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

No separate dollar cap on an application fee as such, but a charge for a nationwide consumer credit report is limited to the landlord's actual cost, up to $25, and a background check charge is limited the same way but may be imposed only on an applicant who is not a Wisconsin resident. Any other payment taken from an applicant for having an application considered is treated as an earnest money deposit and carries refund duties.

Does an application fee have to be refunded in Wisconsin?

Yes — in Wisconsin at least one circumstance requires application-stage money to be returned. The full earnest money deposit goes back by first-class mail or delivery by the end of the next business day after the landlord rejects the application or refuses to enter a rental agreement, the applicant withdraws before the landlord accepts, or the landlord fails to approve the application by the end of the third business day after accepting the deposit. That third-business-day point can be extended by written agreement to a date no more than 21 calendar days after the deposit was accepted. If a rental agreement is signed, the deposit is applied as rent or as a security deposit, or returned.

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

Yes — Wisconsin requires a receipt for application-stage money.

Does Wisconsin have a reusable tenant screening report law?

A landlord may not require an applicant to pay for a consumer credit report if, before the landlord requests one, the applicant provides a report from a consumer credit reporting agency that compiles and maintains files on consumers nationwide and that is less than 30 days old.

Can a landlord charge a holding deposit in Wisconsin?

Money that bridges application and lease is regulated as an earnest money deposit. There is no dollar cap. It may not be accepted until the landlord identifies the unit or units the applicant is being considered for, a written receipt stating its nature and amount is due immediately on acceptance, and the refund and withholding rules apply on every outcome.

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

Verified August 25, 2026 All Wisconsin 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:

2025 Assembly Bill 1064 — Would have created a new section barring a landlord from charging an application fee, or accepting earnest money any part of which is an application fee, defining an application fee as any charge imposed on a prospective tenant for the landlord's review and consideration of an application. It would also have extended the applicant-supplied credit report window from less than 30 days to less than 6 months, added the same applicant-supplied exception for background checks, and required delivery of a copy of the credit report within 7 business days.Status: Introduced February 26, 2026 and referred to the Assembly Committee on Housing and Real Estate the same day; failed to pass on March 23, 2026 when the session's floor period ended under Senate Joint Resolution 1. It never left committee. (checked 2026-08-25).
2025 Senate Bill 1063 — Senate companion to Assembly Bill 1064, with the same relating clause on prohibiting landlords from charging application fees and on credit checks and background checks obtained by landlords.Status: Introduced February 26, 2026 and referred to the Senate Committee on Insurance, Housing, Rural Issues and Forestry; failed to pass on March 23, 2026 when the session's floor period ended under Senate Joint Resolution 1. (checked 2026-08-25).

Wisconsin caps what a landlord may charge an applicant for screening reports but does not set a separate application fee cap, and it turns any other application-stage charge into refundable earnest money.

Cited to Wis. Stat. s. 704.085 (1) (a) (1)(a) and 28 more Wisconsin statutes · Verified August 25, 2026

A landlord may charge actual cost, up to $25, for a nationwide consumer credit report, and the same for a background check but only on an applicant who is not a Wisconsin resident; in both cases the landlord must give notice of the charge before ordering the report and hand the applicant a copy of it. If the applicant supplies their own nationwide credit report less than 30 days old before the landlord orders one, the landlord may not require payment for a credit report at all. Anything else collected for having an application considered is an earnest money deposit: a written receipt is due immediately, and the full amount goes back by the end of the next business day if the application is rejected, if the applicant withdraws before acceptance, or if the landlord has not approved the application by the end of the third business day after taking the money. Wisconsin sets no denial-notice duty of its own and requires no disclosure of screening criteria, but a landlord representing a rent amount must disclose non-rent charges that will increase what the tenant pays.

