Fair Housing Today: Rights, Duties and Current Debates

Fair housing law today rests on one federal statute and a growing layer of state and local rules. The federal Fair Housing Act bars discrimination in renting, selling, financing and advertising housing because of seven characteristics: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status and disability. It also requires housing providers to accommodate people with disabilities, and it gives anyone who is harmed a way to file a complaint or sue.

Congress has not changed that list since 1988, but the federal government’s approach to enforcing it shifted sharply in 2025 and 2026. HUD withdrew much of its written guidance, narrowed its fair housing planning rule, and proposed deleting its regulation on policies with discriminatory effects. This guide describes the rules as of October 1, 2026, for renters and housing providers alike. It is general information, not legal advice.

Who Is Protected

The act also makes it illegal to coerce, intimidate, threaten or interfere with anyone for using these rights or for helping someone else use them.

Sexual orientation and gender identity

The act names neither. In September 2025 HUD withdrew two 2021 memos that had applied the Supreme Court’s 2020 employment ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County to the Fair Housing Act. In April 2026 it proposed removing references to gender identity from the Equal Access rule for HUD-funded programs. How far the act’s ban on sex discrimination reaches is now left to the courts. Some state laws name both explicitly.

What states and cities add

State and local laws often go further. Delaware’s fair housing law, for example, adds creed, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, source of income, military status and housing status.

For affordable housing, the most consequential addition is source of income. The federal act does not stop a private landlord from refusing a Housing Choice Voucher, often still called Section 8. Bans on source-of-income discrimination fill that gap unevenly:

• A March 2026 compilation by the Poverty & Race Research Action Council counted 19 states plus the District of Columbia with statewide protections.
• It lists seven states that bar their cities and counties from adopting any.
• Whatever state law says, properties financed with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, HOME or the national Housing Trust Fund may not reject an applicant for holding a voucher.

Who Must Comply

The act covers most housing and most people involved in it: owners, property managers, real estate agents, lenders and advertisers. The exemptions are narrow:

• Small owner-occupied buildings. Rooms or units in a building of four or fewer units where the owner lives in one.
• Single-family houses sold or rented by the owner without a broker or agent, if the owner has no more than three such houses.
• Religious organizations and private clubs, which may prefer their own members in housing they run for noncommercial purposes.
• Housing for older persons, which may exclude families with children. It qualifies if it is intended for and solely occupied by residents 62 or older, or if it is intended for residents 55 or older and at least 80% of occupied units have a resident of that age.

The first two exemptions do not cover advertising: even an exempt owner may not publish a discriminatory ad.

Disability: Accommodations, Modifications and Accessible Design

Disability was the basis of 54.59% of complaints reported nationwide in 2024, according to the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA). Three duties apply.

Accommodations. A reasonable accommodation is a change to a rule, policy or service that a person with a disability needs for equal use of a home. HUD’s regulation gives two examples: a guide dog in a no-pets building, and a reserved parking space for a tenant who cannot walk far.

A 2004 joint statement from HUD and the Justice Department sets out the working rules:

• A request can be oral or written and needs no special wording.
• If the disability or the need is not obvious, the provider may ask for reliable information that verifies it. Providers generally may not ask about the nature or severity of a disability.
• A provider may refuse a request that would impose an undue financial and administrative burden or fundamentally alter its operations, but should discuss alternatives first.
• No extra fee or deposit may be charged.
• An undue delay in responding can count as a refusal.

HUD withdrew its 2013 and 2020 guidance on assistance animals in September 2025. The statute and the regulation did not change.

Modifications. A tenant may make reasonable physical changes, such as grab bars, at the tenant’s own expense.

Accessible design. Multifamily buildings with four or more units that were first occupied after March 13, 1991, must have an accessible entrance and common areas, doors wide enough for wheelchairs, reachable switches and outlets, bathroom walls reinforced for grab bars, and usable kitchens and bathrooms. The rule covers every unit in an elevator building and ground-floor units elsewhere. Federally assisted subsidized housing faces a further rule under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act: in new projects, at least 5% of units must be accessible to people with mobility impairments and another 2% to people with hearing or vision impairments.

Tenant Screening

Screening applicants is legal. The risk lies in applying standards unevenly, or in using a neutral rule that screens out a protected group without a sound reason.

Criminal records

Having a criminal record is not a protected class. The act states that it does not protect a person convicted of illegally manufacturing or distributing a controlled substance.

Three other layers of law matter:

• Federal guidance. In September 2025 HUD withdrew its 2016 legal guidance on criminal-record screening and a 2022 memo implementing it. Private lawsuits remain available.
• Assisted housing. A public housing agency must deny voucher admission to anyone subject to lifetime sex-offender registration or convicted of producing methamphetamine in federally assisted housing.
• State and local law. New Jersey’s Fair Chance in Housing Act, signed in 2021, bars most questions about criminal history before a conditional offer. Cook County, Illinois, requires an individualized assessment before a conviction-based denial.

