Free Utah Rental Application Fee Disclosure & Receipt

Utah takes an unusual approach to application money, and reading it as a version of the more familiar cap-and-refund model produces the wrong answer twice over. There is no maximum application fee in Utah and no requirement that the fee match what screening actually costs. What § 57-22-4(3) does instead is attach a condition to the act of taking the money: before an owner accepts an application fee or any other payment from a prospective renter, a written disclosure must already have been made, and the statute lists what it must contain. The list is about the deal rather than about the screening — what the rent will be, what fixed non-rent charges come with it, what kinds of use-based charges exist, when the unit will be free, what standards the applicant will be judged by, and how they can get their money back. Then subsection (4) supplies the remedy for the one failure the legislature chose to make actionable in money: an estimate that turns out not to match the agreement. And subsection (9) removes the enforcement route most readers would assume, by barring a renter from using non-compliance either as a defence or as a cause of action. The result is a real duty with an unusual enforcement shape, and a landlord is best served by treating the disclosure as a document to produce properly rather than as a risk to price. One boundary comes before all of it, and the Act does it by definition rather than by an exclusions section. § 57-22-4 is captioned “Owner’s duties” and its obligations fall on an “owner”; § 57-22-2(1) defines an owner as the owner, lessor or sublessor of a residential rental unit; and § 57-22-2(5) defines a residential rental unit as a renter’s principal place of residence, which “does not include facilities contained in a boarding or rooming house or similar facility, mobile home lot, or recreational property rented on an occasional basis”. So a letting that is not somebody’s principal residence, a room in a boarding or rooming house, a mobile home lot and an occasionally-let recreational property all sit outside this section, and nothing on this page describes what governs them instead.

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: Utah Rental Application Fee Receipt explained

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The generator above produces the § 57-22-4(3) disclosure and a receipt as one dated record. Utah prescribes no form, so this is not a statutory form and is not captioned as one. It collects the parties and the unit, the amount received and how, the good-faith rent estimate, each fixed non-rent expense and its amount, the type of each use-based non-rent expense, the scheduled availability date, the eligibility criteria as an explicit checklist covering the categories the statute names, the money-recovery process, the outcome and the refund position. Because the disclosure must precede the payment, the sensible sequence is to complete the disclosure fields, print and give that copy to the applicant, and only then take the fee and complete the receipt half. One assumption is built into it and should be checked before you use it: that the letting is a residential rental unit as § 57-22-2(5) defines it. A boarding or rooming house facility, a mobile home lot, recreational property rented on an occasional basis, and any letting that is not the renter’s principal place of residence sit outside § 57-22-4 altogether, and for one of those this record documents a duty that does not attach. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields left blank print as a dash.

• A written disclosure that existed before the money was accepted. The trigger is “before an owner accepts an application fee or any other payment”, so the sequence is the obligation.
• A good-faith estimate of the rent amount. Item (3)(a)(i)(A).
• A good-faith estimate of each fixed non-rent expense. Item (3)(a)(i)(B) asks for the amount of each such expense, not a single combined figure.
• The type of each use-based non-rent expense. Item (3)(a)(ii) asks for the type, which is a different and lighter obligation than the amount required for fixed expenses.
• The scheduled availability date. Item (3)(a)(iii).
• The eligibility criteria you will consider. Item (3)(a)(iv), expressly including criteria related to criminal history, credit, income, employment or rental history.
• The requirements and process for recovering money paid. Item (3)(a)(v), which means describing the subsection (4) route to the applicant.
• Consistency between the estimate and any rental agreement you later present. A difference is the trigger for the only monetary remedy in the section.
• The date any written demand was received, where one was made. The owner’s five-business-day return clock runs from receipt of the demand.
• That the letting is a residential rental unit as the Act defines it. § 57-22-4 binds an “owner”, and § 57-22-2 defines that by reference to a residential rental unit — the renter’s principal place of residence, and not facilities in a boarding or rooming house or similar facility, a mobile home lot, or recreational property rented on an occasional basis.
• A note of any local requirement you are also meeting. § 57-22-7(1) preempts inconsistent local ordinances, but the scope of that preemption was not researched for this page.

