Becoming a landlord takes no federal license or exam. It takes a string of checks, most of them local: whether your city, your lender and any condo or homeowners association let you rent; insurance written for a rental; a home that meets the housing code; screening that follows fair housing and credit reporting law; and a lease with the disclosures your state requires. You may read that small owners are exempt. Some don’t, but each rule draws its own line, so the only safe way to rely on an exemption is to read the one that applies.
This page is general information, not legal or tax advice. Landlord and tenant law varies by state and city, and changes. Ask the court, your state agency, a lawyer or legal aid about your case.
The five guides in this section run in the order a first rental usually happens: the checks before you sign anything, the unit counts that decide which rules reach you, screening, housing vouchers and assistance animals. Each rule below was read in its statute, regulation or agency page, and the guides give the read date beside each one. Landlord Rulebook sells nothing and refers no one.
1. The checks before your first tenant
Start with how to become a landlord, step by step. It puts the checks in the order that saves money, because several of them can stop a rental after you have already spent on it.
- The city or county. Rental licensing is usually local, and it varies a lot. Baltimore registers and licenses non-owner-occupied rentals; Denver licenses rentals of 30 days or more after a private inspection; Seattle registers every rental. Arizona goes the other way: A.R.S. 9-1304 bars cities from licensing rentals, and owners register with the county assessor instead.
- The mortgage. A loan on a home you said you would live in carries an occupancy promise. FHA, for example, says at least one borrower must move in within 60 days and intend to stay at least a year (HUD Handbook 4000.1). Read your own loan documents and ask the servicer in writing.
- The insurance. A homeowners policy may not fit a rental. Tell the insurer the date a tenant moves in and get the answer in writing.
- Lead paint. For most housing built before 1978, the lease needs the EPA pamphlet, a disclosure of known lead hazards and a signed warning, kept for at least 3 years (40 CFR 745 subpart F). It is the federal rule that catches new landlords, and its exceptions turn on the housing and the lease, not on how many units you own.
- The lease and the deposit. There is no national deposit limit or entry notice. The guide lists the deposit caps, return deadlines and disclosures in the seven states we read, and covers taxes from the first day, using IRS Publication 527 (2025).
If you never planned to rent, because you moved for work or couldn’t sell, the same guide explains why the mortgage occupancy clause and the five-year home sale clock matter more for you.
2. Count your units before you rely on an exemption
There is no general small-landlord exemption in US law. Our page on rules that change with how many units you own sorts the rules we read by the count each one uses: whether you live on the property, how many units you own in all, or how big the building is. The same owner can be exempt from one rule and fully covered by the next.
The federal Fair Housing Act shows how narrow the lines are. Its main ban doesn’t apply to a private owner of no more than three single-family houses renting without a broker, on further conditions, or to a building of up to four families where the owner lives in one (42 U.S.C. 3603(b)). Neither exemption covers advertising: an ad that shows a preference based on a protected trait is still barred. States can draw their own lines, sometimes lower. Holding property through an LLC, moving out of an owner-occupied building, or buying one more unit can each end an exemption you counted on.
So write down three numbers before you look anything up: the units in this building, all the rental units you hold in the state, including through entities, and whether you live on the property.
3. Screen every applicant the same way
Tenant screening: the legal steps takes you from written criteria to the notice you may owe after a denial. Federal law sets the floor. The Fair Housing Act says who you can’t turn away, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act governs screening reports. If a report plays any part in a denial, a co-signer demand, a bigger deposit or higher rent, the applicant is owed an adverse action notice, “even if the information in the report played only a small part”, in the FTC’s words. That duty has no unit-count limit.
States add the rest: fee limits, required notices, and limits on old records. There is no national cap on application fees. New York, for one, allows the actual cost or $20, whichever is less, for background and credit checks (RPL 238-a). You may see “three times the rent” called the standard; we found no federal rule behind it, and Colorado bars requiring annual income above 200% of annual rent. Written criteria applied in the same order to everyone make any decision easier to explain later.
Criminal records changed in 2026. HUD withdrew its 2016 criminal-records guidance, but the discriminatory-effect rule, 24 CFR 100.500, is still in force, and several states and cities have their own limits. The screening guide shows what we read in each.
4. Housing vouchers: a choice, except where it isn’t
Our guide to becoming a Section 8 landlord walks through the Housing Choice Voucher program one step at a time: the call to the local public housing agency, your own screening, the inspection, the rent check, the lease addendum and the payment contract. The federal voucher rules don’t require you to take part, but they don’t override state or local laws that bar refusing voucher holders (24 CFR 982.53(d)). Washington, Virginia, Maryland and several others have such laws, often with their own small-owner exemptions, and in those places a “No Section 8” ad can itself be the violation.
Two dated points matter for anyone counting on voucher rent. HUD wrote to housing agencies in 2026 that it “cannot guarantee” funding for every shortfall, and inspections move to HUD’s newer NSPIRE standard by 1 February 2027 (Notice PIH 2026-18). The guide explains what the rules say if payments run short, and the questions to ask your agency first.
5. Assistance animals after the 2026 HUD changes
A no-pets rule still meets accommodation requests. Our page on when a landlord can deny an emotional support animal sorts out what changed. HUD withdrew its assistance-animal notices, and since 22 May 2026 it says it will find cause in animal cases only where the animal is trained to provide disability-related assistance. That is HUD’s enforcement policy, not a change in the Fair Housing Act: HUD itself says the memo doesn’t affect a person’s right to sue, and state law is unchanged.
Several states say their own laws still protect untrained emotional support animals, and California, Maryland, Maine and Virginia bar pet fees or deposits for them. The guide sets out the grounds for refusing a request, what you may ask for, and why a request can’t simply be left unanswered.
What this section doesn’t cover
Once a tenant moves in, the work becomes rent, deposits, repairs and notices, and those have their own sections. For a state’s full set of rules, start at landlord and tenant law by state. If a tenancy has to end, the eviction section covers the court process. Taking possession yourself, by changing locks or cutting utilities, is where a new landlord can do the most harm, and several states impose penalties for it.
Your next step
Before you buy, list or sign anything, call the city or county housing office and ask:
- Does a rental here need a license, registration or inspection before a tenant moves in?
- Is there a local rent, deposit, screening, notice or eviction rule on top of state law?
- Does the city or state bar refusing tenants because of a housing voucher, and does it exempt small owners?
Then ask your mortgage servicer about occupancy, your insurer about a landlord policy, and any association about rental limits. If a fair housing complaint, a disputed denial or an eviction is already under way, stop and ask a lawyer before you answer. Tenants can go to legal aid, their state civil rights agency or the court’s self-help center.
Sources checked on 6 November 2026.
