Missouri tenant screening laws: what landlords need to know

No Missouri statute limits how much a landlord may charge for a rental application or screening fee, and landlords should confirm with local city governments whether any ordinances cap these fees. While keeping fees reasonable and tied to actual screening costs is a common practice, it is not a legal requirement under Missouri law.

Missouri's fair housing law does not list criminal history as a protected category (RSMo §213.040). A 2025 state law (discussed below) also confirms landlords may generally use their own customary criteria regarding criminal history, credit, and eviction records, and bars cities from restricting that ability. Federal fair-housing guidance urging individualized review of criminal history is agency guidance, not settled law, and has been narrowed at the federal level in 2025–2026, so treat it as an evolving area rather than a fixed rule.

Source of income (including housing vouchers) is not a protected class under the Missouri Human Rights Act, and the federal Fair Housing Act does not cover source of income either. Kansas City passed a local source-of-income ordinance in 2024 (details below), but a 2025 state law now prevents Missouri cities from enacting or enforcing this kind of protection.

Missouri landlords generally follow the federal FCRA baseline: obtain authorization, use a report only for a permissible purpose, and if you take adverse action based on the report, notify the applicant, name the reporting agency, and explain their right to dispute inaccurate information and request a free copy of the report. This search did not find a Missouri statute that adds requirements beyond FCRA in this area.

Missouri law caps security deposits at two months' rent and requires deposits to be held in an FDIC- or NCUA-insured account, with any interest earned belonging to the landlord (RSMo §535.300). Within 30 days after the tenancy ends, the landlord must either return the full deposit or provide a written, itemized list of damages along with any remaining balance. Deductions are limited to unpaid rent, damage beyond ordinary wear and tear (with specific rules for carpet-cleaning charges disclosed in the lease), and damages from inadequate notice to terminate. Wrongfully withholding a deposit exposes a landlord to double damages.

Missouri has no rent-control law, and state law affirmatively bars counties and cities from enacting rent-control ordinances of any kind (RSMo §441.043(1)). Missouri is also not a just-cause eviction state: a month-to-month tenancy may generally be ended by either party with one month's written notice, for any lawful reason (RSMo §441.060). For nonpayment of rent, a landlord may file a rent-and-possession action after demanding rent and not receiving it — Missouri law does not require the §441.060 notice first in that situation (RSMo §535.020).

Kansas City passed Ordinance No. 231019 in January 2024 (effective August 2024), which prohibited source-of-income discrimination and also limited how landlords could use criminal history, credit history, and prior evictions in screening decisions. In May 2025, the Missouri legislature passed House Bill 595, signed by Governor Kehoe and effective August 28, 2025, which bars any Missouri county or city from prohibiting source-of-income discrimination, from restricting a landlord's use of credit, eviction, or criminal-history criteria, from capping security deposits, or from requiring a tenant's right of first refusal (RSMo §441.043(2)). The statute's text applies this preemption going forward and does not appear to exempt ordinances passed before its effective date. A Kansas City law firm's 2026 client analysis concludes the source-of-income portion of Ordinance 231019 "is no longer in force" and that the criminal/eviction-history portions are, in that firm's view, also preempted, while cautioning that the city has not formally amended the ordinance text and that this reading has not been tested in every scenario — this is a secondary-source legal opinion, not a court ruling, so we flag it as an interpretation rather than settled fact. Separately, a federal lawsuit brought by Kansas City-area landlords over the ordinance's voucher-related provisions resulted in a February 2025 preliminary injunction on a different, narrower question (whether landlords must opt into accepting vouchers) — that ruling predates HB 595 and addresses a distinct issue. This search did not find a comparable tenant-screening ordinance in St. Louis, Springfield, or Columbia, and any such ordinance would now face the same statewide preemption. Missouri organizes non-city land by county rather than by township for this purpose, and RSMo §441.043 applies the same preemption to counties as to cities, so there is no separate "unincorporated county" carve-out to check.

Does Missouri cap security deposits? Yes — landlords generally may not collect more than two months' rent as a security deposit (RSMo §535.300).

Is source of income a protected class in Missouri? No. It is not protected under the Missouri Human Rights Act, and a 2025 state law now prevents Missouri cities — including Kansas City, which had passed its own protection in 2024 — from creating this protection locally.

Can Missouri cities enact rent control? No. State law bars counties and cities from regulating the rent charged on private residential or commercial property.

How long does a Missouri landlord have to return a security deposit? Generally 30 days after the tenancy ends, either by returning the full deposit or providing an itemized list of damages with any remaining balance.

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The resources and information provided here are for educational and informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Always consult your own counsel for up-to-date legal advice and guidance related to your practices, needs, and compliance with applicable laws.