Free Oregon Rental Application Fee Receipt & Screening Notice

In Oregon the phrase “application fee” is a slight misnomer, and the mismatch is worth fixing before anything else, because it is where landlords go wrong. ORS 90.297(1) bars a landlord from charging an applicant “a deposit or fee, however designated”. The words however designated are there to stop the prohibition being avoided by renaming. What survives that bar is a narrow, conditional carve-out: the applicant screening charge under ORS 90.295, which exists “solely to cover the costs of obtaining information about an applicant”. It is a cost-recovery mechanism, not a fee for considering an application, and every rule attached to it follows from that. There is no flat cap because a cost-recovery charge does not need one — the limit is your actual cost. There is a one-per-60-days rule because the same information does not need buying twice. There is a refund where you filled the unit before screening, because you never incurred the cost. And there is a long pre-payment notice list because an applicant handing over money to be screened is entitled to know what they are buying, what standards they will be judged against, and how likely they are to get a unit at all. Read that way, § 90.295 stops being a compliance checklist and becomes a single coherent rule. One boundary comes before all of it. § 90.295 and § 90.297 are sections of ORS chapter 90, so they reach what the chapter reaches and no further. § 90.115 applies the chapter to a rental agreement, wherever made, for a dwelling unit located within this state; § 90.110, captioned “Exclusions from application of this chapter”, then provides that unless created to avoid the application of the chapter, nine arrangements are not governed by it — institutional residence incidental to detention or to medical, geriatric, educational, counseling or religious service; short pre-closing or post-closing occupancy by a purchaser or seller; a fraternal or social organization’s own member; transient occupancy in a hotel or motel; a squatter; vacation occupancy; a landlord’s employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment about the premises; an owner of a condominium unit or a holder of a proprietary lease in a cooperative; and premises used by the occupant primarily for agricultural purposes. § 90.113 excludes residence in certain licensed programs, facilities and homes as well. Read that as a gate, not as a doubt: inside the chapter the rules below are exactly as described here.

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.

Watch: Oregon Rental Application Fee Receipt explained

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The generator above produces a combined receipt, screening confirmation and notice record. Oregon prescribes no form, so this is not a statutory form and is not captioned as one; it is a record built to carry, under one date, the things § 90.295 requires to exist. It records the parties and the unit, the amount charged and the actual cost it was set from, the screening company’s details, the nine notices as an explicit checklist so an omission is visible rather than assumed, whether a charge has already been taken from this applicant inside the 60-day window, the outcome, and the refund position against the two statutory triggers. Because the notices must precede the payment, print it once for the applicant before you take the charge and again when the outcome is known. One assumption is built into it and should be checked before you use it: that the letting is one ORS chapter 90 governs. § 90.110 and § 90.113 put a defined set of arrangements outside that chapter — vacation occupancy and transient hotel or motel occupancy among them — and for one of those this record is documenting duties that do not attach. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields left blank print as a dash.

• Adopted written screening or admission criteria. Subsection (3)(a) requires them to exist in writing before payment may be required. A dated policy document is the evidence; an email describing your preferences to one applicant is not.
• Written notice of all nine items in (3)(b), given before payment. The amount, the criteria, your typical process, the right to dispute accuracy, any appeal right, the nondiscrimination policy, the rent and deposits, any renter’s insurance requirement, and the applicant’s refund and damages rights.
• Actual notice of the availability and queue estimate under (3)(c). The approximate number of comparable units available or coming available, and the approximate number of applications already accepted and still under consideration.
• A receipt for the screening charge. Required by (1)(a) as a matter of course, not on request.
• Confirmation of each screening, including a copy of the vendor’s receipt. Owed promptly after each screening conducted by a tenant screening company or consumer credit reporting agency, under the second sentence of (1)(a).
• Evidence that the amount matched your average actual cost. Subsection (2) is the only limit on the figure, so the vendor invoice and a record of your own reasonable time are what answer it.
• A record that no charge was taken from this applicant in the preceding 60 days. Subsection (1)(b) is portfolio-wide, so the check has to be across all your units, not just this one.
• Your basis for believing a unit was available. Subsection (4) bars requiring a charge where you know or should know none is or will be available within a reasonable future time, unless the applicant agreed otherwise in writing.
• The refund, its trigger and its date where one was due. Filled before screening, or written withdrawal before any screening was conducted or ordered — each carries a 30-day clock under (5).
• That the letting is one ORS chapter 90 governs. § 90.295 and § 90.297 are sections of that chapter; § 90.110 excludes nine arrangements from it — vacation occupancy, transient hotel or motel occupancy, employee occupancy conditional on employment about the premises, premises used primarily for agricultural purposes and five more — and § 90.113 excludes residence in certain licensed programs and facilities.
• A note of any local requirement you are also meeting. Municipal ordinances were not researched for this page and can sit on top of the state rule.

