Free Minnesota Rental Application Fee Receipt & Screening Disclosure
Minnesota sets no dollar cap on an applicant screening fee. § 504B.173 regulates something else: you must disclose in writing, before you accept the money, the screening service you will use and the criteria your decision will be based on — and if you then reject the applicant for a reason that was not in that disclosure, subdivision 2(a)(1) requires the fee back. You also may not use, cash or deposit it until every prior applicant has been screened and rejected or has declined the unit. This generator produces the receipt and the written disclosure as one dated record.
A rental application fee in Minnesota is what the statute calls an applicant screening fee, and the difference in wording matters, because the section that governs it is built around screening rather than around paperwork. Minnesota sets no maximum. A landlord who goes looking for the Minnesota cap will not find one, and a page that reports a figure has invented it. What § 504B.173 does is impose four kinds of duty: a bar on charging when there is nothing to rent, a written disclosure that must be made before the money is accepted, a handling rule that keeps the money out of your account while earlier applicants are still live, and a set of triggers that require the fee back. The disclosure is the hinge. Subdivision 3 requires you to state, in writing and in advance, which screening service you will use and what criteria your decision will rest on; subdivision 2(a)(1) then requires you to return the fee if you reject the applicant for any reason that was not in that list. Those two subdivisions read together mean the criteria you disclose are the only grounds on which you may reject an applicant and still keep the money. That is the practical shape of the Minnesota rule, and it is why the disclosure and the receipt belong on one document rather than in two places you have to reconcile later.
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. Because the disclosure has to be made before the fee is accepted, print it once for the applicant before you take the money and again once the outcome is known. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields you leave blank print as a dash so you can complete them by hand.
The disclosure is not paperwork — it defines the reasons you may reject and still keep the fee
Read subdivision 3 and subdivision 2(a)(1) together and the whole section changes shape. Subdivision 3 sets the duty: “If a landlord accepts an applicant screening fee from a prospective tenant, the landlord must … disclose in writing prior to accepting the applicant screening fee: (i) the name, address, and telephone number of the tenant screening service the landlord will use, unless the landlord does not use a tenant screening service; and (ii) the criteria on which the decision to rent to the prospective tenant will be based”. Three elements for the service, not two — name, address and telephone number — and an open-ended requirement to state the criteria. Subdivision 2(a) then provides that the landlord “must return the applicant screening fee if … the applicant is rejected for any reason not listed in the disclosure required under subdivision 3”. The consequence is that your disclosed criteria operate as the exhaustive list of grounds on which a rejection lets you retain the fee. A landlord who discloses only “credit and income” and then rejects on a landlord reference has rejected on an undisclosed reason, and on the words of subdivision 2(a)(1) the money goes back — even though the rejection itself may be perfectly lawful. This cuts against the instinct to keep the disclosed criteria short and vague. Vague criteria do not protect a landlord here; they shrink the set of reasons that support retention. The section does not say how specific the criteria must be, and no case law was researched for this page, so how a court would treat a broadly-worded criterion is not something this page can tell you. What the text does establish is the direction of the risk. There is a second, independent return trigger in subdivision 2(b) that works on the same instinct from the other side: where the landlord “does not perform a personal reference check or does not obtain a consumer credit report or tenant screening report”, the landlord “must return any amount of the applicant screening fee that is not used for those purposes”. Note where that duty bites. Its trigger is the landlord not having performed the reference check or not having obtained the report; it is not a general rule that any excess over what screening cost must come back. So it is not an amount limit in disguise, and this page does not present it as one — Minnesota sets no cap, and subdivision 2(b) addresses money taken for work that was not done.
Watch: Minnesota Rental Application Fee Receipt explained
Minnesota application fee at a glance
Settle this first: does Minnesota cap what you may charge?
