Free Virginia Rental Application

Va. Code § 55.1-1203(C) caps a Virginia rental application fee at fifty dollars, exclusive of any actual out-of-pocket amounts the landlord pays a third party for background, credit or other pre-occupancy checks. For a HUD-regulated or public housing unit the cap is thirty-two dollars. Separately, a refundable application deposit may be taken, and the excess over the landlord’s actual expenses must be refunded with an itemisation within twenty days — ten if the deposit was paid in cash, or by certified or cashier’s check or money order.

Fill in the fields below and the generator produces a clean, dated PDF you can print, sign and hand to the landlord. Nothing is stored and there is no charge. Fields you leave blank print as a dash so you can complete them by hand.

Watch: Free Virginia Rental Application explained

▶ Watch overview

A rental application creates no tenancy; it identifies an applicant and records their consent to be screened. Virginia is one of the few states in this set that regulates both halves of the money — a capped fee and a refundable deposit with an itemised return — and one of three whose rules are already scheduled to change. The generator above records the landlord’s own fee separately from third-party check costs, because only the former is subject to the cap, and that separation is the whole of the analysis.

• The property applied for and the desired move-in date
• The applicant’s full legal name, date of birth and government ID
• Current and previous addresses with the landlords’ contact details
• Employer, position, gross monthly income and a verification contact
• The landlord’s application fee, against the $50 cap in § 55.1-1203(C)
• Whether the unit is HUD-regulated or public housing, where the cap is $32
• Actual out-of-pocket third-party check costs, recorded separately
• Any application deposit, and how it was paid
• Written consent to obtain a consumer report, signed and dated
• An address for any adverse-action notice if the application is declined

• Reading the cap in § 55.1-1203(C) as a total. It is exclusive of actual third-party costs for background, credit or other pre-occupancy checks, so a larger total can be lawful.
• Applying $50 to public housing. The cap is $32 for a HUD-regulated or public housing unit.
• Confusing the fee with the deposit. They are separate. The deposit is refundable and carries an itemised refund duty; the fee does not.
• Using the twenty-day clock for a cash deposit. It is ten days where the deposit was paid in cash or by certified or cashier’s check or money order.
• Citing subsection (C) after 1 July 2027. The second version renumbers the fee cap to (D) and adds written pre-collection notice duties.

Fifty dollars — plus what the checks actually cost. Va. Code § 55.1-1203(C) caps the application fee at $50, and that cap is exclusive of the actual out-of-pocket amounts the landlord pays a third party for background, credit or other pre-occupancy checks.

For a HUD-regulated or public housing unit the figure is lower: $32.

Virginia allows a refundable application deposit in addition to the fee, and it is governed differently. The excess over the landlord’s actual expenses must be refunded with an itemisation.

The deadline depends on how it was paid:

• Twenty days in the ordinary case;
• Ten days where the deposit was paid in cash, or by certified cheque, cashier’s cheque or money order.

The shorter period for guaranteed funds has a straightforward logic: the landlord never had to wait for those to clear, so it does not need as long to return them. It is a small detail that is easy to overlook and changes the date by ten days, so it is worth recording how the deposit was paid at the time.

It is worth being clear about why Virginia has both. The fee compensates the landlord for the work of processing and screening; it is capped and it does not come back. The deposit is the applicant’s money held against actual expenses; it is refundable to the extent it was not spent, and the itemisation is how the applicant sees what was.

An applicant asking about their money should therefore be clear which they paid. The two questions — “was the fee within the cap?” and “has the unspent deposit been itemised and returned?” — have different answers and different deadlines.

A second version of § 55.1-1203 takes effect on 1 July 2027. It adds a duty to give written notice, before collecting anything, of the fees, the tenant selection criteria, the automatic-denial criteria, the consumer reporting agency being used, and the applicant’s rights in respect of the report.

It also renumbers the fee cap from subsection (C) to subsection (D). That is a citation trap waiting to happen: a page or a form citing “§ 55.1-1203(C)” will be pointing at the wrong subsection after that date, even though the cap itself continues.

The direction of travel is worth noting too. The 2027 version moves Virginia towards the Texas model — disclosure of criteria before money changes hands — on top of the cap it already has.

The decisive Virginia field is the split between the landlord’s own fee and third-party check costs, because only the first is capped. After that, whether an application deposit was taken and how it was paid, since that sets the refund deadline.

Beyond the money, the consent to obtain a consumer report is what makes screening lawful, and the adverse-action acknowledgement matters because an applicant declined wholly or partly because of a consumer report is entitled under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. § 1681m) to be told so and given the reporting agency’s details — a point the 2027 version of the section makes explicit at the front end as well. Our guide to how to screen tenants covers the landlord’s side.

Signing one binds nobody to a tenancy. A tenancy begins only if the landlord accepts the application and the parties sign a rental agreement, and the terms that then govern come from that agreement and the law behind it rather than from anything on the application.

An application is the one moment in a tenancy when a stranger’s history is examined, so it is worth knowing what is being looked at. Eviction records are part of most screenings, and what they mean depends on how the process works locally — our guide to Virginia eviction notice laws sets out the notices and timelines that produce those records in the first place.

If the application succeeds, the next money question is the deposit, and it is a different question from the fee discussed here: an application fee buys screening, a deposit secures the tenancy and is generally refundable. Virginia security deposit laws cover what may be held and when it has to come back.

For everything the application stage does not settle — the obligations that begin once a tenancy starts, and the rules that apply to both parties throughout it — see Virginia landlord tenant laws.

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.