Wisconsin application fees at a glance

Application fee cap	No separate dollar cap on an application fee as such, but a charge for a nationwide consumer credit report is limited to the landlord's actual cost, up to $25, and a background check charge is limited the same way but may be imposed only on an applicant who is not a Wisconsin resident. Any other payment taken from an applicant for having an application considered is treated as an earnest money deposit and carries refund duties. Wisconsin answers the application-fee question in two places. Wis. Stat. s. 704.085 sets the ceiling on screening report charges. The administrative code then defines an earnest money deposit as any payment given for the option of entering a rental agreement in the future or for having a rental agreement considered by a landlord, and excludes only a credit check fee charged in compliance with the credit check rule. A charge for considering an application therefore falls inside the earnest money definition and must be handled under the earnest money receipt, refund and withholding rules. The $25 figure is a flat statutory amount, not indexed and not republished annually. State law governs statewide. Local ordinances survive only where they are not in direct conflict with the state rental practices rules, and the state rules control in a direct conflict.
Fee limited to actual screening cost	Yes
Screening charge rules	The report must come from a consumer credit reporting agency that compiles and maintains files on consumers nationwide. The landlord must tell the applicant about the charge before requesting the report and must give the applicant a copy of the report. A background check charge may be imposed only on an applicant who is not a Wisconsin resident. No earnest money or security deposit may be accepted until the landlord has identified the unit or units the applicant is being considered for. The notice and copy duties are unconditional once the landlord charges, so an approved applicant receives a copy on the same terms as a rejected one. Wisconsin does not limit how many applications a landlord may take, does not require the unit to be vacant before a screening charge, and does not impose a one-charge-per-applicant rule. The requirement to identify the specific unit applies to earnest money and security deposits rather than to the screening charge itself. Local ordinances may not limit a landlord's access to an applicant's monthly household income, occupation, rental history, credit information, or court records, including arrest and conviction records.
Receipt required	Yes
Refund required in some circumstances	Yes
Refund rules	The full earnest money deposit goes back by first-class mail or delivery by the end of the next business day after the landlord rejects the application or refuses to enter a rental agreement, the applicant withdraws before the landlord accepts, or the landlord fails to approve the application by the end of the third business day after accepting the deposit. That third-business-day point can be extended by written agreement to a date no more than 21 calendar days after the deposit was accepted. If a rental agreement is signed, the deposit is applied as rent or as a security deposit, or returned. Withholding is narrow. It is available only where an approved applicant then fails to sign, and it is limited to an amount sufficient to compensate the landlord for actual costs and damages caused by that failure. It is unavailable where the landlord has significantly altered the rental terms previously disclosed to the applicant, and lost rent may not be withheld unless the landlord has made a reasonable effort to reduce that loss. Accepting a partial payment or credit does not waive the right to the full amount owed. There is no separate excess-over-cost refund mechanic for screening charges, because the actual-cost ceiling limits what may be collected in the first place.
Disclosure before collecting	Before requesting a credit report or background check the landlord must tell the applicant about the charge. Before accepting any earnest money or security deposit the landlord must furnish written rental agreements and rules for inspection, disclose known uncorrected code violations that affect the unit or a common area and present a significant threat to health or safety, disclose the listed habitability conditions the landlord knows of or would find on reasonable inspection, and disclose whether water, heat, or electricity charges fall outside the rent along with how those charges are allocated where the unit is not separately metered. The landlord must also disclose, at or before the rental agreement, who collects rent and manages the property and who may accept service of legal process, with a Wisconsin address for in-person service, and must give written notice of changes within 10 business days. That identification duty does not apply to an owner-occupied building of no more than four units. Wisconsin requires no pre-collection statement of screening criteria, no breakdown of how a screening charge was calculated, and no statement of applicant rights. Cities, villages, towns and counties may not require a landlord to communicate to tenants any information that federal or state law does not already require, so local disclosure ordinances cannot add to this list.
Denial-notice duties (state law)	No state statute — federal fair-credit duties still apply
Reusable screening reports	A landlord may not require an applicant to pay for a consumer credit report if, before the landlord requests one, the applicant provides a report from a consumer credit reporting agency that compiles and maintains files on consumers nationwide and that is less than 30 days old. The rule removes the charge; by its terms it does not require the landlord to accept or rely on the applicant's report instead of obtaining its own at the landlord's expense. The 30-day window and the nationwide-agency requirement are both conditions on the exception, and the applicant must supply the report before the landlord requests one. No comparable exception exists for the background check a landlord may charge a non-Wisconsin applicant for. Wisconsin runs no portable screening report program, registry, or applicant-pays platform.
Holding deposits	Money that bridges application and lease is regulated as an earnest money deposit. There is no dollar cap. It may not be accepted until the landlord identifies the unit or units the applicant is being considered for, a written receipt stating its nature and amount is due immediately on acceptance, and the refund and withholding rules apply on every outcome. The definition is deliberately broad: any payment or deposit, however it is named, given for the option of entering a rental agreement in the future or for having a rental agreement considered. On rejection, withdrawal before acceptance, or a failure to approve within the time allowed, the full deposit goes back by the end of the next business day. On a signed tenancy it is applied as rent or as a security deposit, or returned. On an approved applicant's failure to sign, the landlord may withhold actual costs and damages only, and not at all if the landlord significantly altered the terms previously disclosed.
Rental fee-transparency rules	Wisconsin has no all-in advertised price requirement and no mandatory itemized fee schedule for rental listings. It does require that a landlord seeking to induce someone to enter a rental agreement not misrepresent the amount of rent or non-rent charges, and not fail to disclose, in connection with any representation of a rent amount, non-rent charges that will increase the total the tenant pays during the tenancy. This sits in the state's residential rental practices rules rather than in a general consumer statute, so it reaches rental advertising and showings directly. The same rule bars misrepresenting the location, characteristics, or equivalency of units offered, and bars telling an applicant they are being considered for a different unit as part of a scheme to rent another one. What the rule does not do is fix how a price must be displayed or require that every mandatory charge be folded into an advertised figure.
Penalty for violation	The residential rental practices chapter is an order issued under the state's unfair trade practices statute, so a person suffering a financial loss from a breach of its earnest money receipt, refund, withholding, disclosure, credit check fee, or non-rent charge disclosure duties may recover twice that loss plus costs and a reasonable attorney fee. Public enforcement runs to a civil forfeiture of not less than $100 and not more than $10,000 for each violation, in an action brought by the department or a district attorney. The credit and background check statute itself carries no penalty clause, but the administrative code restates the credit check fee limit, so overcharging breaches the rule as well as the statute and draws the same remedies. A separate provision limits the department to orders and rules that do not change rights or duties arising under the landlord-tenant chapter, which is why the code provision restates rather than alters the statutory ceiling.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Wisconsin Application & Screening Fee Laws (verified August 25, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/application-fees/wisconsin/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Every figure above is cited to the Wisconsin statute in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

