How much can a landlord charge for a screening fee in Illinois?

Illinois has no statewide statutory cap on the application screening fee today, so a landlord may charge a reasonable amount that reflects the actual cost of obtaining the screening report, and the market range is commonly thirty dollars to fifty dollars. The fee should be disclosed to the applicant before it is collected. That answer changes on January 1, 2027. 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/35, added by Public Act 104-479, bars a landlord from requiring a fee for a rental application, background checks included, in excess of $50. A landlord may exceed $50 only for a third-party background check whose actual cost is higher, and only if the landlord pays that cost up front and bills the applicant within 14 days with the provider's receipts; if the bill and receipts do not arrive within 14 days the fee is waived. The section applies to lease agreements entered into after its effective date, does not apply to dwelling units in owner-occupied premises containing six units or fewer, and carries a private right of action under which a court may order injunctive relief, monetary relief, attorney's fees and costs. Because that section has a delayed effective date, verify its text before relying on it. The important recent change is the portable tenant screening report law at 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30, enacted by Public Act 103-0840 and effective January 1, 2025: when an applicant supplies a qualifying reusable screening report, the landlord may not charge an application screening fee or any fee to access the report. There is no verified Chicago ordinance that caps the screening fee at a fixed dollar figure, so treat any such claim with caution and verify the current rule before charging.

What is the Illinois portable tenant screening report law?

The portable, or reusable, tenant screening report law is codified at 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30, enacted by Public Act 103-0840 and effective January 1, 2025. It provides that a landlord may not charge a prospective tenant an application screening fee, or a fee to access or use a screening report, when the applicant provides a qualifying reusable tenant screening report. To qualify, the report must have been prepared within the previous thirty days by a consumer reporting agency at the applicant's own request and expense, must be made available to the landlord at no cost to access or use, and must include all of the criteria the landlord consistently uses to screen applicants, including a source-of-income verification and an eviction-history check. The landlord may require the applicant to state that there has not been a material change to the information in the reusable tenant screening report, which is the whole of section 30(b)(2); the statute requires no writing and no certification, so the fee waiver cannot be conditioned on a signed certificate.

Does Illinois require written consent before running a tenant screening report?

Get it in writing every time - but not for the reason most guides give. No Illinois statute requires written consent for tenant screening, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act does not impose its stand-alone disclosure and authorization rule on a landlord: that rule is section 604(b)(2), 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(2), and it applies by its own terms only to a report procured for employment purposes. A landlord's federal authority to obtain a rental applicant's consumer report is permissible purpose under 15 U.S.C. 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i), a legitimate business need in connection with a business transaction the consumer initiated. Written consent still matters for two practical reasons: every consumer reporting agency conditions service on a landlord certification of permissible purpose and virtually all of them require signed applicant authorization, and a signed, clear and conspicuous standalone form is the landlord's only proof if the pull is ever challenged. So the advice does not change - use a standalone consent form, obtained before the report is pulled, and keep it on file - only the legal basis for it does.

Can an Illinois landlord refuse a Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) holder?

No. The Illinois Human Rights Act was amended by House Bill 2775, signed in 2022 and effective January 1, 2023, to add source of income as a protected class in real-estate transactions. The Act defines source of income generically, at 775 ILCS 5/1-103(O-5), as the lawful manner by which an individual supports himself or herself and his or her dependents. It does not name Section 8, vouchers or rental assistance in terms, but a Housing Choice Voucher, disability payments and other rental assistance are lawful manners of support and are covered. A landlord may not refuse to rent, advertise a no-voucher policy, or apply different screening criteria because an applicant intends to pay part of the rent with a voucher. The landlord may still screen the applicant on neutral criteria applied to every applicant, but the voucher itself cannot be the reason for a denial. Complaints go to the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

Can an Illinois landlord reject an applicant based on a criminal record?

Sometimes, and where the property sits decides the procedure. Illinois has no statewide ban-the-box housing law and no statewide statute requiring an individualized assessment before a criminal-history denial, so outside Cook County the statewide limits are substantive rather than procedural: the Illinois Human Rights Act makes arrest record a protected basis in real-estate transactions at 775 ILCS 5/1-103(B-5) and 5/3-102, so in a covered rental a denial resting on an arrest that never led to a conviction is unlawful anywhere in Illinois. Two qualifications matter. The protected term is broader than it sounds: section 1-103(B-5) defines arrest record as an arrest not leading to a conviction, a juvenile record, or criminal history record information ordered expunged, sealed or impounded, so all three are off-limits. And the bar is not absolute: section 3-102 is subject to the exemptions at 775 ILCS 5/3-106, which include the rental of a unit in a building of not more than four families living independently where the owner resides in one of them, the rental of a room in a private home where the owner or a family member lives, any inquiry into or use of an arrest record otherwise authorized by State or federal law, and, at section 3-106(G), conduct against a person convicted of the illegal manufacture or distribution of a controlled substance as defined in section 102 of the federal Controlled Substances Act, which is the one conviction category the Act lifts outside section 3-102. Those two building exemptions do not reach paragraph (F) of section 3-102, so even an exempt owner may not use an application form, make a record, or make an inquiry indicating an arrest-record preference. Separately, an overbroad conviction policy can still create disparate-effect exposure on two tracks: federally under 24 CFR 100.500, and in Illinois under 775 ILCS 5/3-102(H), which makes it a civil rights violation to use criteria or methods that have the effect of subjecting individuals to discrimination based on arrest record, source of income, familial status or immigration status, unless the criteria are necessary to a substantial, legitimate, non-discriminatory interest that no less discriminatory practice would serve. The state track matters more for screening, because arrest record, source of income and immigration status are not protected by the federal Fair Housing Act at all. HUD's 2016 criminal-records guidance, which is what most landlord pages still cite for the individualized assessment, was withdrawn effective September 25, 2025, so outside Cook County an individualized assessment is a strongly recommended best practice rather than a federal requirement. In Cook County the Just Housing Amendment to the county Human Rights Ordinance makes the process mandatory: prequalify the applicant on every other criterion first, run the criminal background check only after that prequalification, consider convictions from the previous three years only, deliver a copy of the background check to the applicant, allow the applicant to dispute its accuracy and relevance, complete a written individualized assessment, and deny only where the denial is necessary to protect against a demonstrable risk to personal safety or property. Arrests that did not lead to conviction, sealed or expunged records, and juvenile records may not be considered.

