Colorado tenant screening laws limit how far back a landlord can look at your credit, rental, and criminal history, require application fees to reflect actual processing costs, force landlords to accept portable screening reports at no charge, and give denied applicants written reasons within 20 days. The rules live mainly in the Rental Application Fairness Act (C.R.S. § 38-12-901 through 38-12-905), with fair housing protections layered on top through the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.
What Landlords Can and Cannot Look At
A Colorado landlord can check credit, rental history, employment and income, and criminal background. What makes the state unusual is the hard time limits on each of those categories.
Credit and Rental History: Seven Years
If a landlord uses credit or rental history as screening criteria, nothing older than seven years before the application date can be considered.1Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-904 – Consideration of Rental Applications A bankruptcy from eight years ago cannot be held against you. A pattern of late payments from a decade back is off limits. Current employment and income can still be verified through pay stubs or employer contact, and previous landlords can be contacted about your behavior during the eligible window.
Criminal History: Arrests Never, Convictions Five Years
Arrest records that did not lead to a conviction cannot be considered at all, no matter how recent. For actual convictions, a landlord cannot look at anything more than five years before the application date, with four narrow exceptions where a longer lookback is allowed:1Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-904 – Consideration of Rental Applications
- Convictions or deferred judgments for methamphetamine manufacturing or distribution
- Unlawful possession of materials to make methamphetamine or amphetamine
- Any conviction requiring sex offender registration
- Homicide and certain other serious violent offenses under Colorado law
Outside those four categories, a conviction from six or more years ago cannot factor into the decision.
Application Fee Limits
Colorado does not cap application fees at a specific dollar amount. Instead, C.R.S. § 38-12-903 ties the fee to the landlord’s actual cost of processing the application, calculated either as the real expense for your specific application or as an average across multiple applicants.2Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-903 – Rental Application Fee – Limitations Charging $75 when the underlying credit report and background check cost $35 violates the statute.
Other fee rules that apply to every application:
- Every applicant for the same unit must be charged the same amount, and the fee must be consistent across units available at the same time.
- After collecting the fee, the landlord must provide either a disclosure of anticipated expenses or an itemization of actual expenses. If the fee is based on an average, the landlord must explain how that average was calculated.
- You are entitled to a receipt. Electronic is fine unless you ask for paper.
- Any unused portion of the fee must be refunded, with a good-faith effort to send it within 20 calendar days after processing the application.
Portable Screening Reports Are Free to Use
If you bring a portable tenant screening report, the landlord cannot charge an application fee or any fee to access or use the report.3Colorado General Assembly. HB23-1099 Portable Screening Report for Residential Leases A portable report is one you purchase from a consumer reporting agency and share with landlords yourself. The landlord may require that the report was prepared within the previous 30 days, at your request and expense, and delivered to the landlord directly by the reporting agency. It must include verification of employment and income, rental and credit history, and criminal history.
Before collecting anything that would generate an application fee, the landlord has to tell you that portable reports are accepted and that no fee will be charged if you provide one. That notice has to appear in rental advertisements (in at least 12-point, bold-faced type), on the landlord’s website, in the application itself, or be given orally with written confirmation.1Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-904 – Consideration of Rental Applications
One exemption: landlords who only accept one application fee at a time per unit, and refund the full fee within 20 days if either side declines to sign a lease, do not have to accept portable reports or provide the advisement.
Protected Classes and Source of Income
Colorado’s fair housing protections run well past the federal Fair Housing Act. Under C.R.S. § 24-34-502, a landlord cannot discriminate based on race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation (including transgender status), gender identity or expression, marital status, familial status, disability, national origin, ancestry, veteran or military status, or source of income.4Justia. Colorado Code 24-34-502 – Unfair Housing Practices Prohibited Screening criteria have to be applied uniformly. Selectively enforcing stricter standards against certain groups is itself a violation, even when the criteria sound neutral on paper.
The source of income category catches many landlords off guard. Since January 1, 2021, refusing to rent based on how the rent gets paid violates state law. Source of income means any lawful, verifiable source of money paid directly, indirectly, or on behalf of a person, including housing choice vouchers (Section 8), Social Security, disability payments, and child support.5Colorado Civil Rights Division. Source of Income Press Release Lease terms cannot be worse for tenants using assistance, and advertisements cannot signal a preference against those sources.
Two narrow exemptions exist: landlords with three or fewer rental units are exempt from the source of income rule entirely, and landlords with five or fewer single-family rental homes are not required to accept federal housing choice vouchers for those homes.
Denial Notices
When a landlord denies your application, Colorado law requires a written notice stating the reasons. If the landlord used a proprietary screening system that makes citing the specific criteria impractical, you get a copy of the screening company’s report instead. The landlord has to make a good-faith effort to send the notice within 20 calendar days of the decision, and electronic delivery is acceptable unless you request paper.1Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-904 – Consideration of Rental Applications
Federal law adds another notice. If any adverse action (denial, a higher deposit, or a required co-signer) is based on a consumer report, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires an adverse action notice that identifies the reporting agency, states that the agency did not make the decision, and tells you about your right to a free copy of the report and to dispute inaccuracies within 60 days.6Federal Trade Commission. Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know Both notices apply whenever a consumer report was involved.
Penalties and How Enforcement Works
Under C.R.S. § 38-12-905, a landlord who violates the Rental Application Fairness Act is liable to the affected applicant for $2,500, plus court costs and reasonable attorney fees.7Justia. Colorado Code 38-12-905 – Notice Required Before filing suit, you must give the landlord at least seven calendar days’ notice of your intended action. If the landlord corrects the violation within that window, the penalty drops to $50.
For certain portable screening report violations, the structure flips: an initial $50 penalty applies, and if the landlord does not cure within seven days, an additional $2,500 penalty follows, on top of economic damages, court costs, and attorney fees. These remedies are in addition to any other relief available under law, and you do not have to exhaust administrative remedies before going to court.
Discriminatory screening runs on a separate track. The Colorado Civil Rights Division investigates housing discrimination complaints and enforces the Anti-Discrimination Act through mediation, investigation, and formal proceedings.8Colorado Civil Rights Division. Colorado Civil Rights Division – Home A court finding a discriminatory housing practice may award actual and punitive damages, non-economic damages up to $50,000 (reducible by 50 percent if the landlord cures within 30 days and the violation was not knowing or intentional), or a statutory fine of $5,000 per violation per affected person, along with attorney fees and costs.9Colorado Civil Rights Division. Housing Discrimination