• Looking for the Utah cap. There is none, and there is no actual-cost limit either. Utah regulates the disclosure that must precede the payment, not the size of it.
• Telling applicants they get the fee back if they are rejected. Subsection (4) is a mismatch remedy triggered by a difference between the estimate and a rental agreement the applicant has received. A rejected applicant never receives one, so the right does not arise.
• Collapsing the two five-business-day clocks into one. The renter has five business days from receiving the agreement to demand; the owner has five business days from receiving the demand to return all money. They are separate and run in sequence.
• Disclosing amounts for use-based expenses and types for fixed ones. The statute asks for estimated amounts for fixed non-rent expenses and the type of each use-based expense. Reversing them fails both items.
• Treating (3)(b) as covering the whole disclosure. It permits a rental application, deposit agreement or written summary to satisfy “the written disclosure requirement described in Subsection (3)(a)(i)” — the good-faith estimate. It does not by its terms extend to the criteria or availability items.
• Omitting the money-recovery explanation. Item (v) makes the refund process itself a required disclosure. Leaving it out because it tells the applicant how to make a demand is omitting a mandatory item.
• Reading subsection (9) as making the duty optional. It withholds the renter’s defence and cause of action; it does not say the disclosure need not be made, and it does not address any other consequence.
• Presenting an agreement whose numbers drifted from the estimate. This is the one path to a mandatory return of all money paid, and it is entirely within the landlord’s control.
• Improvising eligibility criteria per applicant. The statute requires the criteria to be disclosed before payment, which in practice means they must already exist and be stable.
• Assuming the section is only about application fees. The trigger is “an application fee or any other payment” from a prospective renter, so a holding payment or deposit taken at the same stage brings the same disclosure duty.
• Assuming the duty reaches every letting you run. § 57-22-4 imposes duties on an “owner”, which § 57-22-2(1) ties to a residential rental unit, and § 57-22-2(5) says that term “does not include facilities contained in a boarding or rooming house or similar facility, mobile home lot, or recreational property rented on an occasional basis” — and reaches only a renter’s principal place of residence in the first place. That does not weaken the duty on a residential rental unit; it means the classification question comes first, and it is a question of fact about your property. Note the trap in the other direction too: the page widens the trigger on the payment axis, because the statute does, but it cannot widen it on the letting axis.

No. Utah Code § 57-22-4 contains no dollar cap on an application fee and no requirement that the fee be limited to the owner’s actual screening cost. This distinguishes Utah from states that either cap the figure or tie it to an invoice. The obligation Utah imposes is procedural: a written disclosure must be made before the payment is accepted.

One consequence worth noticing is that the duty is triggered by “an application fee or any other payment” from a prospective renter. So a holding payment, a deposit taken at application stage, or any other money collected before a tenancy exists brings the same disclosure requirement. The section does not care what the payment is called.

That question comes before every other answer on this page, and Utah answers it in an unusual place. Chapter 57-22 has no section captioned “Applicability”, “Scope” or “Exclusions”. The boundary is drawn by the definitions instead, which is easy to walk straight past.

§ 57-22-4 is captioned “Owner’s duties”, and every obligation in it falls on an “owner”. § 57-22-2(1) provides that “‘Owner’ means the owner, lessor, or sublessor of a residential rental unit”. § 57-22-2(5) then defines that unit: “‘Residential rental unit’ means a renter’s principal place of residence and includes the appurtenances, grounds, and facilities held out for the use of the residential renter generally, and any other area or facility provided to the renter in the rental agreement. It does not include facilities contained in a boarding or rooming house or similar facility, mobile home lot, or recreational property rented on an occasional basis.” The same term is written into subsection (3) itself, which requires disclosure of the day “the residential rental unit is scheduled to be available” and of the criteria going to eligibility “as a renter in the residential rental unit”.