What is the Cook County Just Housing Amendment?

The Just Housing Amendment is an amendment to the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance, codified at Cook County Code section 42-38, adopted as Ordinance 19-2394 and effective January 1, 2020, with the Board delaying enforcement remedies until after January 31, 2020. It prohibits housing discrimination based on covered criminal history and imposes a two-step screening process. In step one, the landlord evaluates all of the applicant's other qualifications, such as credit, income, and rental history, without accessing criminal background. Only after the applicant is prequalified may the landlord, in step two, run a criminal background check, and even then it may consider only convictions from the previous three years. The Commission on Human Rights Part 700 interpretive rules supply the timetable: before accepting an application fee the landlord must disclose the tenant selection criteria, the applicant's right to submit evidence of inaccuracy or of rehabilitation and other mitigating factors, and how to reach the Commission, at rule 730.100; the landlord must deliver a copy of the background check to the applicant within five days of obtaining it, in person, by certified mail, or electronically, at rule 740.100, a deadline the County's own published guidance states as five business days; the applicant then has five business days to dispute the accuracy or relevance of any conviction from the last three years, at rule 740.110; the landlord conducts the individualized assessment, at rule 750.100; and the landlord must approve or deny within three business days of receiving the applicant's dispute information, at rule 760.100. Any denial must be in writing, must explain why it is necessary to protect against a demonstrable risk to personal safety or property, and must inform the applicant of the right to file a complaint with the Commission, at rule 760.110. The landlord is not required to hold the unit off the market during the dispute, at rule 740.120. This is Cook County law, not the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and it sits on top of the federal adverse action notice, which is still owed whenever a consumer report contributed to the outcome. It is enforced by the Cook County Commission on Human Rights and applies to real estate transactions for residential property in Cook County; the County publishes no exception for property inside the City of Chicago, and the municipal carve-out that exists in the county's separate Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance is written into that ordinance only. Coverage inside Chicago is nonetheless genuinely unresolved, and one provision cuts the other way: Cook County Code section 42-33 provides that if this article conflicts with an ordinance of a municipality the municipal ordinance prevails within its jurisdiction, and that where a municipal ordinance regulates conduct prohibited under the article and provides remedies, the article does not apply within that municipality as to that conduct. Chicago's fair-housing chapter has no criminal-history class and the Chicago RLTO has no screening provision, so there may be no conflicting Chicago rule for section 42-33 to displace the Just Housing Amendment with, but the County has published no statement resolving the question. A Chicago landlord should confirm coverage with the Commission and run the two-step process in the meantime.

Does an Illinois applicant get a copy of the screening report if rejected?

Yes, but from the screening company rather than from the landlord, and after the decision rather than before it. The Fair Credit Reporting Act does not require a landlord to enclose a copy of the report, to enclose the summary of rights, or to wait any period before denying: that pre-adverse action procedure is 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(3), and it applies by its own terms only to a consumer report used for employment purposes. What a housing decision triggers is the adverse action notice under 15 U.S.C. 1681m(a), given after the decision. It must state the name, address and telephone number of the consumer reporting agency that furnished the report, that the agency did not make the decision and cannot give the specific reasons for it, that the applicant may obtain a free copy of the report from that agency within sixty days, and that the applicant may dispute anything inaccurate or incomplete in it. If a numerical credit score was used in the decision, the score and the key factors that adversely affected it must be disclosed as well. The notice may be oral, written or electronic; the Federal Trade Commission's landlord guidance calls written notice the best practice, not a legal requirement. Two Illinois points: in Cook County the Just Housing Amendment separately requires the landlord to deliver a copy of the criminal background check and to allow a dispute before denying, and skipping the section 1681m(a) adverse action notice is a Fair Credit Reporting Act violation anywhere in the state.

Where can an Illinois applicant file a fair housing complaint?

An applicant who believes a screening decision was discriminatory can file with the Illinois Department of Human Rights at the state level or with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development at the federal level, which can be reached about fair-housing matters at its toll-free line. In Cook County, a complaint about a criminal-history denial or a Just Housing Amendment violation goes to the Cook County Commission on Human Rights. There are filing deadlines, so a complaint should be made promptly, and an applicant may also raise a fair-housing or Fair Credit Reporting Act violation in court, where damages, civil penalties, and attorney fees may be available.