No. There is no amount anywhere in § 504B.173. The section is captioned “Applicant screening fee” and every duty in it is about timing, disclosure, handling and return — not about size. Nor does subdivision 2(b) supply a cap by the back door: it requires the return of any amount not used for a personal reference check, a consumer credit report or a tenant screening report where the landlord did not perform the check or obtain the report, which is a rule about money taken for work not done rather than a limit on the amount
Before you take the money
disclose in writing the screening service’s name, address and telephone number — unless you use none — and “the criteria on which the decision to rent to the prospective tenant will be based” (subd. 3(1)). A written receipt is due on the applicant’s request, and may be incorporated into the application form itself (subd. 1(2))
While the money is in your hands
you may not “use, cash, or deposit” it until all prior applicants have either been screened and rejected, or offered the unit and declined to enter into a rental agreement (subd. 1(3)). You may not charge at all where you know or should have known no unit is available then or “within a reasonable future time” (subd. 1(1))
When it must come back
if you reject the applicant for any reason not listed in your subdivision 3 disclosure, or a prior applicant is offered the unit and agrees to rent (subd. 2(a)); and any amount not actually used for a reference check, credit report or screening report (subd. 2(b)). Rejection notice is due within 14 days, identifying the criteria the applicant failed to meet (subd. 3(2))
What § 504B.173 forbids, requires and penalises, subdivision by subdivision
Subdivision 1, the three prohibitions. A landlord may not (1) charge a screening fee “when the landlord knows or should have known that no rental unit is available at that time or will be available within a reasonable future time”; (2) “collect or hold” a fee “without giving the applicant a written receipt for the fee, which may be incorporated into the application form, upon request of the applicant”; or (3) “use, cash, or deposit” the fee “until all prior applicants have either been screened and rejected, or offered the unit and declined to enter into a rental agreement”. Note the receipt duty is triggered by the applicant’s request, and that the statute expressly permits the receipt to live inside the application form. Subdivision 2, the returns. The fee must go back where the applicant is rejected for a reason not listed in the subdivision 3 disclosure, or where a prior applicant is offered the unit and agrees to rent; and any amount not used for a personal reference check, consumer credit report or tenant screening report must be returned. The money may be returned by mail, destroyed on request if paid by check, or made available for collection. Subdivision 3, the disclosures. Written, before the fee is accepted: the screening service’s name, address and telephone number unless none is used, and the criteria the rent decision will be based on; plus notice within 14 days of a rejection “identifying the criteria the applicant failed to meet”. Subdivision 3a, added in 2024. No landlord may deny an application based on a pending eviction action; on any court file that is not public, has been expunged or has been destroyed; or on any eviction action that has not resulted in a writ of recovery of premises and order to vacate as defined in § 504B.001, subd. 15. Subdivision 4, the remedies, running both ways. A landlord in violation is liable for the fee plus a civil penalty of up to $100, civil court filing costs and reasonable attorney fees; an applicant who gives materially false information or omits material information requested is liable to the landlord for damages plus a civil penalty of up to $500, filing costs and fees.
How to take a screening fee in Minnesota without triggering a return
Confirm you actually have a unit to rent before you take a dollar
Subdivision 1(1) bars charging where the landlord “knows or should have known” that no unit is available then or “within a reasonable future time”. That is a constructive-knowledge test, so a good-faith belief is not automatically enough if the circumstances said otherwise. Record the unit and the date it is expected to be available on the record itself; the statute does not define “reasonable future time”, and no case law was researched here, so the honest protection is a dated record of what you knew.
Write the criteria out properly — they are the grounds you may reject on and keep the fee
This is the step that decides whether the money stays. List every criterion you will actually apply: credit, income, employment, rental history and landlord references, eviction records, criminal records, identity, and any threshold you use such as a minimum income multiple. If a criterion is not on the list and you reject on it, subdivision 2(a)(1) requires the fee back. Give the applicant this in writing before you accept the money, not with the lease.
Name the screening service in full, or say plainly that you use none
Subdivision 3(1)(i) wants the service’s name, address and telephone number — three elements — and expressly excuses the disclosure only where the landlord “does not use a tenant screening service”. A landlord who runs checks personally should record that, because the exemption is written for exactly that case and an unexplained blank is not the same as a stated absence.
Leave the money alone until the earlier applicants are resolved
Subdivision 1(3) bars using, cashing or depositing the fee until every prior applicant has been screened and rejected, or offered the unit and declined. This is a cash-handling rule and it is the one most often broken without anyone noticing, because depositing a check is automatic. If you are screening in order, hold later applicants’ fees uncashed until the queue ahead of them is closed out, and note the date it was.
Decide within 14 days, say which criterion failed, and return the fee where a trigger fires
Subdivision 3(2) requires notice within 14 days of a rejection “identifying the criteria the applicant failed to meet” — a bare “your application was unsuccessful” does not discharge it. Then check the return triggers: an undisclosed reason, a prior applicant taking the unit, or any unused portion where no reference check or report was obtained. Subdivision 2(c) lets you return by mail, destroy an uncashed check on request, or make the money available for collection — record which you did and when.