Credit and consumer reports

A credit report, a rental-history report and a criminal background check are all consumer reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If a landlord denies an application, requires a co-signer or demands a larger deposit because of one, the landlord must send an adverse action notice. The notice names the reporting company, says the company did not make the decision, and explains the applicant’s right to dispute errors and get a free copy within 60 days.

In reports released in November 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau analyzed more than 24,000 complaints about tenant screening. More than 16,000 involved incorrect information.

Algorithmic scores

Many landlords now rely on a single score from a screening company. In Louis v. SafeRent, two Black applicants with vouchers alleged that such a score leaned on credit history and unrelated debts while ignoring that a voucher makes rent more likely to be paid. In January 2023 the Justice Department and HUD told the court that the act applies to algorithm-based screening. A federal court approved a $2.275 million settlement on November 20, 2024, according to plaintiffs’ counsel. The federal government has since moved away from the disparate impact theory behind that case.

Advertising and Steering

It is illegal to make or publish any notice, statement or ad that indicates a preference or limitation based on a protected class. HUD’s rule reaches words, photographs and symbols, and the choice of media or locations that keeps an ad from part of the market.

That last point reaches online ad delivery. In June 2022 the Justice Department settled what it called its first case challenging algorithmic bias under the act. Meta agreed to drop a targeting tool for housing ads and to build a system to reduce disparities in who sees them.

Steering means limiting a home seeker’s choices because of a protected trait. HUD’s examples include exaggerating a home’s drawbacks, telling buyers they would not be comfortable with the neighbors, and assigning people to a particular section or floor.

How to File a Complaint

1. Mind the deadlines. A complaint must be filed with HUD within one year. A lawsuit must be filed within two years, not counting time a HUD proceeding was pending. Going to HUD first is not required.
2. Choose where to file. HUD takes complaints by mail, by telephone, online or in person. Where a state or local agency enforces a law HUD has certified as “substantially equivalent,” HUD refers the complaint there. These are known as Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) agencies. They set their own filing deadlines, which may be shorter than HUD’s one year but not shorter than 180 days. Nonprofit fair housing organizations can help with either route.
3. Give the basics. HUD asks for your contact information, who you believe discriminated, the property address, the date, and a brief description of what happened.
4. Investigation and conciliation. HUD notifies the other party, tries to settle the dispute, and aims to finish investigating within 100 days.
5. Charge or dismissal. If HUD finds reasonable cause, it issues a charge. Either side then has 20 days to move the case to federal court. Otherwise an administrative law judge hears it and can award damages, order changes and impose civil penalties. Zoning and land-use cases go to the Justice Department.

NFHA counted 32,321 complaints nationwide in 2024. Private nonprofits handled 74.12% of them, FHAP agencies 20.90% and HUD 4.85%. NFHA also reports that HUD terminated 78 grants to such groups in February 2025, that some groups cut staff or closed, and that HUD later resumed the funding after the groups sued.

The Shifting Federal Posture, 2025–2026

Disparate impact. In 2015 the Supreme Court held that a policy can violate the act because of its unjustified effects, without proof of intent. The Court required plaintiffs to identify the specific policy that causes a disparity. HUD’s rule adds a three-step test. HUD now argues that the standard belongs to the courts and says removing the rule would not change anyone’s rights or obligations. Supporters say the rule gives all parties a clear and predictable test, the reason HUD gave for adopting it in 2013. The Court placed challenges to exclusionary zoning at the “heartland” of the doctrine.

AFFH. The act directs HUD to run its programs in a way that actively furthers fair housing. Earlier rules required local governments to analyze barriers and set goals. HUD’s 2025 rule calls for a general commitment and no specific planning process. The history of both disputes is covered in Redlining, Segregation and the Fight for Fair Housing.

Housing providers should not read withdrawn guidance as permission. HUD’s own notice says actions that do not comply with the act’s text remain subject to enforcement.

What This Means for Affordable and Workforce Housing

Income-restricted and workforce communities follow the same rules as market-rate housing, and often more. Federal funding brings Section 504 accessibility duties and bars on refusing vouchers. Tenant selection criteria, including any preference for local residents or one employer’s workers, should be written down, applied consistently, and checked for whether they needlessly exclude protected groups.

The Bottom Line

The Fair Housing Act’s core has held steady: seven protected classes, a duty to accommodate disability, limits on advertising and steering, and a complaint process with firm deadlines. What is changing is how actively the federal government interprets and enforces it. As HUD pulls back guidance and rules, court decisions and state and local laws carry more of the weight, so renters and providers should check the rules where they live.