What penalties apply for tenant screening violations in Illinois?

The exposure is layered. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a willful violation under section 616, 15 U.S.C. 1681n, exposes the landlord to either the consumer's actual damages or statutory damages of one hundred to one thousand dollars per violation - the statute states them in the alternative, not in addition - plus any punitive damages the court allows; a negligent violation under section 617, 15 U.S.C. 1681o, carries actual damages; and both carry the costs of the action and reasonable attorney fees in a successful action by the consumer, which is what drives class actions. Under the Illinois Human Rights Act a fair-housing violation can bring actual damages, civil penalties, and attorney fees, and repeat federal Fair Housing Act violations can carry escalating civil penalties reaching into six figures plus injunctive relief. A Cook County Just Housing Amendment violation carries its own remedies through the Cook County Commission on Human Rights. Because the attorney-fee provisions shift the cost to the landlord, a single dropped consent form or missing adverse action notice can become expensive.

How long can an Illinois tenant screening report reach back?

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, most negative items on a consumer report have a seven-year reporting window, while bankruptcies may be reported for ten years. In Cook County, the Just Housing Amendment adds a much tighter rule for criminal history specifically: a landlord may consider only convictions from the previous three years, and may not consider arrests without conviction, sealed or expunged records, or juvenile adjudications at all. A landlord should never base a decision on information older than the applicable law allows, and an applicant can dispute stale or inaccurate items with the consumer reporting agency, which must investigate, generally within thirty days, and correct or delete anything it cannot verify.

Must Illinois screening criteria be applied consistently to every applicant?

Yes, and consistency is the single most protective habit a landlord can adopt. Applying a written credit-score minimum, income ratio, and rental-history standard uniformly to every applicant in the same posture defeats a disparate-treatment claim under the federal Fair Housing Act and the Illinois Human Rights Act, because there is no room for the criteria to be bent for or against a protected class. The portable screening report law also assumes a consistent, written criteria set, because a portable report only triggers the fee waiver when it covers the criteria the landlord consistently uses. Publish the criteria up front, apply them identically, and document any individualized analysis for borderline cases.

What is the best way to screen tenants in Illinois?

A defensible Illinois screening process combines a standardized application and written criteria disclosed up front, a standalone written consent form, an FCRA-compliant consumer reporting agency, credit and income verification, rental-history and eviction checks, a criminal-history review that respects the Illinois Human Rights Act arrest-record protection and, in Cook County, the Just Housing Amendment two-step process with its background-check delivery and dispute window, and a section 1681m(a) adverse action notice whenever a report contributes to a rejection, a higher deposit, a higher rent, or a co-signer requirement. Where an applicant supplies a qualifying portable tenant screening report, accept it and do not charge a fee. Our how to screen a tenant step-by-step guide walks each stage in order, and following that sequence keeps the process both predictive and compliant with Illinois and federal law.

What should an Illinois landlord know about security deposits when screening?

Screening and deposits connect because a landlord collects the deposit from the approved applicant, and Illinois has specific rules on deposit interest, itemized deductions, and return deadlines that vary with the size of the building and the municipality. Note also that requiring a higher deposit because of information in a screening report is itself an adverse action under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, so it triggers the adverse action notice, not just an outright rejection. Review our Illinois security deposit laws guide for compliant deposit handling, and treat any report-driven deposit increase as a step that must be disclosed to the applicant.

Does the FCRA require a pre-adverse action notice before denying an Illinois rental applicant?

No. That two-step procedure - give the applicant a copy of the report and the summary of rights, then wait before acting - comes from 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(3), a subsection that applies by its own terms only in using a consumer report for employment purposes, and 15 U.S.C. 1681a(h) defines employment purposes as evaluating a consumer for employment, promotion, reassignment or retention as an employee. Renting a home is none of those. In housing the duty is the adverse action notice under 15 U.S.C. 1681m(a), which runs after the decision, requires no copy of the report, requires no summary of rights, and sets no waiting period of any length. Section 1681b(b)(3) states no number of days even in employment, so the widely repeated five business days figure has no federal source in housing at all. Illinois adds no statewide pre-denial step either. The one place in Illinois where a genuine pre-denial notice and response duty exists is Cook County, where it comes from the Just Housing Amendment to the county Human Rights Ordinance, applies to criminal history, and is county law rather than the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Do the Chicago RLTO or the Cook County Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance regulate tenant screening?

No, neither one does, and confusing them with the Just Housing Amendment is the most common mistake in Illinois screening guidance. The Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, Municipal Code of Chicago chapter 5-12, and the Cook County Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance, Ordinance 20-3562, codified at Cook County Code sections 42-101 through 42-116 and in effect June 1, 2021, both govern the tenancy itself: the rental agreement, security deposits, disclosures, repairs, notices, lockouts and remedies. Neither contains a tenant-screening or criminal-history provision. The county ordinance also excludes, at section 42-101(d), any city, village or incorporated town that maintains its own promulgated regulations establishing the rights and obligations of both tenant and landlord, which is why a City of Chicago rental is governed by the Chicago ordinance rather than the county one. The criminal-history screening rules sit in a different article of the county code entirely, the Just Housing Amendment at Cook County Code section 42-38, and the screening fee rules are state law at 765 ILCS 705/30. Keep the three apart: state law for the fee and the protected classes, the Just Housing Amendment for criminal-history screening in Cook County, and the Chicago or Cook County tenant-landlord ordinance for the tenancy after the lease is signed.

