In New York City, a landlord can legally check three things about you: your credit, your income, and your rental history. That is essentially the whole list. They cannot look at your criminal record until they have already approved you on everything else, they cannot reject you for a past Housing Court case, and they cannot charge you more than $20 to run the screening. The rental application feels one-sided, but the law puts hard limits on what the other side is allowed to do with it — and most of those limits were written in the last few years.
In this guide
- Your credit report
- Your income — the 40x guideline
- Your rental and eviction history
- Your criminal record — the new rules
- What they can't hold against you
- What screening is allowed to cost
- They screen you — screen the building back
- Your application checklist
- Frequently Asked Questions
Your credit report
The credit check is the core of tenant screening. A landlord or broker pulls your report to see your score, your open debts, your payment history, and any collections or bankruptcies. This is legal, and it is governed by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA): if a landlord denies you, raises your deposit, or requires a guarantor because of something in that report, they must give you an "adverse action" notice telling you which credit bureau they used, so you can request a free copy and dispute errors.
What a thin or damaged credit file does not do is automatically disqualify you. Landlords weigh credit alongside income and references, and many will approve a lower score with a guarantor or additional deposit within the legal cap. Pull your own report before you apply (free weekly at annualcreditreport.com) so nothing on it surprises you in front of a landlord.
Your income — the 40x guideline
Most NYC landlords want to see annual income of roughly 40 times the monthly rent — $120,000 for a $3,000 apartment. It is the single most misunderstood number in city renting, because it is a guideline, not a law: no statute requires 40x, landlords can and do accept less, and guarantors and combined applicant income change the math entirely.
Because that one rule drives so many rejections, we cover it in depth separately — including exactly how guarantors work and what to do if you don't hit 40x — in The 40x Rent Rule and Guarantors. Read that if income is your tight spot; the rest of this guide covers everything else on the application.
Your rental and eviction history
A landlord can call your prior landlords and pull a tenant-screening report that lists past addresses. What they can no longer freely do is punish you for having been to Housing Court.
Under New York Real Property Law §227-f, a landlord may not refuse to rent to you on the basis that you were once involved in a past or pending landlord-tenant case. The law goes further: if a landlord requests a tenant-screening report or inspects court records and then denies you, a rebuttable presumption arises that they broke the law, and the burden shifts to them to prove a different reason. Separately, since the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, eviction court records are sealed and the court system can no longer sell the data that fed the old tenant "blacklists." Enforcement of §227-f runs through the State Attorney General, with penalties of $500 to $1,000 per violation.
The practical takeaway: an old eviction filing — especially one that was dismissed or that you won — is not the automatic scarlet letter it was a decade ago. If a landlord tells you that's why you were denied, that admission is itself close to a violation.
Your criminal record — the new rules
This is the biggest recent change, and most renters don't know it yet. As of January 1, 2025, New York City's Fair Chance for Housing Act (Local Law 24) bars landlords, brokers, and co-op and condo boards from looking at your criminal history until the very end of the process.
The screening now has to be bifurcated: the landlord must evaluate everything else first — credit, income, references — and give you a conditional approval before any criminal background check happens. Only then, after handing you the required Fair Chance Housing Notice, may they run it. And even then, only a narrow "reviewable criminal history" counts:
- Felony convictions — only if release from incarceration (or sentencing, if there was none) was within the past 5 years.
- Misdemeanor convictions — only if within the past 3 years.
- Registered sex-offender convictions — reviewable with no time limit.
Everything else is off the table: arrests that didn't lead to conviction, sealed or pardoned cases, and convictions for things like cannabis possession or out-of-state reproductive or gender-affirming care are not reviewable at all. Willful violations carry penalties up to $250,000. If a landlord runs your background before approving you on the money and the references, they've inverted the process the law requires.
