee every time?
The indexed figure is a ceiling, not an entitlement. Where the screening cost less, the surplus is paying for something other than the screening, which points back toward the processing fee the statute prohibits. Whether Connecticut would treat such a surplus that way was not established by the research behind this page, but setting the fee from the vendor invoice avoids the question.
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