Home › Tenant Screening Laws › Illinois

Illinois Tenant Screening Laws: The Landlord and Applicant Guide

FCRA Permissible Purpose · Section 1681m(a) Adverse Action Notices · Portable Screening Reports Under 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30 · Illinois Human Rights Act Source of Income · Cook County Just Housing Amendment

Updated Q3 2026 By Tenant Screening Background Check Editorial Team Applies Illinois ~17 min read

Illinois tenant screening sits at the crossroads of three bodies of law: the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, which governs how a consumer report may be pulled and used everywhere in the country; the Illinois Human Rights Act, which since January 1, 2023 protects source of income and a long list of other classes; and a growing set of Illinois-specific rules, headed by the portable tenant screening report law at 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30 and, in Cook County, the Just Housing Amendment that reshapes how criminal history may be used. The Illinois landlords who screen properly follow the law at each step. The ones who skip the consent form or the adverse action notice pay for that shortcut, and fee-shifting to a consumer who wins is what makes the bill so large.

This guide walks the whole framework in plain English: what the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act actually requires of a landlord and the employment-only rules that landlord websites keep importing into housing, the fact that Illinois sets no statewide screening-fee cap today and the $50 cap that arrives on January 1, 2027 under 765 ILCS 705/35, the new portable screening report law that waives the application fee, source-of-income protection under the Illinois Human Rights Act and House Bill 2775, what survives the withdrawal of HUD’s 2016 criminal-records guidance, the mandatory two-step Cook County Just Housing Amendment process with its five-day and three-business-day clocks, the rights every applicant holds, a day-by-day screening workflow, a compliance playbook, real scenarios, and an Illinois-specific set of frequently asked questions.

Because Illinois layers state and county protections on top of the federal baseline, the safest posture for a landlord is written consent, consistent written criteria, and proper adverse action notices every single time, and the strongest position for an applicant is to know exactly which rights the law confers. Treat every figure here as a starting point and verify the current statute and any local ordinance before you screen, charge a fee, or dispute a decision.

Illinois tenant screening rules at a glance

Illinois has no statewide cap on application fees until January 1, 2027, when 765 ILCS 705/35 (Public Act 104-479) generally caps a rental-application fee, background checks included, at fifty dollars for leases entered into after that date, with a narrow exception for a third-party background check that actually costs more and an exemption for owner-occupied buildings of six or fewer units. See the Illinois application fee guide.
Under 765 ILCS 705/30 (Public Act 103-0840, effective January 1, 2025), a landlord may not charge an application screening fee or an access fee when the applicant supplies a qualifying reusable screening report prepared within the previous thirty days.
The Illinois Human Rights Act (775 ILCS 5/3-102 and 5/1-103(B-5)) bars housing decisions based on arrest record, which includes arrests without conviction, juvenile records and expunged or sealed records, subject to the exemptions in 775 ILCS 5/3-106; in Cook County, the Just Housing Amendment (Cook County Code section 42-38) limits review to convictions from the past three years after prequalification.
Source of income, including Housing Choice Vouchers, is a protected class statewide under the Illinois Human Rights Act (775 ILCS 5/1-103(O-5), added by Public Act 102-896 effective January 1, 2023).
The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. section 1681 and following) is the baseline for every Illinois screening report, including the adverse action notice under section 1681m(a).

Illinois Tenant Screening at a Glance

Primary Authority

FCRA — fifteen U.S.C. section 1681 & Fair Housing Act

Illinois Authority

765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30 & the Illinois Human Rights Act

Screening Fee Cap

No statewide cap until 2027 — then $50 (765 ILCS 705/35); waived for a portable report

2025 Update

Portable screening report law — no fee when a qualifying report is supplied

Bottom line: An Illinois landlord must satisfy the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act — permissible purpose and an adverse action notice under section 1681m(a) whenever a consumer report contributes to a denial, a higher deposit, a higher rent or a co-signer requirement — and Illinois’s own rules on top of it. The FCRA imposes no pre-adverse action step on a landlord: that procedure is 15 U.S.C. section 1681b(b)(3) and reaches employment screening only, and no federal law sets any waiting period before a housing denial. Illinois sets no statewide cap on the application screening fee today — but that expires: 765 ILCS 705/35, added by Public Act 104-479 and effective January 1, 2027, caps a rental-application fee, background checks included, at $50. Until then a reasonable fee tied to the actual cost of the report is allowed, and as of January 1, 2025 the portable tenant screening report law at 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30 bars any screening or access fee when an applicant supplies a qualifying reusable report current within thirty days. The Illinois Human Rights Act, amended by House Bill 2775 effective January 1, 2023, protects source of income, so a no-voucher policy is unlawful. Illinois protects arrest record as a class in real-estate transactions (775 ILCS 5/1-103(B-5), 5/3-102) — a definition that also reaches juvenile records and expunged, sealed or impounded records, and a protection that is subject to the exemptions at 775 ILCS 5/3-106, including an owner-occupied building of four or fewer units — but imposes no statewide individualized-assessment step; HUD’s 2016 criminal-records guidance was withdrawn effective September 25, 2025, while the discriminatory-effects rule at 24 CFR 100.500 survives. In Cook County the Just Housing Amendment does mandate a two-step process, a three-year conviction window, delivery of the background check, and a dispute window before denial. These are general rules; verify the current statute and any local ordinance before you screen.

