How to Run a Tenant Credit Check in Ontario (Legally)

Rent is a recurring financial obligation, and a credit report is the closest thing to a track record of how someone meets recurring financial obligations. If an applicant has a history of paying credit cards, loans, and utilities on time, that is a reasonable signal they will treat rent the same way. If they have multiple accounts in collections, that is a signal worth investigating.

That said, a credit check is one input, not a verdict. A strong score does not guarantee a good tenant, and a thin or imperfect file does not guarantee a bad one. The point of screening is to build a complete picture — credit history alongside income verification, references, and a conversation — not to outsource your decision to a single number.

A Canadian credit report pulls together the applicant's borrowing history. The main components a landlord will see:

What a credit report does NOT show

This is why a credit check on its own is never enough. The single biggest gap is income: the report can tell you someone pays their debts, but it cannot tell you whether they can comfortably afford this rent. That gap is exactly where separate income verification comes in.

You cannot pull someone's credit report without their permission. Under Canada's federal private-sector privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), a credit report is sensitive personal information, and you need the applicant's knowledge and consent before collecting it.

In practice, that means getting written consent — typically a signed authorization on the rental application or a separate consent form — that clearly states you intend to obtain a credit report for the purpose of evaluating their tenancy application. Verbal consent is risky and hard to prove; get it in writing.

Collect only what you reasonably need, use it only for the stated purpose, and store it securely. Do not keep credit reports for rejected applicants longer than necessary, and do not share them. Mishandling this data is a privacy breach.

Canada has two main credit bureaus: Equifax and TransUnion. Both maintain credit files on Canadian consumers. An individual landlord usually cannot open a direct account with the bureaus the way a bank can, so most landlords access credit data through an intermediary.

Common routes

Whichever route you use, the consent and privacy obligations above still apply. A screening service does not absolve you of getting proper authorization.

There is no legally mandated cutoff score for tenants, and you should be wary of treating any single number as a pass/fail line. Look at the whole picture and at trends, not just the headline score.

Generally reassuring signs

Signs worth a closer look

A concerning report is a reason to ask questions and verify income more carefully — not an automatic disqualifier. Context matters: a single medical collection or a thin file after a recent move tells a very different story than a long pattern of default.

This is the section most credit-check guides skip, and it is the one that actually gets Ontario landlords in trouble. The Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in housing on protected grounds. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has issued policy on rental housing that directly limits how you can use credit information.

You cannot auto-reject thin or no credit history

Rejecting an applicant solely because they have little or no credit history can be discriminatory. Newcomers to Canada, young people, students, and recently divorced or widowed people often have thin files through no fault of their own — and several of the characteristics behind that (such as place of origin, age, or marital status) are protected grounds. No credit history is not the same as bad credit. Where an applicant has no credit history, the OHRC's position is that you should consider other evidence of their ability to pay rather than refusing them outright.

You cannot impose rigid income-to-rent ratios

Rules like "you must earn at least 3x the rent" or applying a fixed rent-to-income cutoff are problematic under the Code. The OHRC has been clear that using income-percentage cutoffs as a sole criterion can screen out people on protected grounds and is generally not an acceptable basis for refusing housing. You can consider income as one factor among several, but you cannot reduce the decision to a single ratio.

Source of income is protected

Receipt of public assistance is a protected ground under the Code. You cannot refuse an applicant, or treat them differently, because their income comes from social assistance, disability support, a pension, or another lawful source rather than from employment. The source of someone's income is not a permissible basis for rejection.

An applicant is entitled to decline. Because consent is required, you cannot force a credit check — and refusing is not, by itself, automatic grounds to reject someone, especially if the refusal connects to a protected ground or to a thin file.

The practical answer is to lean on the other parts of your screening process. If you cannot (or choose not to) rely on a credit report, you can still build confidence through:

Apply the same standard consistently. If you would accept verified income and solid references from one applicant in place of a credit check, you need to be willing to do the same for the next one.

A credit check is one leg of a stool — useful, but unstable on its own. A complete Ontario screening process generally combines: