How much can a Mississippi landlord charge for a tenant screening or application fee?

Mississippi does not cap the tenant screening or rental application fee. There is no Mississippi statute that limits the amount, unlike states such as California that set a hard ceiling, so a Mississippi landlord may charge any reasonable amount, and the market norm is roughly forty to sixty dollars to cover the actual cost of the screening report. The one federal-level constraint is fairness: the fee and the criteria behind it must be applied consistently to every applicant, because a fee or process that is imposed unevenly by race, national origin, or another protected class can support a Fair Housing Act claim. A modest fee that tracks the real cost of the report is both lawful and a signal of a professional process.

Are rental application fees refundable in Mississippi?

They do not have to be. Mississippi has no statute requiring a landlord to refund an application or screening fee, so a Mississippi landlord may lawfully make the fee non-refundable even when the applicant is denied, provided that was disclosed before the fee was collected. This is the opposite of the rule in several fee-cap states, which require a receipt and a refund of any unused portion. Best practice in Mississippi is still to disclose the fee amount and its non-refundable nature in writing up front, and to charge only what the screening actually costs.

Does Mississippi require written consent before a tenant background check?

Yes in practice, but be precise about the source of the rule. The Fair Credit Reporting Act's stand-alone disclosure and written-authorization formality is section 604(b)(2), 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(2), and by its own words it governs a report procured for employment purposes, so it is not itself a housing requirement. A Mississippi landlord's federal authority to pull the report is permissible purpose under 15 U.S.C. 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i), a legitimate business need in connection with a business transaction initiated by the consumer, and the screening company will require the applicant's signed authorization and a certification of that purpose before it releases a report. So a clear, conspicuous authorization on its own form is still mandatory in practice on every Mississippi rental, and it is the cleanest proof of permissible purpose if the pull is ever challenged. That covers a credit report, a criminal-background report and an eviction-history report pulled through a screening company. Mississippi adds no separate consent statute of its own. Pulling a report without a permissible purpose is a Fair Credit Reporting Act violation, and skipping the signed authorization breaches the screening company's user agreement and destroys the landlord's proof of purpose. Under 15 U.S.C. 1681n a willful violation exposes the landlord to actual damages or statutory damages of 100 to 1,000 dollars, whichever the applicant elects rather than both, and under 15 U.S.C. 1681o a negligent violation exposes actual damages, plus attorney fees.

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

Yes. Mississippi has no source-of-income protection at the state or local level, so source of income is not a protected class and a Mississippi landlord may lawfully decline to accept a Housing Choice Voucher, often called Section 8. This is different from the roughly twenty states and many cities that do protect voucher holders, where a no-voucher policy is illegal. The federal Fair Housing Act does not by itself make source of income a protected class. A Mississippi landlord may still not use a voucher as a pretext to discriminate on a genuinely protected basis such as race, national origin, familial status, or disability, but the voucher status alone is not protected in Mississippi.

Can a Mississippi landlord deny an applicant because of a criminal record?

Generally yes, but not with a blanket ban. Mississippi has no state fair-chance or ban-the-box housing law, so a Mississippi landlord has broad discretion to consider criminal history. The limit comes from federal law: HUD's discriminatory-effects rule at 24 CFR 100.500, reinstated effective May 1, 2023, under which a blanket refusal to rent to anyone with any record can violate the Fair Housing Act for its effect alone, because criminal records disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic applicants and the landlord then carries the burden of proving the policy is necessary to a substantial, legitimate interest that no less discriminatory practice would serve. Note the authority: HUD's 2016 criminal-records guidance was withdrawn effective September 25, 2025 by Docket FR-6617-N-01, and section 100.500 imposes no individualized-assessment step, so weighing an offense case by case is prudent risk management and defensible evidence rather than a federal requirement. Do it anyway and document it: weigh the nature and severity of the offense, how long ago it occurred, evidence of rehabilitation, and its relevance to tenancy, applied the same way to every applicant. An arrest that never led to a conviction proves nothing, and section 1681c(a)(2) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act bars a screening company from reporting one that antedates the report by more than seven years.

Does Mississippi have a ban-the-box or fair-chance housing law?

No. Mississippi has enacted no statewide ban-the-box or fair-chance housing law, and no Mississippi city or county, including Jackson, Gulfport, Southaven, Hattiesburg, Biloxi, and Tupelo, has adopted a local fair-chance rental ordinance as of 2026. That means a Mississippi landlord is not required to delay the criminal-history question, is not bound by a local individualized-assessment mandate, and faces no city-specific procedural steps. That is a statement about fair-chance ordinances only, and it is not a statement that no Mississippi city has any fair-housing ordinance: Jackson Code chapter 86 article X does add protected classes, which is a different subject covered below. The only constraint on criminal screening is the federal Fair Housing Act, through HUD's discriminatory-effects rule at 24 CFR 100.500, which was reinstated effective May 1, 2023 and applies everywhere in the country regardless of state law. Note the authority carefully: HUD's 2016 criminal-records guidance was withdrawn effective September 25, 2025 by Docket FR-6617-N-01, and section 100.500 imposes no individualized-assessment step, so weighing an offense case by case is prudent risk management and defensible evidence rather than a federal mandate.

What are the protected classes under fair housing law in Mississippi?

Mississippi relies on the seven federal Fair Housing Act protected classes and adds none of its own: race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status meaning the presence of children, and disability. Mississippi has no state fair-housing statute that expands this list, so characteristics protected in some other states, such as source of income, marital status, age, or citizenship, are not protected classes under Mississippi state law. A city ordinance can add its own, and Jackson's does. Whether the statutory word sex also covers sexual orientation and gender identity is now an open federal question. HUD withdrew its February 9, 2021 memorandum applying Bostock v. Clayton County to the Fair Housing Act effective September 25, 2025 (Docket FR-6617-N-01, 91 Federal Register 44867, published July 17, 2026), and withdrew the February 11, 2021 memorandum implementing Executive Order 13988 effective September 17, 2025 (Docket FR-6571-N-01). The statutory text of the Act is unchanged and Bostock was a Title VII employment case, so the withdrawal removes the interpretation HUD had stated without settling the question the other way. Mississippi does not settle it either way, because Mississippi has no state fair housing act at all: House Bill 89 of the 2026 regular session would have created one and died in committee, and even that bill named neither class. So Mississippi state law does not answer it, and state law is not the whole answer either, because the local layer is real. Jackson Code chapter 86 article X, added by Ordinance 2016-17(4) on 14 June 2016, makes it unlawful to discriminate in property transactions including obtaining housing for rental or sale, on grounds that expressly include sexual orientation and gender identity. Jackson is the state capital and the largest city in Mississippi, and that ordinance binds an ordinary private landlord there. One qualification runs the other way: House Bill 1523 of 2016, codified at Mississippi Code sections 11-62-1 to 11-62-19 and in effect since October 2017, bars state and local government from taking discriminatory action against a religious organization because of a decision concerning the sale, rental, or occupancy of a dwelling under its control made consistently with the beliefs described in section 2 of that act, and section 8 of the act supersedes any conflicting ordinance. So Jackson's ordinance reaches ordinary landlords but not a covered religious organization. Confirm your own city code with the city itself before relying on any of it, because no Mississippi locality's currency could be established from its own publisher. Everywhere the safe course is the same neutral, documented criteria applied to every applicant. Screening criteria must still be facially neutral, predictive of tenancy success, applied consistently, and must not produce a disparate impact on any of the seven federal classes.

Where can a Mississippian file a fair housing complaint?

Because Mississippi has no state civil-rights agency with housing-discrimination jurisdiction, a fair-housing complaint is filed with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, either online at the HUD website or by phone at one eight hundred 669-9777. HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity investigates housing-discrimination complaints under the federal Fair Housing Act, and there are filing deadlines, so a complaint should be made promptly. An applicant may also raise a Fair Housing Act or Fair Credit Reporting Act violation as a claim or defense in federal court, where damages, civil penalties, and attorney fees may be available.

Does a rejected Mississippi applicant get a copy of the screening report?

Not from the landlord, and not before the decision. When a landlord takes an adverse action based even in part on a consumer report, 15 U.S.C. 1681m(a) requires an adverse action notice after the decision. The notice must give the name, address and telephone number of the consumer reporting agency that furnished the report, state that the agency did not make the decision and cannot explain the specific reasons for it, and tell the applicant that a free copy of the report may be obtained from that agency within 60 days and that anything inaccurate or incomplete may be disputed. If a credit score was used in the decision, 1681m(a)(2) also requires disclosing the score, its source and date, the range of scores under that model, and the key factors that lowered it. The notice may be oral, written or electronic; the Federal Trade Commission calls written notice the best practice rather than a legal requirement. There is no federal pre-adverse action step in housing. The procedure that requires giving the applicant a copy of the report and the summary of rights before taking adverse action is 15 U.S.C. 1681b(b)(3), which applies by its own words only in using a consumer report for employment purposes, and 1681a(h) limits employment purposes to evaluating a consumer for employment, promotion, reassignment or retention as an employee. Federal law sets no waiting period, no duty to enclose the report and no duty to enclose the summary of rights, which is the reporting agency's duty under 1681g(c)(2). No federal source states any number of days. Sending the report early is a defensible courtesy, and HUD recommends it to public housing agencies with the denial letter, but it is not a requirement. Skipping the adverse action notice is a Fair Credit Reporting Act violation even though Mississippi adds no separate state notice.

How far back can a Mississippi tenant screening report reach?

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. Civil judgments, paid tax liens, and most collection accounts fall under the seven-year rule. Mississippi does not shorten or lengthen these federal windows, so a Mississippi landlord should never base a decision on information older than the Fair Credit Reporting Act 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.

What penalties apply for tenant screening violations in Mississippi?

The exposure is federal. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a willful violation makes the landlord liable under 15 U.S.C. 1681n for either actual damages or statutory damages of one hundred to one thousand dollars per violation, not both, plus any punitive damages the court allows, a negligent violation carries actual damages, and both carry mandatory attorney fees, which is what drives class actions. Under the federal Fair Housing Act, a discrimination violation can bring actual damages, civil penalties, and attorney fees, and repeat violations can carry escalating civil penalties and injunctive relief. Because Mississippi adds no state screening statute, the federal attorney-fee provisions are the main financial risk, and a single dropped consent form or missing adverse action notice can become expensive.

Must Mississippi screening criteria be applied consistently to every applicant?

Yes, and consistency is the single most protective habit a Mississippi landlord can adopt. Applying a written credit-score minimum, income ratio, and rental-history standard uniformly to every applicant in the same posture defends against a Fair Housing Act discrimination claim, because there is no room for the criteria to be bent for or against a protected class. Because Mississippi gives landlords broad discretion on fees and criminal history, consistent written criteria are the landlord's best evidence that a denial was neutral rather than discriminatory.

What is the best way to screen a tenant in Mississippi?

A defensible Mississippi screening process combines a standardized application with a clearly disclosed fee, a standalone written consent form, an FCRA-compliant consumer reporting agency, written criteria applied consistently, credit and income verification, rental-history and eviction checks, an individualized criminal-history assessment where relevant, and a 15 U.S.C. 1681m(a) adverse action notice after the decision whenever a report drives a rejection, a larger deposit, a higher rent or a co-signer requirement. Our how to screen a tenant step-by-step guide walks each stage in order, and following that sequence keeps the process both predictive of a good tenancy and compliant with the federal law that governs screening in Mississippi.

What should a Mississippi landlord know about security deposits when screening?

Screening and deposits connect because a landlord collects the deposit from the approved applicant, and Mississippi's Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, at Section 89-8-21, requires the landlord to return the deposit or an itemized statement of deductions no later than forty-five days after the termination of the tenancy, the delivery of possession, and a demand by the tenant. 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 Mississippi 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.

Home › Tenant Screening Laws › Mississippi

Mississippi Tenant Screening Laws: The Landlord and Applicant Guide

FCRA Permissible Purpose · Section 1681m(a) Adverse Action · No State Fee Cap · No Source-of-Income Protection · Federal Fair Housing and Individualized Criminal-History Review

Updated Q3 2026 By Tenant Screening Background Check Editorial Team Applies Mississippi ~15 min read

Mississippi tenant screening is governed almost entirely by federal law. There is no Mississippi statute that caps a screening fee, no source-of-income protection, and no ban-the-box housing law, so the rules a landlord must actually follow come from the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, which controls how a consumer report is pulled and used everywhere in the country, and the federal Fair Housing Act, which forbids discrimination on seven protected classes. The Mississippi 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 the mandatory attorney-fee provisions in the federal statutes are what make the bill so large.

This guide walks the whole framework in plain English: the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requirements every Mississippi landlord must meet, what Mississippi does and does not regulate on application and screening fees, why source of income is not protected here so a Housing Choice Voucher may be refused, the absence of any fair-chance or ban-the-box housing law, the seven federal Fair Housing Act protected classes, the 24 CFR 100.500 disparate-impact rule that outlived HUD’s withdrawn 2016 criminal-records guidance, the rights every applicant holds, a day-by-day screening workflow, a compliance playbook, real scenarios, and a Mississippi-specific set of frequently asked questions.

Because Mississippi adds so little of its own, 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 federal law confers. Treat every figure here, including the typical fee range and the federal reporting windows, as a starting point and verify the current law before you screen, charge a fee, or dispute a decision.

Mississippi tenant screening rules at a glance

No statewide cap on application or screening fees was found in the Mississippi Code, and no statute requires a refund; the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (Miss. Code 89-8-1 and following) does not address application fees.
No statewide portable or reusable screening report rule was found in the Mississippi Code.
No statewide criminal-history lookback or fair-chance housing law was found; criminal screening is limited only by the federal Fair Housing Act discriminatory-effects rule (24 CFR 100.500).
Mississippi has no general state fair housing act and no source-of-income protection (House Bill 89 of 2026, which would have created one, died in committee), so for private rentals the seven federal Fair Housing Act classes are the statewide baseline.
The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act is the baseline for every screening report, including the adverse action notice owed after a report-based denial (15 U.S.C. 1681m(a)).

Mississippi Tenant Screening at a Glance

Primary Authority

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

Mississippi Screening Statute

None — federal law governs

Application / Fee Cap

No state cap — typically forty to sixty dollars, non-refundable allowed

Source of Income

Not protected — a voucher may be refused

Bottom line: A Mississippi landlord must satisfy the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act — permissible purpose under section 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i) and an adverse action notice under section 1681m(a) after any decision a consumer report drove — there is no federal pre-adverse step, no waiting period, and no duty to enclose the report or the summary of rights in housing — and the federal Fair Housing Act, and Mississippi adds almost nothing on top. There is no statutory cap on the application or screening fee, and the fee may be non-refundable if that is disclosed; the market norm is roughly forty to sixty dollars. Source of income is not a protected class in Mississippi, so a landlord may lawfully refuse a Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) holder. Mississippi has no ban-the-box or fair-chance housing law, statewide or local, so criminal history may be considered, limited only by the Fair Housing Act disparate-impact rule at 24 CFR 100.500 — HUD’s 2016 criminal-records guidance was withdrawn effective September 25, 2025, so an individualized assessment is prudent risk management rather than a federal mandate. Only the seven federal classes are protected statewide, and there is no state civil-rights agency with housing jurisdiction, so complaints go to HUD — but Jackson has its own fair-housing ordinance (Code chapter 86 article X) naming sexual orientation and gender identity among others, so check your own city. These are general rules; verify the current law before you screen.

The FCRA Framework in Mississippi

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, codified at fifteen U.S.C. section 1681, is the federal statute that governs tenant screening nationwide, and a Mississippi landlord must comply with it in full. Because Mississippi has no screening statute of its own, the Fair Credit Reporting Act is not merely the floor here — it is essentially the whole building. Getting it right prevents almost all screening-related liability. Four things sit at the core of a defensible screening file, each one load-bearing — and a fifth step that landlord guides routinely add is not a federal requirement in housing at all.

Permissible Purpose

A landlord has a permissible purpose to obtain a consumer report on a rental applicant under Fair Credit Reporting Act section 604(a)(3)(F)(i), fifteen U.S.C. section 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i) — a legitimate business need for the information in connection with a business transaction initiated by the consumer. Clause (F)(ii) covers the review of an existing account, which is what authorizes a report at lease renewal on a sitting tenant. The screening company will require the landlord to certify that purpose before it releases a report. That is the threshold right to obtain the report at all, but it does not eliminate any of the other requirements — it only opens the door to a report the landlord must then handle correctly.

Written Consent

Get the applicant’s written, signed authorization before pulling any report, and keep it — but be precise about where that duty comes from. The Fair Credit Reporting Act’s stand-alone disclosure and written-authorization formality is section 604(b)(2), fifteen U.S.C. section 1681b(b)(2), and by its own words it governs a report procured for employment purposes; it is not a housing requirement. A landlord’s federal authority to pull the report is permissible purpose under section 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i), and the consumer reporting agency will contractually require the applicant’s signed authorization and a certification of that purpose before it will release a report. So written consent stays non-negotiable in practice on every rental — through the screening company’s user agreement, and as the cleanest proof of permissible purpose if the pull is ever challenged — and it should be clear, conspicuous, and on its own form rather than buried in the rental application. Mississippi adds no separate consent statute of its own, so this is the governing practice for every credit, criminal, and eviction-history report.

Consistent Criteria

Written screening criteria must be applied consistently to every applicant. Inconsistency creates Fair Housing Act liability, because bending the rule for one applicant and not another is powerful evidence of discrimination even where none was intended. In a state like Mississippi that gives landlords broad discretion, consistent written criteria are the landlord’s single best defense.

Adverse Action Notice

If information in a consumer report causes any unfavorable outcome — denying the application, requiring a co-signer or guarantor, requiring a larger deposit than another applicant would pay, or charging a higher rent — the landlord has taken an adverse action under Fair Credit Reporting Act section 603(k), fifteen U.S.C. section 1681a(k)(1)(B)(iv), and owes an adverse action notice under section 615(a), fifteen U.S.C. section 1681m(a). That notice is 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 explain the specific reasons for it; and that the applicant may obtain a free copy of the report from that agency within sixty days and may dispute anything inaccurate or incomplete in it. If a numerical credit score was used in the decision, section 1681m(a)(2) also requires disclosing the score, its source and date, the range of scores under that model, and the key factors that adversely affected it. The notice may be oral, written, or electronic; the Federal Trade Commission’s guidance for landlords calls written notice the best practice, not a legal requirement. The duty is owed even where the report was not the primary reason for the decision.

Why There Is No “Pre-Adverse Action” Step in Housing

The Fair Credit Reporting Act imposes no pre-adverse action step on a landlord. The pre-adverse procedure — give the applicant a copy of the report and the summary of rights before taking adverse action — is section 604(b)(3), fifteen U.S.C. section 1681b(b)(3), and that subsection applies by its own words only “in using a consumer report for employment purposes.” Section 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 four things. So federal law sets no waiting period between the decision and the notice in housing, imposes no duty to enclose a copy of the report, and imposes no duty to enclose the summary of rights — furnishing that summary is a consumer reporting agency’s duty under section 1681g(c)(2), not a landlord’s. The applicant’s route to the report is the free copy from the agency within sixty days that the adverse action notice itself must describe. Sending the report anyway is a defensible courtesy — HUD has recommended exactly that to public housing agencies, with the denial letter, as a best practice — but it is not federal law, and no federal statute or regulation states any number of days for a housing pre-denial wait.

FCRA sections 616 and 617 penalties

The Fair Credit Reporting Act imposes serious penalties, and its two liability sections work differently. Section 616, fifteen U.S.C. section 1681n, makes a willful violation liable for either the consumer’s actual damages or statutory damages of one hundred to one thousand dollars — the statute is a disjunction, not a sum — plus any punitive damages the court allows and the costs of the action together with reasonable attorney’s fees. Section 617, fifteen U.S.C. section 1681o, covers negligent noncompliance: actual damages plus costs and reasonable attorney’s fees, with no statutory-damages floor. Extreme willful conduct can even be treated as a federal offense. The mandatory attorney-fee provision is precisely what makes Fair Credit Reporting Act class actions so aggressive, because the cost of a single dropped step shifts to the landlord — and in Mississippi, with no offsetting state screening statute, that federal exposure is the main financial risk.

Takeaway

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act requires permissible purpose under section 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i) and an adverse action notice under section 1681m(a) whenever a consumer report contributes to a denial, a larger deposit, a higher rent, or a co-signer requirement. It does not require a pre-adverse notice, a copy of the report, a summary of rights, or any waiting period — that procedure is section 1681b(b)(3), which governs only a report used for employment purposes. Written applicant consent stays non-negotiable in practice, because the screening company requires it and it is the cleanest proof of permissible purpose. A Mississippi landlord who does all of that — purpose, consistency, notice — is following the core screening rules, because in Mississippi the federal statute is the whole framework.

Mississippi Application and Screening Fees

How much can a Mississippi landlord charge for a screening fee?

Mississippi is one of the states with no statutory cap on the tenant screening or rental application fee. Unlike states such as California, which caps the fee at a thirty-dollar statutory base adjusted annually for inflation, Mississippi has no statute that limits the amount, so a Mississippi landlord may charge any reasonable amount — and the market norm is roughly forty to sixty dollars to cover the actual cost of the screening report. There is also no Mississippi law requiring a refund: the fee may be non-refundable even when the applicant is denied, provided that was disclosed before the fee was collected. That is the opposite of the receipt-and-refund regime several fee-cap states impose.

The one real constraint is fairness under federal law. A fee, or the criteria the fee funds, that is imposed unevenly — charging or waiving it selectively by race, national origin, familial status, or another protected class — can support a Fair Housing Act claim even though the dollar figure itself is unregulated. The professional practice in Mississippi is to disclose the fee amount and its non-refundable natu