The FCRA Framework in Illinois

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, codified at fifteen U.S.C. section 1681, is the federal statute that governs tenant screening nationwide, and an Illinois landlord must comply with it regardless of any state-law differences, then add Illinois’s own rules. Getting both layers right prevents almost all screening-related liability. Five points sit at the core, and each one is load-bearing — but two of them are described wrongly on most landlord websites, because they are borrowed from the FCRA’s employment screening rules and do not apply to housing at all.

Permissible Purpose

A landlord has a permissible purpose under Fair Credit Reporting Act section 604(a)(3)(F)(i), 15 U.S.C. section 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i) — a legitimate business need for the information “in connection with a business transaction that is initiated by the consumer.” A rental application is exactly that, and subparagraph (F)(ii) covers a review of an existing tenancy at renewal. The screening company will require the landlord to certify that purpose before it releases a report. This is the landlord’s actual federal authority to obtain the report — not the employment-screening disclosure-and-authorization rule, which is a different subsection entirely. It opens the door to a report the landlord must then handle correctly.

Written Consent

Get written consent from every applicant — but know why, because this is the first of the two items landlord guides get wrong. The Fair Credit Reporting Act’s stand-alone written disclosure and authorization rule is section 604(b)(2), 15 U.S.C. section 1681b(b)(2), and its opening words are “a person may not procure a consumer report … for employment purposes.” It is not a housing requirement, and a page that presents it as one is importing an employment rule into a tenancy. What makes written consent close to mandatory in practice is contractual and evidentiary: every consumer reporting agency conditions service on a landlord certification of permissible purpose, and virtually all of them require signed applicant authorization as well; and a signed, clear and conspicuous standalone form is the landlord’s only proof if the pull is ever questioned. Illinois adds no statewide written-consent statute of its own. So the practical advice does not change — always in writing, on its own form, before the report is pulled — only the legal basis for it does.

Consistent Criteria

Written screening criteria must be applied consistently to every applicant. Inconsistency creates disparate-treatment exposure under fair-housing law — the federal Fair Housing Act and the Illinois Human Rights Act — and, where it touches how reports are obtained or used, Fair Credit Reporting Act exposure as well, because bending the rule for one applicant and not another is powerful evidence of discrimination even where none was intended. Illinois’s portable screening report law also assumes a written, consistent criteria set.

No Pre-Adverse Action Notice in Housing

The Fair Credit Reporting Act does not impose a pre-adverse action step on a landlord. The familiar two-step procedure — send the applicant a copy of the report plus the summary of rights, then wait before acting — is section 604(b)(3), 15 U.S.C. section 1681b(b)(3). That subsection is captioned “Conditions for furnishing and using consumer reports for employment purposes,” and its own text limits it to “using a consumer report for employment purposes.” Section 603(h), 15 U.S.C. section 1681a(h), defines employment purposes as evaluating a consumer “for employment, promotion, reassignment or retention as an employee.” A tenancy is none of those four things.

Three consequences follow, and each one contradicts what most Illinois screening guides say. A landlord owes no duty to enclose the report. A landlord owes no duty to enclose the summary of rights. And federal law sets no waiting period of any length between the decision and the notice — section 1681b(b)(3) states no number of days even in the employment context, so the “at least five business days” figure that circulates on landlord sites has no federal source in housing at all. Where a genuine pre-denial notice-and-response duty does exist, it comes from state or local fair-chance housing law. In Illinois that means Cook County, and only Cook County — covered in detail below. It never comes from the FCRA.

One real federal pre-report duty can reach a landlord, and it is a different thing: if the landlord orders an investigative consumer report — personal interviews about character, general reputation or mode of living — 15 U.S.C. section 1681d(a) requires written disclosure to the applicant, mailed or delivered not later than three days after the report was first requested, together with the summary of rights. That is a disclosure that the report is being prepared, not a notice before a denial.

Adverse Action Notice

This is the landlord’s real federal notice duty, and it runs after the decision. Under section 615(a), 15 U.S.C. section 1681m(a), anyone who takes an adverse action based in whole or in part on information in a consumer report must give the consumer notice of that action and must provide the name, address and telephone number of the consumer reporting agency that furnished the report, a statement that the agency did not make the decision and cannot give the specific reasons for it, notice of the right to a free copy of the report from that agency within sixty days, and notice of the right to dispute the accuracy or completeness of the information. If a numerical credit score was used in the decision, section 1681m(a)(2) also requires disclosing the score and the key factors that adversely affected it. The notice may be oral, written or electronic — the Federal Trade Commission’s landlord guidance calls written notice the best practice, not a legal requirement.