• Treating the screening charge as a general application fee. § 90.297(1) bars charging an applicant “a deposit or fee, however designated” outside the two carve-outs. A charge for “processing” or “administration” that is not cost-recovery for obtaining information about the applicant is not the thing § 90.295 permits.
• Giving the notices with the lease, or with the receipt. The precondition in (3) is “prior to accepting the payment”. Notices delivered at or after the moment the money changes hands do not satisfy a rule about what must happen first.
• Skipping the availability and queue estimate. Subsection (3)(c) is a separate requirement from the nine written notices, it is satisfied by actual notice, and it is the item most often absent altogether. The good-faith-error protection covers a wrong estimate, not a missing one.
• Charging the same applicant again for a second unit. Subsection (1)(b) allows one charge per applicant per 60 days “regardless of the number of rental units owned or managed by the landlord”. A portfolio landlord taking a charge per application breaches it routinely.
• Giving your own receipt and stopping there. Subsection (1)(a) also requires confirmation of each vendor screening including a copy of the company’s receipt. Two documents, two duties.
• Assuming an unsuccessful applicant gets the money back. The refund triggers in (5) are narrow: the unit was filled before you screened them, or they withdrew in writing before you conducted or ordered any screening. Being screened and not selected is not a trigger, and (6)(a) separately bars recovery where the applicant refused your offer.
• Setting the charge at what other landlords charge without checking your own cost. Subsection (2) offers the customary-amount alternative only for a comparable level of screening. A high customary figure for a deeper screening product does not justify the same charge for a lighter one.
• Collecting charges while the unit is realistically gone. Subsection (4) reaches what you “should know”, and the only escape is the applicant agreeing otherwise in writing.
• Taking a holding deposit before approving the application. § 90.297(2) allows a deposit to secure execution of a rental agreement only after approving the applicant, and only against a written statement of the rent, fees and deposits, the terms of the agreement to execute, and the refund or retention conditions.
• Forgetting that the damages are formulaic. Subsection (6)(b) is twice the charge plus $250, which makes a small charge an expensive mistake and removes any argument about proving loss.
• Assuming the chapter reaches every arrangement you let. § 90.295 and § 90.297 sit inside ORS chapter 90, and § 90.110 puts nine arrangements outside that chapter — vacation occupancy, transient occupancy in a hotel or motel, occupancy by a squatter, a fraternal or social organization’s own member, short pre-closing or post-closing occupancy, an employee whose right to occupy is conditional on employment about the premises, a condominium owner or cooperative proprietary lessee, premises used primarily for agricultural purposes, and institutional residence incidental to detention or care — with § 90.113 excluding certain licensed programs and facilities as well. That does not weaken the rules on a letting the chapter covers; it means the classification question comes first, and it is a question of fact about your property. Note the anti-avoidance words too: the exclusions apply “[u]nless created to avoid the application of this chapter”.

There is no flat maximum. ORS 90.295(2) sets the ceiling as the landlord’s “average actual cost of screening applicants or the customary amount charged by tenant screening companies or consumer credit reporting agencies for a comparable level of screening”. Two things follow. The comparison is to a comparable level of screening, so a figure customary for a full credit-plus-criminal-plus-eviction product does not justify the same charge where only references were checked. And the statute expressly allows actual costs to include “the reasonable value of any time spent by the landlord or the landlord’s agents in otherwise obtaining information on applicants” — so a landlord who screens without a vendor is not confined to out-of-pocket spend, though the value claimed has to be reasonable and, in practice, evidenced.

That question comes before every other answer on this page. ORS 90.295 and ORS 90.297 are sections of ORS chapter 90, so they reach what the chapter reaches and no further. ORS 90.115 applies the chapter to a rental agreement, wherever made, for a dwelling unit located within this state.

