Limit on application screening fees
Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.6State law
A landlord may not charge an application screening fee above the actual out-of-pocket costs and reasonable value of time spent obtaining applicant information, and the fee may not exceed $30 per applicant, subject to the stated annual CPI adjustment.
Answers the question “What can they charge me to apply?”
The source
… or their agent may include, but is not limited to, personal reference checks and consumer credit reports produced by consumer credit reporting agencies as defined in Section 1785.3. A landlord or their agent may, but is not required to, accept and rely upon a consumer credit report presented by an applicant. (b) The amount of the application screening fee shall not be greater than the actual out-of-pocket costs of gathering information concerning the applicant, including, but not limited to, the cost of using a tenant screening service or a consumer credit reporting service, and the reasonable value of time spent by the landlord or their agent in obtaining information on the applicant. In no case shall the amount of the application screening fee charged by the landlord or their agent be greater than thirty dollars ($30) per applicant. The thirty dollar ($30) application screening fee may be adjusted annually by the landlord or their agent commensurate with an increase in the Consumer Price Index, beginning on January 1, 1998. (c) (1) A landlord or their agent shall not charge an applicant an application screening fee when they know or should have…
- Official law
- Open the official source
- Document
- D026, retrieved Oct 1, 2026
- Dates
- In force
- Status on Oct 1, 2026
- In force
What it depends on
- Covers
- Conditions not extracted yet.
- Key value
- $30 per applicant; adjusted annually commensurate with an increase in the Consumer Price Index beginning January 1, 1998
- Open question
- California’s screening-fee cap is tied to statutory cost and adjustment rules, but no single official 2026 statewide dollar figure is published.
- What you can do next
- Read the law at its official source
Audit trail
The model reads the law; code decides who it covers. The line between them stays visible.
Extracted by the model
What the model read from the source text, checked by code (the quote must appear word for word).
- Category
- Application fees
- Requirement
- A landlord may not charge an application screening fee above the actual out-of-pocket costs and reasonable value of time spent obtaining applicant information, and the fee may not exceed $30 per applicant, subject to the stated annual CPI adjustment.
- Key value
- $30 per applicant; adjusted annually commensurate with an increase in the Consumer Price Index beginning January 1, 1998
- Effect
- protection_or_duty
- Quote found in source
- yes
- Confidence
- 90%
reasoning boundary
Decided by code
Deterministic: same rules, facts and date give the same answer.
- Jurisdiction: listed only for addresses whose state or legal city is CA.
- Dates: no effective date in the text; treated as in force.
- Coverage: no building condition the data can test; conditions in words stay with the text.
As of Oct 1, 2026Engine run
Sources retrieved Oct 1, 2026.
Which buildings it reaches
All 250 sample addresses in California on Oct 1, 2026.
- 250 applies
Every dot is the rule engine’s result for that address. The larger dots are the example addresses listed below. 2 addresses have no coordinates and are counted but not drawn.
Decided by code for the example addresses
On Oct 1, 2026. Rules that don’t apply are left out.
- 3515 Fillmore St, San Francisco: Applies. Statewide California rule in force (Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.6); no building condition in it excludes this address.
- 145 Taylor St, San Francisco: Applies. Statewide California rule in force (Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.6); no building condition in it excludes this address.
- 140 Portola Dr, San Francisco: Applies. Statewide California rule in force (Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.6); no building condition in it excludes this address.
- 10635 Sherman Grove Ave, Los Angeles: Applies. Statewide California rule in force (Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.6); no building condition in it excludes this address.
- 1609 Addison St, Berkeley: Applies. Statewide California rule in force (Cal. Civ. Code § 1950.6); no building condition in it excludes this address.