Note what section 1681m(a) does not require: no copy of the report, no summary of rights, no waiting period. The applicant’s route to the report is the sixty-day free copy from the agency. Note also how wide the trigger is. “Based in whole or in part” means the notice is owed even where the report was a minor factor, and “adverse action” under section 603(k)(1)(B)(iv) reaches any action taken on the applicant’s own application that is adverse to the applicant’s interests. The FTC’s own examples for landlords are denying the application, requiring a co-signer on the lease, requiring a deposit that would not be required of another applicant, requiring a larger deposit than another applicant would pay, and charging a higher rent than another applicant would pay. This step is not optional.

Sections 616 and 617 penalties

The Fair Credit Reporting Act imposes serious penalties. A willful violation under section 616, 15 U.S.C. section 1681n, exposes the landlord to either the consumer’s actual damages or statutory damages of one hundred to one thousand dollars per violation — the statute states those two in the alternative, not in addition — plus any punitive damages the court allows. A negligent violation under section 617, 15 U.S.C. section 1681o, carries actual damages with no statutory-damages floor. Both carry the costs of the action and reasonable attorney fees in a successful action — section 1681n(a)(3) and section 1681o(a)(2) each award them only “in the case of any successful action to enforce any liability under this section,” and sections 1681n(c) and 1681o(b) send fees the other way, to the prevailing party, where a pleading was filed in bad faith or for harassment. That fee-shifting to a consumer who wins is precisely what makes Fair Credit Reporting Act class actions so aggressive, because the cost of a single dropped step shifts to the landlord.

Takeaway

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requires permissible purpose and an adverse action notice under section 1681m(a) after any report-driven denial, higher deposit, higher rent or co-signer requirement. It does not require a pre-adverse action notice, a copy of the report, a summary of rights, or a waiting period — those come from the employment rules at sections 1681b(b)(2) and 1681b(b)(3). An Illinois landlord who keeps written consent as a matter of practice, applies criteria consistently, and always sends the section 1681m(a) notice is following the core screening rules; the penalty for skipping the notice, driven by fee-shifting to a consumer who wins, is comprehensive.

The Illinois Screening Fee: No Statewide Cap Until January 1, 2027

How much can an Illinois landlord charge for a screening fee?

Unlike a handful of states that put a hard ceiling on the application screening fee, Illinois sets no statewide cap today. A landlord may charge a reasonable fee that reflects the actual cost of obtaining the screening report, and the common market range is thirty dollars to fifty dollars for a combined credit, criminal, and eviction-history report. The fee should be disclosed to the applicant before it is collected, and a landlord who charges more than the report actually costs invites a claim that the fee is a profit center rather than a cost recovery. That answer has an expiry date, and the change is already enacted, so any fee policy written now should be built to survive it.

A $50 statewide cap takes effect January 1, 2027

765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/35, added by Public Act 104-479 and effective January 1, 2027, bars a landlord or lease agreement from requiring “a fee for a rental application, including background checks, in excess of $50” (§ 35(c)(1)). There is one narrow way above that figure: a landlord may charge more than $50 for a third-party background check only if the actual cost of that service exceeds $50, the landlord pays the cost up front, and the landlord bills the applicant within 14 days with the provider’s receipts — and if the bill and receipts do not arrive within 14 days, the fee is waived. The same section bars a duplicate fee “ancillary to the application fee” intended to duplicate screening costs (§ 35(c)(2)). Three limits matter for planning: it applies to lease agreements entered into after the effective date; it does not apply to dwelling units in owner-occupied premises containing six units or fewer (§ 35(e)); and it carries a private right of action under which a court may order injunctive relief, monetary relief, attorney’s fees and costs (§ 35(f)). Home-rule and non-home-rule units may still regulate fees, but only at least as strictly as this section (§ 35(d)). Confirm the text before 2027 — a delayed-effective-date section can be amended before it starts.

The $50 cap is one clause of an eleven-category junk-fee ban — and a first-page-of-the-lease disclosure rule

Section 35 is titled “Rental fee transparency and limitations,” and the application-fee cap is only § 35(c)(1) of it. Two other halves of the same section will matter more to most Illinois landlords from January 1, 2027, and neither is about screening at all.

Transparency — § 35(b). “All non-optional fees, regardless of whether they are one-time fees or recurring fees, shall be explicitly contained on the first page of a lease agreement.” The sanction is automatic: “if a fee is not explicitly contained on the first page of a lease agreement, a tenant shall not be liable for payment of such fee.” Non-optional fees must also be disclosed clearly and conspicuously in the listing itself, or in a weblink accompanying it, at the time of the listing (§ 35(b)(1)) — a “listing” being an advertisement or written notice conveying that a property is for lease and stating the rental price (§ 35(a)) — and the lease disclosure or unit listing must state whether utilities are included in rent (§ 35(b)(2)).

The junk-fee ban — § 35(c). Eleven categories of fee or fine are barred, not one. Besides the application-fee cap at (c)(1) and the duplicate screening-cost fee at (c)(2), no landlord and no lease agreement may require the tenant to pay: a fee or fine for modifying or renewing a lease (c)(3); a fee or fine for an eviction notice, or for filing an eviction action before the court grants an eviction order, though court costs and filing fees stay recoverable (c)(4); a fee for after-hours maintenance requests (c)(5); a fee for contacting the building owner or property manager about maintenance, service, lease questions or other matters directly related to the tenancy (c)(6); a fee for travel required to complete maintenance or safety repairs (c)(7); a fee for a maintenance hotline or a call to one (c)(8); a fee for the routine maintenance and upkeep of the unit (c)(9); a fee for pest abatement or removal where the tenant did not contribute to the infestation (c)(10); or a fee for an in-person walk-through at move-in or move-out (c)(11). One anti-evasion rule covers the lot: “a landlord may not rename a fee or charge to avoid application of this Section” (§ 35(e)). The application fee carries one extra protection of its own — “under no circumstances may this fee be used as a basis for an eviction action within the first year of a lease agreement.” The § 35(e) exemption for owner-occupied premises of six units or fewer, the § 35(d) home-rule floor and the § 35(f) private right of action apply to the whole section, junk-fee ban and disclosure rule included.

