How much can a landlord charge for a rental application fee in Florida?

No statutory cap on application fees.

Does a landlord have to give a receipt for an application fee in Florida?

No statutory receipt duty for application money.

Does Florida have a reusable tenant screening report law?

No statute on reusable screening reports.

Can a landlord charge a holding deposit in Florida?

No statute on holding deposits.

What can a landlord charge for a rental application in Florida?

Verified August 26, 2026 All Florida topics →

Measures that did not become law. The following recent proposals failed and are not law — noted here because failed bills are sometimes still described as if enacted:

2026 CS/CS/SB 48 (Housing) — Would have created a section on reusable tenant screening reports, letting a landlord accept a report an applicant supplies and barring any fee to access it or any application screening fee once such a report is accepted.Status: Passed the Senate on February 4, 2026 and died in messages in the House on March 13, 2026. The bill page notes that a companion passed as chapter 2026-179, but that act carries only affordable-housing provisions and none of the screening report language. (checked 2026-08-26).
2026 HB 811 (Rental Agreements for Residential Tenancies) — Would have barred certain fees and surcharges in residential rental agreements and lengthened the nonpayment notice period from three days to five, with no fees or surcharges imposed during that period.Status: Died in the Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee on March 13, 2026. (checked 2026-08-26).
2025 CS/SB 362 (Reusable Tenant Screening Reports) — Would have let a landlord accept a reusable tenant screening report and barred charging an application screening fee or a fee to access the report once one was accepted.Status: Died in the Community Affairs Committee on June 16, 2025. (checked 2026-08-26).
2025 CS/HB 43 (Reusable Tenant Screening Reports) — House counterpart to the reusable tenant screening report bill.Status: Died in the Judiciary Committee on June 16, 2025. (checked 2026-08-26).
2025 SB 1592 (End Junk Fees for Renters Act) — Would have set requirements for fees in residential rental agreements under the banner of ending junk fees for renters.Status: Died in the Community Affairs Committee on June 16, 2025. (checked 2026-08-26).

Florida does not cap or otherwise regulate what a landlord charges a person to apply for a home, and it sets no refund, receipt, or disclosure duty around that money; the one application-stage rule of general application is a seven-day decision-and-written-reason duty owed to applicants who are servicemembers.

Cited to Fla. Stat. § 83.49 (1) and 21 more Florida statutes · Verified August 26, 2026

Where a condominium or cooperative association has to approve the lease, its own approval fee is capped at $150 per applicant in a condominium and $100 per applicant in a cooperative, with no charge on a renewal by the same tenant and no comparable limit for homeowners' associations. Cities and counties cannot add their own rules: the landlord and tenant act preempts local regulation of rental applications and the fees that go with them. Florida has no reusable screening report law and no rental fee-transparency law; bills on both subjects were filed in 2025 and 2026 and none passed.