The $25 is a ceiling, not a flat fee — Both screening charges are written as the landlord's actual cost, up to $25. A landlord whose report costs less may charge only what it cost. The figure is fixed in statute, is not adjusted for inflation, and is not republished by any agency each year.
Background checks are narrower than credit reports — The background check charge is available only against an applicant who is not a Wisconsin resident, and it has no exception for an applicant who supplies their own recent report. The credit report rules apply to every applicant.
A nonrefundable application fee is hard to construct — The state's rental practices rules define an earnest money deposit to include any payment given for having a rental agreement considered, carving out only a compliant credit check fee. A charge described as an application fee therefore comes with the receipt and refund duties that attach to earnest money.
The refund clock is short — Full return is due by the end of the next business day after rejection, withdrawal before acceptance, or a failure to approve by the end of the third business day after the money was taken. That third-business-day point may be extended only in writing and only out to 21 calendar days.
Buildings the rental practices chapter does not reach — The chapter does not apply to institutional housing incidental to detention or medical, educational, counseling or similar services, fraternal or social organization housing, units occupied under a contract of sale, hotel or boarding house stays by tourist or transient occupants, units the landlord provides free or to an on-site employee, units occupied by a tenant farming the premises commercially, or units owned and operated by government. The landlord-identification disclosure separately exempts an owner-occupied building of no more than four units.
What Wisconsin does not require — There is no state duty to give a denial notice or reasons, no duty to publish or hand over screening criteria before taking money, no breakdown of how a screening charge was computed, no limit on the number of applications a landlord may accept, and no all-in advertised price rule for listings.
Remedies — Because the rental practices chapter is issued under the state's unfair trade practices statute, an applicant who loses money through a breach may recover twice that loss plus costs and a reasonable attorney fee, and the state may pursue a forfeiture between $100 and $10,000 for each violation.
Local rules — Local ordinances stand only where they do not directly conflict with the state rental practices rules, and separate state law bars local governments from adding landlord communication duties or from limiting a landlord's access to an applicant's income, occupation, rental history, credit information, or court records.
How the cost limit works — Both screening charges are written as the landlord's actual cost, up to $25. The $25 is a ceiling on a cost-based charge rather than a flat amount a landlord may charge regardless of what the report cost. The administrative code repeats the actual-cost formula and points back to the statute for the ceiling.
What the receipt duty covers — Immediately on accepting any earnest money or security deposit, the landlord must give the applicant a written receipt stating the nature of the deposit and its amount. A receipt is not required where payment is made by a check bearing a notation describing what it was given for, unless the applicant asks for one. The duty runs to earnest money and security deposits; a credit check fee charged under the credit check rule sits outside the earnest money definition, and the applicant's corresponding entitlement there is a copy of the report.
When money must come back — A landlord holding an earnest money deposit must send or deliver the full deposit back by the end of the next business day after any of three listed events. The duty attaches to earnest money, which is the category that captures a charge for having an application considered; it does not attach to a credit check or background check charge made within the actual-cost ceiling.
Denial notices — The sections that would carry such a duty are the credit and background check statute in the landlord-tenant chapter and the parallel credit check fee rule in the residential rental practices chapter; both were read end to end and neither contains a denial-notice provision, and no other section of either chapter does. The copy-of-report duty is tied to the charge rather than to the outcome, so it applies whether or not the application is approved. Federal fair credit reporting law supplies the adverse-action notice obligations that apply in Wisconsin, and it is federal rather than a state rule.