What they can't hold against you
Beyond the process rules, some things are simply protected characteristics under the NYC Human Rights Law and the federal Fair Housing Act — race, religion, national origin, disability, familial status, sex, sexual orientation, and more. One deserves special attention for renters because it hides inside "screening":
Your source of income. Since 2008, it has been illegal in NYC for landlords with six or more units to refuse you because of a lawful source of income — including Section 8, CityFHEPS, FHEPS, SSI, and other public or housing assistance. "No vouchers" and "no programs" in a listing are themselves unlawful advertisements. (One caveat worth knowing in 2026: a state appeals court decision in March 2026 unsettled the state source-of-income statute as it applies to some federal vouchers, and city and state officials disagree on its reach in the five boroughs. The NYC Human Rights Law protection is separate and city officials continue to enforce it — but if you're turned away over a voucher, get current guidance from the NYC Commission on Human Rights rather than relying on a landlord's version of the law.)
What screening is allowed to cost
New York caps what a landlord can charge you to apply. Under Real Property Law §238-a, application and background-check fees are limited to $20 total — or the actual cost of the check, whichever is less. Two more rules ride along with it:
- The fee must be waived if you hand over your own background or credit check conducted within the past 30 days.
- If the landlord does charge it, they must give you a copy of the report plus a receipt from the company that ran it.
Broker fees are a separate fight, and one that shifted recently: under the FARE Act, the party who hires the broker is generally the one who pays — meaning tenants can no longer be forced to cover a landlord's broker fee. We break that down in The FARE Act and Broker Fees.
They screen you — screen the building back
Here's the asymmetry worth fixing. A landlord runs your credit, your income, and your history before handing you a lease. You can run theirs. The building's full public record — HPD violations, 311 complaints, ownership, and whether the apartment is rent-stabilized — is free and takes about ten minutes to check, and it tells you far more about your next year than the landlord's screening tells them about you.
We walk through exactly how to do that, step by step, in How to Research an NYC Building Before You Rent — or you can look up any NYC building's report right now and read what the public record says before you sign.
Your application checklist
- Pull your own credit (free at annualcreditreport.com) so nothing surprises you.
- Do the 40x math on your target rent; line up a guarantor if you're close but under.
- Gather documents once: recent pay stubs, a letter of employment, tax return or W-2, bank statements, photo ID, and prior-landlord contacts.
- Know the fee ceiling: application/background screening is capped at $20; offer your own recent report to waive it.
- Know your protections: past Housing Court cases (§227-f), your criminal record's timing rules (Fair Chance Act), and your voucher (Human Rights Law) can't be used against you the way many landlords still assume.
- Screen the building back: check its public record before you commit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a landlord in NYC run a criminal background check on me? Only at the end of the process. Since January 1, 2025, the Fair Chance for Housing Act requires landlords to approve you on credit, income, and references first, then run a criminal check only with a conditional offer and a Fair Chance Housing Notice — and only a limited "reviewable" history (felonies within 5 years, misdemeanors within 3 years, registered sex offenses with no limit) may be considered.
Can I be denied an apartment because I was evicted before? Not on that basis alone. Real Property Law §227-f bars refusing a tenant for a past or pending landlord-tenant court case, and creates a presumption against a landlord who checks court records or a screening report and then denies you. Old eviction records are also now sealed.
How much can a landlord charge me to apply? No more than $20 for an application or background check — or the actual cost if lower — under Real Property Law §238-a. The fee is waived if you provide your own credit or background report from the last 30 days, and you're entitled to a copy of any report the landlord runs.
What's the 40x rent rule — is it a law? No. Wanting income of 40 times the monthly rent is a common landlord guideline, not a legal requirement; landlords can accept less, and guarantors or combined income change it. See our full guide to the 40x rule and guarantors.
Related NYC Housing Guides
- The 40x Rent Rule and Guarantors
- How to Research an NYC Building Before You Rent
- The FARE Act and Broker Fees
- Your NYC Tenant Rights: The Complete Guide
Sources: NY Real Property Law §227-f (tenant screening / court-record protection) and §238-a (application-fee cap); NYC Local Law 24 of 2024, the Fair Chance for Housing Act (eff. Jan 1, 2025); NYC Human Rights Law (NYC Admin. Code §8-107) on lawful source of income; the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. This is general information, not legal advice; for your situation consult a tenant attorney or the NYC Commission on Human Rights.
