Pennsylvania tenant screening & landlord-tenant law
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Pennsylvania tenant screening
Tenant screening is the process of reviewing an applicant's credit, criminal, and rental history — usually through a background check — before deciding whether to rent to them. In Pennsylvania, this process is governed primarily by federal law: the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the federal Fair Housing Act. After checking the Pennsylvania General Assembly's statutes and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission's (PHRC) published guidance, no Pennsylvania-specific investigative consumer reporting statute or state screening-fee cap was found — so unless noted otherwise below, FCRA is the governing framework for the screening process itself. Pennsylvania does layer its own rules on top of federal law in a few areas, particularly security deposits and fair housing enforcement, and Philadelphia adds city-specific rules on top of the statewide floor described here. Landlords operating in other Pennsylvania cities should also check local ordinances, since city rules can go further than the state minimum.
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How to screen a tenant in Pennsylvania
- Set consistent, written screening criteria before advertising the unit. Pennsylvania has no state law dictating specific screening criteria, so apply the same standards to every applicant to support a fair-housing defense later.
- Get the applicant's written authorization before pulling a report. This is a baseline FCRA requirement. Pennsylvania has no additional state-specific consumer-reporting statute, so federal law controls the disclosure/authorization step.
- Decide on an application or screening fee. Pennsylvania has no statewide statutory cap on rental application or screening fees; landlords should still be able to justify the fee as reasonable and tied to actual screening costs, since general state consumer-protection principles can still apply to clearly excessive or deceptive fees.
- Pull the credit and criminal background report and apply your criteria evenly. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) does not list criminal history as a protected class, so there's no PA-specific statute restricting how far back a landlord can look. The PHRC's own guidance on criminal backgrounds in rental housing instead frames blanket criminal-history bans as a potential race-based disparate-impact issue under federal HUD guidance, so treat it as a risk factor to manage, not a bright-line state rule.
- Evaluate the application without regard to source of income unless required locally. Source of income is not a protected class under Pennsylvania state law (confirmed directly against PHRC's published list of protected classes), so — outside of Philadelphia's local ordinance — a PA landlord generally may decline an applicant for using a housing voucher unless a local ordinance says otherwise.
- If you deny or condition the application on the report, send FCRA adverse action notices. Pennsylvania has no state-specific addition to the federal adverse action process.
Screening rules to follow in Pennsylvania
Screening fees
No Pennsylvania statute was found that caps the dollar amount of a rental application or screening fee, or that requires refunding it. This is a thinner protection than some neighboring states — always double-check for local ordinances, including Philadelphia's.
Criminal history
Pennsylvania has no standalone state statute restricting the use of criminal records in tenant screening, and criminal history is not a PHRA-protected class. The PHRC does apply the federal Fair Housing Act's disparate-impact theory to blanket criminal-history exclusions, following HUD's 2016 and 2023 guidance. The underlying Fair Housing Act statute and case law, including Texas Dept. of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project (2015), remain in effect.
Source of income
Pennsylvania's state fair housing law, the PHRA, protects race, color, sex, age (40+), religious creed, national origin, ancestry, familial status (housing only), disability, and use/handling of a guide or support animal — it does not include source of income or receipt of a housing voucher. This is a materially thinner protection than states that do cover source of income; landlords should still check whether a specific Pennsylvania city has adopted its own voucher-protection ordinance.
FCRA and adverse action
Federal FCRA §615 (15 U.S.C. §1681m) sets the baseline: give a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and the "Summary of Your Rights" before denying based on a report, then a final adverse action notice identifying the reporting agency, the applicant's dispute rights, and their right to a free report. No Pennsylvania-specific addition to these notice requirements was found.
Landlord obligations beyond screening
Security deposits
Pennsylvania's Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 (68 P.S. §250.511a) generally limits a security deposit to two months' rent during the first year of a lease; after the first year, a landlord generally may retain only one month's rent, and a tenant may request the excess back. Deposits must generally be returned, with an itemized list of any deductions, within 30 days of the tenant vacating; a landlord who fails to respond can generally be sued for double the wrongfully withheld amount. Because statutes are periodically amended, confirm these provisions against the Pennsylvania General Assembly's text of the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 for the most current requirements.
Rent and eviction rules
No statewide rent control or rent-increase cap was found for Pennsylvania, and the review did not identify a general state "just cause" eviction requirement for ending a tenancy (beyond the standard notice-to-quit process under the 1951 Landlord and Tenant Act). Pennsylvania currently has no state law sealing or restricting access to eviction court records, even when a case is dismissed, withdrawn, or won by the tenant — records generally remain permanently searchable, according to Community Legal Services of Philadelphia's 2025 reporting.
Rules that vary by city
Confirm Philadelphia tenant-screening and fair-housing requirements before relying on statewide rules alone. For Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Erie, check the current city code or consult local counsel for any city-specific criminal-history, source-of-income, or screening-fee requirements before relying on the state-only rules above. Note that Pennsylvania organizes non-city land into boroughs and townships rather than "unincorporated county" areas as California does, so every parcel of land in the state falls under some municipal government (a city, borough, or township), each of which can independently adopt its own ordinances.
Frequently asked questions
Does Pennsylvania cap rental application or screening fees? Pennsylvania does not limit the dollar amount landlords may charge for a screening or application fee, though Philadelphia and other local jurisdictions may have different rules; confirm current municipal code before finalizing a fee policy.
Is source of income a protected class in Pennsylvania? Not under state law. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act's protected classes do not include source of income, so outside of cities with their own ordinances, a landlord generally is not barred by state law from declining a voucher holder.
How much can a Pennsylvania landlord charge for a security deposit? Based on Pennsylvania's Landlord and Tenant Act, a deposit is generally capped at two months' rent for the first year of a lease and one month's rent after that, though landlords should verify the current statutory text directly.
Can Pennsylvania tenants get old eviction filings sealed? Not currently. Eviction court records generally remain public indefinitely, though a pending bill (the Ready to Rent Act) would change that for older cases if it becomes law.
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Disclaimer
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.