ORS 90.110, captioned “Exclusions from application of this chapter”, then provides that “[u]nless created to avoid the application of this chapter, the following arrangements are not governed by this chapter”, and lists nine: residence at an institution, public or private, if incidental to detention or the provision of medical, geriatric, educational, counseling, religious or similar service, but not including residence in off-campus nondormitory housing; occupancy of a dwelling unit for no more than 90 days by a purchaser prior to the scheduled closing of a real estate sale, or by a seller following the closing; occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in the portion of a structure operated for the benefit of the organization; transient occupancy in a hotel or motel; occupancy by a squatter; vacation occupancy; occupancy by an employee of a landlord whose right to occupancy is conditional upon employment in and about the premises; occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit or a holder of a proprietary lease in a cooperative; and occupancy under a rental agreement covering premises used by the occupant primarily for agricultural purposes. ORS 90.113 adds one more: residence in a licensed program, facility or home in the care-and-treatment series is not governed by the chapter either.

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 cost limit, the 60-day rule, the nine notices, the queue estimate, the refund triggers and the damages formula all apply to you exactly as set out here. Where it is one of those excluded arrangements, chapter 90 does not govern it at all: neither the § 90.297(1) bar on other applicant fees nor the § 90.295 preconditions reach it, and whatever law does is not described on this page. Which side of the 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 — a short stay can be a vacation occupancy or a tenancy depending on how it is arranged, and an employee’s unit turns on whether the right to occupy is genuinely conditional on the work. Answer it for your own property before relying on anything else here. And note the anti-avoidance words at the head of the list: an arrangement “created to avoid the application of this chapter” is not excluded by it.

Subsection (5) gives two triggers and a 30-day clock: the landlord “[f]ills the vacant dwelling unit before screening the applicant”, or “[h]as not conducted or ordered any screening of the applicant before the applicant withdraws the application in writing”. Both are about a cost never incurred, which is consistent with the charge being cost-recovery.

What is not a trigger matters just as much. An applicant who is screened and then rejected has no refund right under (5), because the money bought the screening that was actually performed. And subsection (6)(a) goes further: an applicant “may not recover an applicant screening charge from the landlord if the applicant refuses an offer from the landlord to rent the dwelling unit”. A page that tells Oregon landlords to refund every unsuccessful applicant is describing a rule the statute does not contain.

Subsection (6)(b) makes the applicant able to recover “twice the amount of any applicant screening charge paid, plus $250” where the landlord fails to comply with the section as to that applicant’s screening or screening charge, or where the landlord conducts no screening for any reason and fails to refund within 30 days. It is a formula rather than a proof-of-loss remedy, which is what makes the notice checklist worth completing properly: the exposure does not scale with the seriousness of the omission, and a missing notice under (3)(b) is a failure to comply with the section just as much as an overcharge is.

Separately, ORS 90.297(6) provides its own remedy where a landlord charges an applicant something 90.297 does not allow, or fails to return a securing deposit on time: the amount charged, plus, where repayment was late and not due to an act of God, a penalty equal to the greater of the deposit or an amount agreed by the parties.

Yes, but only in a specific sequence. ORS 90.297(2) permits a deposit “for the purpose of securing the execution of a rental agreement, only after approving the applicant’s application but prior to entering into a rental agreement”. Before receiving it the landlord must give a written statement describing the rent and the fees and deposits the landlord will require, the terms of the agreement to execute, and the conditions for refunding or retaining the deposit.

If the agreement is then executed, subsection (3) requires the landlord either to apply the deposit toward money due or refund it immediately. If it is not executed because the applicant failed to comply, the landlord may retain it — unless the applicant rejected the agreement because of material habitability defects under ORS 90.320(1). If it is not executed because the landlord failed to comply, or on that habitability rejection, the deposit must go back within five business days.

The charge is the first money an applicant pays, and the rules around it run straight into the wider screening question — what a report may contain, what you may consider, and what the federal adverse-action process requires when a report drives a rejection. Our guide to Oregon tenant screening laws covers that ground and is the page to read alongside this one before you deny an applicant.

The screening charge is also not a security deposit, and ORS 90.300 is a separate regime with its own receipt and accounting duties. See Oregon security deposit laws for what happens to money taken at and after signing.

For the framework the tenancy sits inside, including notice periods and termination, see Oregon landlord-tenant laws.

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