Florida application fees at a glance

Application fee cap	No statutory cap on application fees
Fee limited to actual screening cost	No statute ties the fee to screening cost
Screening charge rules	Where a condominium or cooperative association must approve a lease or sublease, the association may charge a fee for that approval only if its governing documents provide for one, and the fee may not exceed $150 per applicant in a condominium or $100 per applicant in a cooperative. Spouses, and a parent with dependent children, count as one applicant, and no charge may be made when the same lessee renews. Homeowners' associations are not subject to a comparable limit, and no statute limits a landlord's own screening charge. These caps sit in the community-association statutes rather than the landlord and tenant act, and they bind the association rather than the landlord. The condominium figure is adjusted every five years for the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, U.S. City Average, All Items, and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation is directed to calculate and publish the adjusted amounts on its website; $150 is the amount printed in the statute today, and the same figure appears in the 2024 and 2025 printed versions. The cooperative provision also lets an association require a prospective lessee to place up to one month's rent in escrow against damage to common areas, refunded or claimed against within fifteen days after the tenant leaves. Chapter 720, the homeowners' association statute, contains no fee limit of this kind. The limits turn on housing type rather than location: condominiums and cooperatives are covered statewide, homeowners' association parcels are not.
Receipt required	No statutory receipt duty for application money
Refund required in some circumstances	No statutory refund duty
Refund rules	No statutory refund duty
Disclosure before collecting	No statutory disclosure duty
Denial-notice duties (state law)	An applicant who is a servicemember must have the application processed within seven days of submission and must be told in writing within that period whether it is approved or denied, and if denied, the reason for the denial. If no timely denial is given and the other terms are met, the unit must be leased to the servicemember. The duty binds landlords and also condominium, cooperative and homeowners' associations approving a rental, and cannot be waived or modified by agreement. No comparable state duty applies to other applicants. The provision uses the definition of servicemember in section 250.01. For applicants generally, Florida adds nothing to the notice duties that federal credit-reporting law places on a landlord who turns someone down because of a consumer report; that federal layer is context and is not the state rule.
Reusable screening reports	No statute on reusable screening reports
Holding deposits	No statute on holding deposits
Rental fee-transparency rules	No rental fee-transparency statute
Penalty for violation	For the servicemember application duty and the other duties in the landlord and tenant act, the aggrieved party may recover the damages caused by the noncompliance, and the party who wins the case may recover reasonable attorney fees and court costs from the losing side. For the condominium approval-fee cap, the association or a unit owner may bring an action at law or in equity and the prevailing party is entitled to reasonable attorney fees. No penalty attaches to application or screening charges themselves, because no statute regulates them. If a practice at the application stage is also deceptive or unfair, the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act allows a person who suffered a loss to recover actual damages plus attorney's fees and court costs, and exposes a willful violator to a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation. A broker who charges a prospective tenant for a rental information list and breaks the contract and repayment rule commits a first-degree misdemeanor and may have the license suspended or revoked.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Florida Application & Screening Fee Laws (verified August 26, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/application-fees/florida/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Florida statute in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

Housing type decides the cap — The only dollar caps reaching a rental applicant sit in the condominium and cooperative statutes and bind the association, not the landlord. A tenant applying for a single-family home, an apartment, or a home in a homeowners' association community faces no capped fee.
Condominium figure is index-linked — The $150 condominium cap is adjusted every five years for the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, U.S. City Average, All Items, and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation is directed to calculate and publish the adjusted amounts on its website. The statute itself still prints $150, which is the figure given here.
Local rules are off the table — Section 83.425 preempts to the state the screening process a landlord uses, rental agreement applications and the fees associated with them, and fees charged by the landlord. A city or county ordinance capping application fees would not survive it.
Servicemember rule is narrow but strong — The seven-day decision and written reason for denial apply only to applicants who are servicemembers, and the duty cannot be waived or modified by agreement. It also binds a condominium, cooperative or homeowners' association that must approve the rental.
A different broker fee does carry duties — A real estate broker or sales associate who charges a prospective tenant for a list of rental information must give a contract or receipt and repay everything above twenty-five percent of the fee if no rental is obtained, with full repayment if the list was inaccurate. That is a charge for supplying listings rather than an application or screening fee.
Fee in place of a security deposit is a separate regime — Florida law lets a landlord offer a recurring fee instead of a security deposit, with written disclosures and a signed agreement, and forbids using an applicant's choice about that fee as a reason to approve or deny the application. It applies to rental agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2023 and is not an application charge.
What the statutes do not reach — There is no rule on how many times an applicant may be charged, whether a report must actually be obtained, what an applicant must be told before paying, what happens to the money if the unit is taken by someone else, or how a unit may be held while a lease is prepared.
About the application fee rule — Part II of chapter 83 sets no limit on what a landlord may charge a person to apply for a residential tenancy. The act regulates money held as a security deposit or advance rent and a fee offered in place of a security deposit, and says nothing about a charge to apply, so the amount is set by the landlord and by the terms of the application. A separate cap does apply where a condominium or cooperative association must approve the lease.
How the cost limit works — No Florida statute ties an application or screening charge to what the landlord actually spends on credit, background or eviction reports. Part II of chapter 83 carries no such provision and the Legislature's statute search returns no residential rental result for the phrase "application fee" and no result at all for "screening fee".
What the receipt duty covers — No statute requires a landlord to give a receipt for application or screening money. The written-notice duty in the landlord and tenant act attaches to a security deposit or advance rent held under a rental agreement, not to money paid at the application stage.
When money must come back — Part II of chapter 83 names no circumstance in which an application or screening charge must be returned, whether the applicant is turned down, the unit is taken by someone else, or no report is ever obtained. What happens to the money is left to the written application or the lease.
Refunds — With no statutory refund duty, there are no statutory deadlines or mechanics for returning an application or screening charge. A separate statute does require partial repayment of a different fee: a real estate broker who charges a prospective tenant for a list of rental information must repay everything above twenty-five percent of that fee if no rental is obtained.
What must be disclosed up front — Nothing requires a landlord to publish screening criteria, explain the basis of an application charge, or state an applicant's rights before taking the money. The disclosure duties in the landlord and tenant act arrive later and cover other subjects: the landlord's address, the handling of a security deposit or advance rent, flood risk, and the terms of any fee offered in place of a security deposit.
Reusable screening reports — Florida has no portable or reusable tenant screening report law. A landlord is neither required to accept a report an applicant brings along nor barred from charging a fee when one is used. Bills to create such a regime were filed in both the 2025 and the 2026 sessions and none became law. The only place the phrase tenant screening appears in the statutes is in the consumer-report security freeze provisions, which exclude tenant screening databases from a freeze and place no duty on a landlord.
Money to hold a unit — No statute governs money taken to hold a unit while a lease is being prepared. The landlord and tenant act reaches money deposited as security for performance of a rental agreement or as advance rent, which presupposes a rental agreement, and the Legislature's statute search returns no result for the phrase holding deposit. Two association provisions are close but different: a condominium association may require a prospective lessee to place up to one month's rent in escrow against damage to common areas, and a cooperative association may do the same with a fifteen-day refund or claim duty after the tenant leaves.
Advertising and fee transparency — Florida has no all-in advertised rent rule, no itemization duty for mandatory rental fees, and no hidden-fee ban reaching residential rental advertising. The state's consumer-protection rulemaker is the Department of Legal Affairs, and the two chapters of the administrative code that would carry such a rule, on advertising and sales and on rental housing and mobile home parks, list no rules in force; the department's unfair and deceptive trade practices chapter contains only a 1997 rule repealing its earlier practice rules and a 2008 rule on advertising in a language other than English. What governs instead is the general standard in the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, which declares unfair or deceptive acts or practices in trade or commerce unlawful without naming any rental advertising duty. A 2025 bill styled the End Junk Fees for Renters Act died in committee.