Watch out for a phantom Chicago fee cap

Some online guides claim that Chicago caps the tenant screening fee at a fixed figure under a numbered section of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance. That is not accurate: the section commonly cited is the ordinance’s tenant-rights summary attachment requirement, not a fee cap, and there is no verified Chicago ordinance that limits the screening fee to a set dollar amount. Do not rely on a repeated online figure; confirm any local fee rule against the actual municipal code before you set your fee.

Takeaway

Illinois has no statewide screening-fee cap — until January 1, 2027, when 765 ILCS 705/35 (Public Act 104-479) caps a rental-application fee, background checks included, at $50, with a narrow billed-within-14-days path above that for a costlier third-party check and an exemption for owner-occupied premises of six units or fewer. Until then, charge a reasonable fee tied to the real cost of the report, commonly thirty dollars to fifty dollars, disclose it before collecting, and do not treat it as profit — and note that a fee already inside the coming $50 ceiling will not need re-cutting in 2027. Two other hard limits sit alongside it: the same Public Act 104-479 requires every non-optional fee, one-time or recurring, to appear on the first page of the lease under 765 ILCS 705/35(b), with the tenant not liable for any that does not and limits or bars eleven named categories of fee under section 35(c), and the portable screening report law below waives the application fee entirely when a qualifying reusable report is supplied.

The Portable Tenant Screening Report Law: 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30

The single most important recent change to Illinois tenant screening is the portable, or reusable, tenant screening report law, codified at 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30, enacted by Public Act 103-0840 and effective January 1, 2025. Note the section number, because most Illinois coverage gets it wrong: this rule is Section 30 of the Landlord and Tenant Act, not Section 25. Two 2024 Public Acts each added a “Section 25” to that Act in the same session, and 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/25 is the flood-hazard disclosure added by Public Act 103-754. It does not cap the fee, but it lets an applicant avoid paying a separate screening fee to every landlord by reusing one recent report, and it is the law that Illinois property-management sources and answer engines now lead with. Every Illinois landlord who charges a screening fee needs to understand when the fee must be waived.

Does Illinois require a landlord to accept a portable screening report?

The law does not compel a landlord to solicit portable reports or to abandon its own screening process. What it does is remove the fee: when an applicant supplies a qualifying reusable tenant screening report, the landlord may not charge an application screening fee, and may not charge any fee to access or use the report. A landlord may still run its own report, but it cannot bill the applicant a second time for information a qualifying portable report already provides.

What makes a portable report qualify?

To trigger the fee waiver under 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30, the reusable report must meet all of the following:

Recent. Prepared within the previous thirty days by a consumer reporting agency.
At the applicant’s expense. Prepared at the tenant’s own request and paid for by the tenant, not the landlord.
Free to the landlord. Made available to the landlord at no cost to access or use, whether directly or through a third-party website.
Complete. Includes all of the criteria the landlord consistently uses to screen applicants, along with the tenant’s identifying and contact information, a source-of-income verification, and the results of an eviction-history check.

The landlord may require the applicant to state that there has not been a material change to the information in the report. That is the whole of 765 ILCS 705/30(b)(2), which reads: “a landlord may require an applicant to state that there has not been a material change to the information in the reusable tenant screening report.” It imposes no writing requirement and no certification, so do not condition the fee waiver on a signed certificate the statute does not authorise — take the statement in writing if you want the record, but you may not demand one as the price of the waiver. Because the fee waiver only applies when the portable report covers the criteria the landlord consistently uses, this law is one more reason to keep a written, consistent set of screening criteria on file. For the paperwork behind a clean application, see our rental application guide for landlords.

Accept the portable report, skip the fee

Since January 1, 2025, when an Illinois applicant hands you a reusable screening report that is current within thirty days, was paid for by the applicant, reaches you at no cost, and covers your consistent criteria, you may not charge a screening or access fee. You may still ask the applicant to state that there has been no material change, and you may run your own report at your own expense if you prefer, but the applicant does not pay twice.

Takeaway

Illinois’s portable tenant screening report law — 765 Illinois Compiled Statutes 705/30, Public Act 103-0840, effective January 1, 2025 — bars any screening or access fee when an applicant supplies a qualifying reusable report current within thirty days that covers the landlord’s consistent criteria. Accepting one is optional, but charging a fee anyway is not allowed.

Fair Housing Compliance in Illinois

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on seven federally protected classes, and the Illinois Human Rights Act adds a substantially longer list. Screening criteria must be facially neutral, predictive of tenancy success, and consistently applied, and they must not produce a disparate impact on any protected class — a criterion that looks neutral but disproportionately excludes a protected group can still be unlawful.