Four categories therefore sit outside the disclosure duty. A letting that is not the renter’s principal place of residence — a second home, a short corporate stay, a holiday let taken alongside a home elsewhere. Facilities contained in a boarding or rooming house or similar facility. A mobile home lot. And recreational property rented on an occasional basis.

Read that as a gate, not as a doubt. Where the letting is a residential rental unit — the ordinary residential tenancy this page is written for — the five-item written disclosure, the mismatch remedy in subsection (4) and the bar in subsection (9) all apply exactly as set out here. Where it is not, § 57-22-4 does not reach the arrangement at all: there is no disclosure duty to breach, and equally no five-business-day return right for the applicant, so the page would both over-state your obligation and mis-describe your risk if it stayed silent. 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 — whether a room is in a “boarding or rooming house or similar facility”, and whether a recreational property is rented “on an occasional basis” rather than continuously, both turn on how the letting is actually run. Answer it for your own property before relying on anything else here.

Five things, in writing. A good-faith estimate of the rent amount and of the amount of each fixed, non-rent expense that is part of the rental agreement. The type of each use-based, non-rent expense. The day the unit is scheduled to be available. The criteria the owner will consider in determining eligibility, including criteria related to criminal history, credit, income, employment or rental history. And the requirements and process for the prospective renter to recover money paid.

The distinction between fixed and use-based expenses is the part that is easiest to get wrong. A fixed non-rent expense — a flat monthly charge that forms part of the agreement — requires an estimated amount. A use-based expense, which varies with consumption or behavior, requires only its type to be disclosed. The statute asks less about the second because the amount is not knowable in advance, and a landlord who tries to estimate it anyway is making a representation the law did not ask for.

Only on a mismatch, and only inside a short window. Subsection (4)(a) allows a prospective renter to make a written demand for the return of money paid where an amount in the good-faith estimate differs from the amount in the rental agreement, or the rental agreement includes a type of use-based non-rent expense that was not disclosed. The demand must be made within five business days after the day the renter receives the rental agreement, and at that time the renter must not have signed the agreement or taken possession.

Because both triggers compare the estimate against a rental agreement, and because the clock starts when the renter receives that agreement, the right is only ever available to an applicant who has been approved and offered terms. An applicant who is turned down has no route to a refund under this subsection. Where the right does apply, subsection (4)(b) requires the owner to return all money the prospective renter paid — not just the discrepancy — within five business days of receiving the demand.

The statute states the duty in mandatory terms and then, in subsection (9), withholds the two consequences a reader would expect. A renter may not use an owner’s failure to comply with subsections (2) through (7) as a basis to excuse the renter’s own compliance with a rental agreement, or to bring a cause of action against the owner. That reaches the disclosure duty in (3) and the return duty in (4) alike.

This page states that because it is what the section says, and because a landlord is entitled to an accurate picture of the law rather than an inflated one. It does not follow that the disclosure is optional. The section imposes the duty in terms; subsection (9) addresses only what a renter may do about a breach, and no other body of law was researched for this page. Separately, subsection (8) preserves any fee, fine, assessment, interest or cost “that is allowed by law or stated in the rental agreement”, so the section is not a general prohibition on charges.

The eligibility criteria you disclose under (3)(a)(iv) are the same criteria that govern the screening decision itself, and the federal rules on consumer reports and adverse action apply to that decision regardless of what Utah requires. Our guide to Utah tenant screening laws covers what you may consider and what a denial requires.

Money taken at application is not a security deposit, and Utah’s deposit rules are a separate regime with their own notice and return duties — see Utah security deposit laws.

For the framework the tenancy sits inside, including the rest of the Fit Premises Act duties in this same section, see Utah landlord-tenant laws.

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