About the Minnesota screening fee record
The generator above produces a combined receipt and written disclosure. Minnesota prescribes no form for either, so this is not a statutory form and is not captioned as one; it is a record built to carry, on one page and under one date, the things § 504B.173 requires to exist in writing. It records the parties and the unit, the amount received and how it was paid, the screening service’s name, address and telephone number or a statement that none is used, the criteria the decision will rest on, the outcome and the date the applicant was notified, which criterion failed where the answer is a rejection, and the refund position with its trigger. Because the disclosure has to be made before the money is accepted, the sensible sequence is to complete the disclosure fields, give the applicant the printed copy, and only then take the fee and complete the receipt half — the document is designed to be printed twice for that reason. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields left blank print as a dash so you can complete them by hand.
What § 504B.173 requires you to be able to show
- A written disclosure made before the money was accepted. Naming the screening service’s name, address and telephone number — or recording that no service is used — and setting out the criteria the rent decision will be based on. Subdivision 3(1) fixes the timing as “prior to accepting”, so a disclosure handed over with the lease is late.
- The criteria themselves, written out rather than gestured at. They are the grounds on which a rejection lets you keep the fee, because subdivision 2(a)(1) requires the money back where the rejection reason was not among them.
- A written receipt, where the applicant asked for one. Subdivision 1(2) makes the receipt duty request-triggered rather than automatic, and expressly allows it to be incorporated into the application form. Giving one as a matter of course is simpler than proving later whether a request was made.
- The amount received, the date, and how it was paid. The payment method matters beyond bookkeeping: subdivision 2(c) allows a return by destroying the payment where it was made by check, which is an option only if you know it was a check and have not banked it.
- A record of when prior applicants were resolved. Because subdivision 1(3) ties your right to use, cash or deposit the fee to the closing-out of every earlier applicant, the date that happened is the fact that makes the deposit lawful.
- The unit applied for and when it was expected to be available. Subdivision 1(1) bars charging where the landlord knew or should have known no unit was available then or “within a reasonable future time”, and the availability date is what answers it.
- A rejection notice within 14 days naming the failed criterion. Subdivision 3(2) requires the notice to identify “the criteria the applicant failed to meet”. The criterion named should be one that appeared in the disclosure, or subdivision 2(a)(1) turns the same rejection into a refund.
- Proof of what the screening actually cost, where you retained the fee. Subdivision 2(b) applies where no reference check was performed and no report obtained; it then requires the return of any amount not used for a personal reference check, consumer credit report or tenant screening report returnable. Since Minnesota sets no cap, this is the provision that effectively bounds the amount, and the invoice is what answers it.
- The refund, its trigger and its date, where one was due. Three independent triggers can fire — an undisclosed rejection reason, a prior applicant taking the unit, and an unused portion — and the record should say which one it was.
- A note of any local requirement you are also meeting. § 504B.173 is state law; municipal ordinances were not researched for this page, and a city rule can sit on top of it.
Common mistakes with Minnesota screening fees
- Looking for the Minnesota cap, finding none, and concluding the fee is unregulated. There is no dollar figure in § 504B.173, and that is not the same as an absence of regulation. The section imposes a written pre-disclosure, a handling restriction, three return triggers and a 14-day notice duty, backed by a civil penalty. The absence of a cap is the least significant thing about it.
- Disclosing vague criteria in the belief that vagueness preserves discretion. It does the opposite in the one respect that costs money. Subdivision 2(a)(1) requires the fee back where the rejection reason was not in the disclosure, so a short list narrows the grounds on which a rejection lets you keep it. The rejection may still be lawful; the retention is what fails.
- Depositing the check on the day it arrives. Subdivision 1(3) forbids using, cashing or depositing the fee until every prior applicant has been screened and rejected or has declined the unit. Routine banking is the ordinary way this duty gets broken, and it is broken before any decision on the application has been made.
- Making the disclosure at the same moment you take the money. Subdivision 3(1) says “prior to accepting”. A disclosure inside a packet the applicant signs as they hand over the fee is not made before acceptance, and the sequence is the part the statute fixes.
- Sending a rejection that does not say which criterion failed. Subdivision 3(2) requires the 14-day notice to identify the criteria the applicant failed to meet. A courteous but contentless rejection does not discharge the duty, and it leaves no record connecting the decision to a disclosed criterion.
- Treating a pending eviction case as a denial ground. Subdivision 3a, added in 2024, bars denial based on a pending eviction action, on a court file that is not public, expunged or destroyed, or on an eviction action that never resulted in a writ of recovery of premises and order to vacate. A screening report may lawfully surface such a case in Minnesota; the bar is on using it as the basis of the denial.