Common questions: Florida application fees

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

How much can a landlord charge for a rental application fee in Florida?: No statutory cap on application fees.
Does an application fee have to be refunded in Florida?: No statutory refund duty.
Does a landlord have to give a receipt for an application fee in Florida?: No statutory receipt duty for application money.
Does Florida have a reusable tenant screening report law?: No statute on reusable screening reports.
Can a landlord charge a holding deposit in Florida?: No statute on holding deposits.

Statute citations

Fla. Stat. § 83.49 (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. ch. 83, part II (section index) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.49 (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.425 (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 718.112 (2)(k) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 719.106 (1)(i) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. ch. 720 (full text) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.49 (3) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 475.453 (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.50 (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.491 (3) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.683 (1)-(3) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 501.005 (12)(j)4. (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 501.204 (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Admin. Code ch. 2-11 (Rental Housing and Mobile Home Parks; no rules in force) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Admin. Code r. 2-2.001 (Repeal of Rules Regarding Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices, effective 10/29/1997) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.55 (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.48 (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 718.303 (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 501.211 (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 501.2075 (verified 2026) Official source
Fla. Stat. § 83.683 (1) (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of Fla. Stat. ch. 83 part II on leg.state.fl.us (full section index plus ss. 83.425, 83.43, 83.48, 83.49, 83.491, 83.55, 83.67, 83.681, 83.683, 83.684), of ss. 718.112(2)(k), 718.303(1), 719.106(1)(i), 475.453, 501.005, 501.204, 501.211 and 501.2075, and of the full text of ch. 720 on flsenate.gov; statute-wide phrase searches on the Legislature's own statute search for "application fee", "screening fee", "tenant screening", "holding deposit" and "reusable"; a check of the Department of Legal Affairs chapters of the Florida Administrative Code (2-2, 2-9, 2-11) on flrules.org for an advertised-price or fee-disclosure rule; and a sweep of the 2025 and 2026 session laws and bill pages on flsenate.gov, with the 2026 chapter index on laws.flrules.org.