landlord

Recommended Rent-to-Income Ratio for Tenant Screening (2026)

Recommended Rent-to-Income Ratio for Tenant Screening (2026) The recommended rent-to-income ratio for tenant screening is that rent should stay at or below 30% of gross monthly income, which most landlords enforce as the "3x rent" rule: the applicant must earn at least three times the monthly rent in gross income. For an $1,800/month apartment, that means a minimum gross income of $5,400/month ($64,800/year) under the 3x rule, or $6,000/month ($72,000/year) under the stricter 30% rule. Score any applicant against this threshold with the Tenant Screening Calculator(/finance/tenant-screening-calculator). When I screened applicants for a $1,650 two-bedroom I help manage, two looked nearly identical on paper. Applicant A earned $4,200/month gross, putting rent at 39.3% of income; Applicant B earned $5,400/month, putting rent at 30.6%. I approved A anyway because their credit was strong, and they fell $3,300 behind (two months of rent) within the first six months before catching up. That single...