- Charging while the unit is effectively spoken for. Subdivision 1(1) reaches what the landlord “should have known”, not only what it knew. Continuing to collect fees from a queue after the unit is realistically gone is the situation the prohibition is aimed at, and subdivision 2(a)(2) separately requires the fee back once a prior applicant is offered the unit and agrees to rent.
- Keeping the whole fee when little or no screening was done. Subdivision 2(b) requires, where the landlord performed no reference check and obtained no report, the return of any amount not used for a personal reference check, a consumer credit report or a tenant screening report. An application withdrawn before anything was ordered is the clearest case, and the money does not become yours because the applicant changed their mind.
- Recording the screening fee on the same document as the security deposit. They are separate regimes with separate rules and separate clocks. Nothing in § 504B.173 makes a screening fee part of a deposit, and combining them makes both records harder to defend.
- Naming the screening service by brand alone. Subdivision 3(1)(i) asks for name, address and telephone number. Two of the three is not the disclosure the statute describes, and the omission is invisible until someone asks for it.
Does Minnesota limit how much a landlord can charge to screen an applicant?
Not by amount. § 504B.173 contains no figure at all. The practical limit comes from subdivision 2(b), which requires the landlord to return “any amount of the applicant screening fee that is not used for” a personal reference check, a consumer credit report or a tenant screening report. A fee set at what the screening actually costs has no unused portion; a fee set well above it does, and the excess is returnable on the words of the statute. That is a limit fixed by the invoice rather than by the legislature, and it is why the record this page generates asks for the screening service and the date the report was ordered.
It is worth being precise about what the absence of a cap does and does not mean. It does not mean Minnesota is a light-touch state for screening fees — the pre-acceptance written disclosure in subdivision 3 is stricter than what many capped states require, and the subdivision 1(3) rule against banking the money while earlier applicants are unresolved has no analogue in most states. It means only that the legislature chose to regulate the conduct rather than the number.
When must a Minnesota landlord give the screening fee back?
Three triggers, and they are independent of each other. The first is a rejection “for any reason not listed in the disclosure required under subdivision 3” (subd. 2(a)(1)). The second is a prior applicant being offered the unit and agreeing to rent (subd. 2(a)(2)) — so the fee of a later applicant in the queue becomes returnable the moment someone ahead of them signs, whether or not that later applicant was ever screened. The third is the unused-portion rule in subdivision 2(b).
Subdivision 2(c) then sets out how: by mail, by destroying the payment at the applicant’s request where it was paid by check, or by making it available for the applicant to retrieve. A landlord holding an uncashed check from an applicant who has withdrawn can therefore discharge the return duty by destroying it on request, which is worth knowing because the alternative — banking it and writing a refund check — would breach subdivision 1(3) if earlier applicants were still live.
What has to be disclosed, and when?
In writing, and before the fee is accepted. Subdivision 3(1) requires the name, address and telephone number of the tenant screening service the landlord will use — all three, and the requirement falls away only where the landlord uses no screening service at all — together with the criteria on which the decision to rent will be based. The timing word is “prior”, and it is doing real work: a disclosure made at the same moment the money changes hands, or bundled into paperwork the applicant signs afterwards, is not made prior to acceptance.
The criteria limb has no prescribed level of detail in the text, and no case law was researched for this page, so this page does not tell you how specific is specific enough. What it can tell you is which way the incentive runs. Because subdivision 2(a)(1) ties retention to the disclosed list, every criterion you leave off is a ground you can reject on but cannot keep the fee for. Landlords used to jurisdictions where a broad, non-committal criteria statement is the safe option should notice that Minnesota inverts that.
How does the 2024 amendment on pending eviction cases affect screening?
Subdivision 3a was added by 2024 c 118 s 12 and is the newest thing in the section. It bars a landlord from denying a rental application based on a pending eviction action; on any court file that is not public, has been expunged, or has been destroyed; or on any eviction action that has not resulted in a writ of recovery of premises and order to vacate, as that term is defined in § 504B.001, subdivision 15.
The distinction the third limb draws is between an eviction that was filed and one that ran to a writ and an order to vacate. Court records routinely show the former. Minnesota’s rule is not that such a record may not be seen — it is that it may not be the basis of the denial. For a landlord that has two practical consequences. The criteria you disclose under subdivision 3 should not be written in a way that makes a filed-but-unresolved case a disqualifier, because that is a criterion you may not act on. And where you do reject, the criterion you identify in the 14-day notice should be one you may lawfully rely on. How a court would treat a denial resting partly on such a case is not addressed by the text and was not researched for this page.