Federal Protected Classes

The Fair Housing Act protects race and color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status meaning the presence of children, and disability whether mental or physical. Whether the statutory word “sex” reaches sexual orientation and gender identity is unsettled at the federal agency level, and this page takes no position either way. HUD’s memorandum “Application to the Fair Housing Act of the Supreme Court’s Decision in Bostock v. Clayton County,” dated 9 February 2021, was withdrawn effective 25 September 2025 — it is an item in the very same withdrawal table, Docket No. FR-6617-N-01, that withdrew the 2016 criminal-records guidance cited elsewhere on this page. The companion FHEO memorandum implementing Executive Order 13988, dated 11 February 2021, was withdrawn effective 17 September 2025 (Docket No. FR-6571-N-01). Withdrawing guidance does not amend the Fair Housing Act, and HUD’s own notice states that actions not complying with the text of the Act remain subject to enforcement — so the federal question is open, not resolved in either direction. An Illinois landlord does not need it resolved, because Illinois law reaches both classes directly. Sexual orientation is a protected basis under the Illinois Human Rights Act, and 775 ILCS 5/1-103(O-1) defines it as “actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or gender-related identity, whether or not traditionally associated with the person’s designated sex at birth.” One narrow Illinois exemption exists: 775 ILCS 5/3-106(H-1) exempts the owner of an owner-occupied residential building with four or fewer units from rent-or-not decisions based on an applicant’s sexual orientation. In many jurisdictions source of income is protected as well, and in Illinois it is protected statewide.

Illinois’s Expanded Protections

The Illinois Human Rights Act, enforced by the Illinois Department of Human Rights, layers on additional protected characteristics, including source of income, ancestry, age (which section 1-103(A) of the Act defines as 40 or older), marital status, order of protection status, military status, unfavorable discharge from military service, pregnancy, and immigration status. Illinois’s list is among the broader ones in the country, which is why criteria that pass muster elsewhere can still create liability here.

Common Illinois Fair-Housing Traps

Blanket criminal-history bans that auto-reject any record, which violate the disparate-impact doctrine and, in Cook County, the Just Housing Amendment.
Rigid credit-score cutoffs applied with no individualized review of the applicant’s full picture.
Income multipliers that disproportionately exclude single parents, implicating familial status.
No-Section-8 policies, which are unlawful under Illinois’s source-of-income protection.
Denying reasonable accommodations to applicants with a disability.
Inconsistent application of criteria across applicants of different protected classes.

Takeaway

Screening criteria must be neutral, predictive, and consistently applied, and must avoid disparate impact. The Illinois Human Rights Act protects a long list beyond the seven federal classes, including source of income, so blanket criminal bans, rigid cutoffs, exclusionary income rules, and no-voucher policies all invite liability.

Source-of-Income Protection and House Bill 2775

One of the most consequential Illinois rules for screening is source-of-income protection. House Bill 2775, signed in 2022 and effective January 1, 2023, amended the Illinois Human Rights Act to add source of income as a protected class in real-estate transactions. The definition at 775 ILCS 5/1-103(O-5) is a single generic sentence — “‘Source of income’ means the lawful manner by which an individual supports himself or herself and his or her dependents” — and it reaches a Housing Choice Voucher, often called Section 8, along with disability payments and other rental assistance, as lawful manners of support. Be precise about how: unlike California’s Government Code section 12955(p)(1), which names Section 8 vouchers in terms, the Illinois Act names nothing — neither section 1-103(O-5) nor 775 ILCS 5/3-102 mentions vouchers, Section 8 or rental assistance, so the coverage follows from the breadth of the definition rather than from an express list. As a result, an Illinois landlord may not refuse to rent, may not advertise a no-voucher policy, and may not apply harsher screening simply because an applicant intends to pay part of the rent with a voucher.

This does not strip the landlord of the right to screen. The landlord may still apply neutral, consistent criteria — credit, income relative to the tenant’s own share of rent, rental history — to a voucher holder exactly as to any other applicant. What the law forbids is treating the voucher itself as a disqualifier or steering voucher holders away. A common and costly mistake is calculating an income multiplier against the full contract rent rather than the tenant’s out-of-pocket share, which can screen out voucher holders as a group and expose the landlord to a source-of-income claim.

Screen the applicant, not the voucher

Under House Bill 2775 a Housing Choice Voucher is a protected source of income in Illinois. Apply your standard, consistent criteria to the applicant, but measure income against the portion of rent the tenant actually pays rather than against the full contract rent, and never advertise or apply a no-Section-8 rule. Be accurate about the authority: Illinois has no statute banning the full-rent multiplier in terms — unlike California’s Government Code section 12955(o)(1)(A) — but a “three times the rent” test run against the contract rent is the classic source-of-income trap and is squarely exposed under 775 ILCS 5/3-102(H) as a criterion whose effect falls on voucher holders where a less discriminatory alternative, the tenant’s own share, would serve the same interest. The voucher can never be the reason for a denial.

Takeaway

House Bill 2775, effective January 1, 2023, makes a Housing Choice Voucher a protected source of income under the Illinois Human Rights Act. A landlord may screen a voucher holder on neutral, consistent criteria but may not refuse, advertise against, or apply harsher rules because of the voucher, and