Rental fraud is evolving. Your screening should, too.
82% of landlords and property managers are worried about fraud in their tenant applications, and 67% say AI-generated fraud is harder to catch than it was a year ago. See how it happens and how to close the gaps with thorough tenant screening.
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What is rental fraud?
Rental fraud is fabricated or falsified information submitted in a rental application. It ranges from AI-generated fake pay stubs and bank statements, to a concealed criminal record or eviction history, to the most serious case: a person who passes screening and is approved is not the same person who actually moves in. Checkr's 2026 State of Rental Fraud report found all three happening at scale, across a survey of 1,400 landlords and property managers nationwide.
Fraudulent rental applications in the past five years.
Checkr's 2026 State of Rental Fraud report found that fraud rates, fraud-related evictions, and how hard fraud is to detect all vary sharply by metro. It isn't slowing down nationally either: 67% of landlords and property managers say fraud has gotten harder to detect than it was just a year ago, and the report expects the tools behind it to keep getting more convincing, not less.
Landlords who have encountered a fraudulent application in the past five years, by metro.
72%: Phoenix, AZ
70%: Seattle, WA
68%: Los Angeles, CA
68%: Denver, CO
68%: Orlando, FL
68%: Indianapolis, IN
68%: Charlotte, NC
67%: Austin, TX
67%: Dallas, TX
66%: San Diego, CA
65%: San Francisco, CA
64%: Chicago, IL
64%: Miami, FL
63%: New York City, NY
All 14 metros surveyed in Checkr's 2026 State of Rental Fraud report.
Paperwork can't be trusted the way it used to be.
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82%are worried about fraud in their tenant applications
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67%say AI-generated fraud is harder to catch than it was a year ago
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37%say fake or altered pay stubs and bank statements are their top fraud concern
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55%have discovered or suspected the person who moved in wasn't the person who applied
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48%have evicted a tenant specifically because they discovered fraud during screening
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46%have lost at least $5,000 to a single fraudulent or bad-fit tenant
Source: Checkr's 2026 State of Rental Fraud report, based on a survey of 1,400 landlords and property managers conducted August 13-18, 2026.
Three ways an application can lie to you.
Fabricated income
Also called income (document) fraud
A convincing fake pay stub or bank statement takes minutes to generate with free software. 37% of landlords and property managers name this their single biggest fraud concern, well ahead of concealed criminal or eviction history at 24%.
How income verification catches it →Concealed history
Also called history concealment
65% of landlords and property managers say they approved an applicant only to later discover a criminal record or eviction history the applicant never disclosed.
Post-approval identity swap
In the most serious cases, the person who moves in isn't the person who applied and passed screening. 55% of landlords and property managers have discovered or suspected exactly that.
How identity verification catches it →None of this is caught by asking harder questions at the showing. It's caught by verifying the applicant's identity, income, and history against real records, the same records a tenant screening report pulls directly from the source.
Don't find out about fraud after the lease is signed.
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What a fraudulent tenant actually costs you.
A loss like this rarely comes from one bill. There's unpaid rent accruing until the unit is recovered, legal and court costs to file and process the eviction, property damage to repair before it can be re-leased, and the vacancy itself, since no rent comes in while the unit sits empty.
have lost at least $5,000 to a single fraudulent tenant
lost by a meaningful share of landlords and property managers
of fraud-related evictions took one to three months to get the unit back
experienced things dragging on for four months or longer to get their unit back
Source: Checkr's 2026 State of Rental Fraud report.
Fraud lives in the gaps between tools.
Most landlords and property managers are already running multiple checks: 73% run criminal background checks, 65% use a dedicated identity verification service, and 64% pull credit reports. But each service lives in its own login, on its own timeline, with no shared view across them, so even a landlord doing everything right is left piecing the picture together by hand.
“Fraud lives in fragmented systems,” said Daniel Yanisse, co-founder and CEO of Checkr. “When identity verification, background checks and other screening tools operate separately, there are gaps where bad actors can slip through.” 40% of landlords and property managers believe bringing their screening tools into a single platform would cut their costs by up to 25%. Checkr Tenant brings those signals together in one platform, which can help landlords fill vacancies 3-5 days faster. It was built precisely so landlords aren't left guessing which signals to trust, wherever they're screening.
Rental fraud FAQ, research & news
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What is rental fraud?
Rental fraud is fabricated or falsified information submitted in a rental application. It ranges from AI-generated fake pay stubs and bank statements to a concealed criminal record or eviction history, and in the most serious cases, a person who passes screening and is approved is not the same person who actually moves in.
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How common is rental fraud?
According to Checkr's 2026 State of Rental Fraud report, a survey of 1,400 landlords and property managers, 67% have encountered a fraudulent rental application in the past five years, and 82% say they are worried about fraud in their tenant applications.
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What is the most common type of rental fraud?
Fake or altered income documentation tops the list: 37% of landlords and property managers cited fake or altered pay stubs and bank statements as their biggest fraud concern, ahead of concealed criminal or eviction history at 24%.
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Why is rental fraud harder to catch than it used to be?
Generative AI tools can produce a convincing fake pay stub or bank statement in minutes. 67% of landlords and property managers say fraud has gotten harder to detect than it was a year ago, and only 22% trust their current screening provider to catch AI-generated fraud.
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Can someone pass tenant screening and then not be the person who moves in?
Yes. Checkr's 2026 research found 55% of landlords and property managers have discovered or suspected that the person who moved in was not the person who applied and was approved. Identity verification during screening, not just a document check, is what closes this gap.
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How does Checkr Tenant help prevent rental fraud?
Checkr Tenant brings identity verification, income verification, criminal background checks, and eviction history into one screening platform instead of five separate tools, so signals that would otherwise sit in different logins get connected into one recommendation.
Screen every applicant before fraud becomes your problem.
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