Where the screening fee sits in the rest of Minnesota law
The fee is the first point of contact between a landlord and an applicant, and the duties around it run straight into the wider screening rules — what a report may contain, what the federal adverse-action process requires when a report drives a rejection, and what a landlord may ask in the first place. Our guide to Minnesota tenant screening laws covers that ground, and is the page to read alongside this one where a denial is on the cards.
The money you take at application is also not the money you take at signing. Minnesota’s security-deposit rules are a separate regime with their own return clock and their own penalties, set out in Minnesota security deposit laws. Nothing in § 504B.173 makes a screening fee part of a deposit, and the two should not be recorded on one document.
For the framework the whole tenancy sits inside — notice periods, entry, habitability and termination — see Minnesota landlord-tenant laws.
Bottom line
Minnesota does not cap the applicant screening fee. There is no dollar figure anywhere in § 504B.173. What the section does instead is regulate when you may take the money, what you must put in writing before you take it, how you may handle it, and when you must give it back. Three duties do most of the work. Subdivision 3 makes you disclose in writing, before accepting the fee, the name, address and telephone number of the screening service you will use and “the criteria on which the decision to rent to the prospective tenant will be based”. Subdivision 2(a)(1) then makes that disclosure load-bearing: if you reject the applicant “for any reason not listed in the disclosure required under subdivision 3”, you must return the fee. And subdivision 1(3) bars you from using, cashing or depositing the money at all until every prior applicant has been screened and rejected, or offered the unit and declined. Get those wrong and subdivision 4(a) exposes you to the fee itself plus a civil penalty of up to $100, filing costs and reasonable attorney fees.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a maximum rental application fee in Minnesota?
No. § 504B.173 sets no dollar cap. The nearest thing to a limit is subdivision 2(b), which requires the landlord, where it performed no reference check and obtained no report, to return any part of the fee that was not used for a personal reference check, a consumer credit report or a tenant screening report — so a fee materially above what the screening cost has a returnable excess.
When does a Minnesota landlord have to refund a screening fee?
Where the applicant is rejected for a reason not listed in the written disclosure required by subdivision 3; where a prior applicant is offered the unit and agrees to rent; and to the extent that no reference check was performed and no report obtained, leaving part of the fee not used for a reference check, credit report or screening report. Subdivision 2(c) allows return by mail, destruction of an uncashed check on request, or making the money available for collection.
What must be disclosed before taking an applicant screening fee in Minnesota?
In writing and before the fee is accepted: the name, address and telephone number of the tenant screening service the landlord will use, unless the landlord uses none; and the criteria on which the decision to rent will be based. Subdivision 3(2) then requires notice within 14 days of a rejection identifying the criteria the applicant failed to meet.
Can a Minnesota landlord deposit the screening fee straight away?
No. Subdivision 1(3) bars a landlord from using, cashing or depositing an applicant screening fee until all prior applicants have either been screened and rejected, or been offered the unit and declined to enter into a rental agreement.
Does a Minnesota landlord have to give a receipt for an application fee?
On request. Subdivision 1(2) prohibits collecting or holding the fee without giving a written receipt upon the applicant’s request, and expressly allows that receipt to be incorporated into the application form itself.
Can a Minnesota landlord deny an application because of an eviction filing?
Not where the case is still pending, where the court file is not public, expunged or destroyed, or where the eviction action never resulted in a writ of recovery of premises and order to vacate. Subdivision 3a, added in 2024, bars denial on each of those bases.
What is the penalty for breaching the Minnesota screening fee rules?
Subdivision 4(a) makes a landlord who violates the section liable to the applicant for the screening fee plus a civil penalty of up to $100, civil court filing costs and reasonable attorney fees. Subdivision 4(b) separately makes an applicant who gives materially false information, or omits material information requested, liable to the landlord for damages plus a civil penalty of up to $500, costs and fees.
Screen Minnesota tenants thoroughly before move-in
A solid tenant relationship starts with thorough screening. Tenant Screening Background Check has been verifying renters since 2004 — credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment — across all 50 states and DC.
Related Resources
Published by Tenant Screening Background Check
Established 2004 · 20+ Years · All U.S. States & Territories · Statute-Based · Attorney-Reviewed
A Private Eye Reports™ service trusted by landlords, property managers, and attorneys.