Common questions: Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin?: No separate dollar cap on an application fee as such, but a charge for a nationwide consumer credit report is limited to the landlord's actual cost, up to $25, and a background check charge is limited the same way but may be imposed only on an applicant who is not a Wisconsin resident. Any other payment taken from an applicant for having an application considered is treated as an earnest money deposit and carries refund duties.
Does an application fee have to be refunded in Wisconsin?: Yes — in Wisconsin at least one circumstance requires application-stage money to be returned. The full earnest money deposit goes back by first-class mail or delivery by the end of the next business day after the landlord rejects the application or refuses to enter a rental agreement, the applicant withdraws before the landlord accepts, or the landlord fails to approve the application by the end of the third business day after accepting the deposit. That third-business-day point can be extended by written agreement to a date no more than 21 calendar days after the deposit was accepted. If a rental agreement is signed, the deposit is applied as rent or as a security deposit, or returned.
Does a landlord have to give a receipt for an application fee in Wisconsin?: Yes — Wisconsin requires a receipt for application-stage money.
Does Wisconsin have a reusable tenant screening report law?: A landlord may not require an applicant to pay for a consumer credit report if, before the landlord requests one, the applicant provides a report from a consumer credit reporting agency that compiles and maintains files on consumers nationwide and that is less than 30 days old.
Can a landlord charge a holding deposit in Wisconsin?: Money that bridges application and lease is regulated as an earnest money deposit. There is no dollar cap. It may not be accepted until the landlord identifies the unit or units the applicant is being considered for, a written receipt stating its nature and amount is due immediately on acceptance, and the refund and withholding rules apply on every outcome.

Statute citations

Wis. Stat. s. 704.085 (1) (a) (1)(a) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Stat. s. 704.085 (2) (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.02 (3) (3) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (4) (a) (4)(a) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (1) (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.03 (2) (a) (2)(a) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (2) (a) (2)(a) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (2) (a) (2)(a)1.-3. (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (2) (b) (2)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (2) (c) (2)(c) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (3) (3)(a), (3)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.03 (1) (1) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.04 (2) (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.04 (3) (3) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.04 (1) (1)(a), (1)(c) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Stat. s. 704.085 (1)(a), (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (4) (4) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Stat. s. 704.085 (1) (b) (1)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (4) (b) (4)(b) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (2) (2) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (3) (3) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.09 (9) (a) (9)(a)1.-3. (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.01 (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Stat. s. 100.20 (5) (5) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Stat. s. 100.26 (6) (6) (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Stat. s. 704.95 (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Stat. s. 704.085 (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.05 (verified 2026) Official source
Wis. Admin. Code s. ATCP 134.04 (verified 2026) Official source

How this record was verified: Direct read of Wis. Stat. s. 704.085 (including the per-paragraph pages for (1)(a), (1)(b) and (2)) and Wis. Admin. Code ss. ATCP 134.01, 134.02, 134.03, 134.04, 134.05, 134.09 and 134.10 on docs.legis.wisconsin.gov, together with Wis. Stat. ss. 100.20 (5), 100.26 (6), 704.95 and 66.0104 (2) and the ch. 704 table of contents; plus a sweep of the 2025-2026 session act list and the history pages for 2025 AB 1064, SB 1063, SB 1058 and AB 202 on the legislature's own site. The DATCP tenants' rights page was read as agency corroboration of the earnest money return duty.