Can You Turn Down a Section 8 Applicant in California? What SB 329 and SB 267 Actually Require

Published July 15, 2026

California bans Section 8 voucher discrimination under SB 329 and limits credit checks for subsidized renters under SB 267. Here is what that means for screening.

No. Since January 1, 2020, California law treats a Housing Choice Voucher, including Section 8, as a protected source of income under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (Government Code section 12955), so refusing to rent to someone because they hold a voucher is illegal. Since 2024, SB 267 also bars landlords from using credit history alone to deny a subsidized applicant; they must be offered a chance to show bank records or pay stubs instead.

Source of income is a protected class here, full stop

Senate Bill 329 amended the Fair Employment and Housing Act to add source of income to the list of protected categories alongside race, religion, disability, and the rest, effective January 1, 2020. The statute defines source of income broadly: lawful, verifiable income paid to a tenant or on a tenant's behalf, including federal, state, or local public assistance and any housing subsidy, which explicitly covers Section 8 vouchers issued under the federal Housing Choice Voucher program. Practically, that means an owner in Hawthorne, Gardena, Inglewood, or anywhere else in the South Bay cannot post a listing that says no vouchers, cannot reject an application because the rent will be paid partly through a housing authority, and cannot apply a different, harsher screening standard to a voucher holder than to any other applicant.

The income test itself also changed. Under Government Code section 12955, if you have a minimum income requirement, you can only measure it against the portion of rent the tenant will actually pay out of pocket, not the full contract rent. A voucher holder responsible for $600 of a $2,400 monthly rent gets screened against $600 in income requirements, not $2,400. Screening someone against the full rent amount when a subsidy covers most of it is one of the more common ways landlords end up on the wrong side of a source of income complaint without realizing it.

SB 267 narrows how you can use a credit report

Senate Bill 267, chaptered in 2023 and effective January 1, 2024, layered another protection on top for anyone receiving a government rent subsidy. It prohibits using an applicant's credit history as part of the screening decision without first offering that applicant the option to provide lawful, verifiable alternative evidence of their ability to pay their portion of the rent, things like benefit award letters, pay stubs, or bank statements. If the applicant chooses to provide that alternative evidence, you have to give them a reasonable amount of time to produce it and actually consider it in place of the credit history when deciding whether to offer the unit.

SB 267 does not strip landlords of every screening tool. You can still verify employment, still call landlord references, and still confirm identity. What you cannot do is let a thin or damaged credit file be the deciding factor for a voucher holder when they are willing and able to document their side of the rent another way.

Why this matters more in some South Bay cities than others

Housing Choice Vouchers are not evenly distributed across the South Bay. HUD's Picture of Subsidized Households dataset tracks voucher counts down to the tract level for every county and place in the country, and local housing authorities in Los Angeles County administer a meaningful voucher caseload, which means an owner with units in Hawthorne, Gardena, or Inglewood is statistically more likely to see a voucher holder apply than an owner in a city with less subsidized housing stock nearby. We are not going to hand you a made up percentage here, the accurate way to check your specific building's exposure is to pull the current tract level numbers yourself from HUD's dataset rather than rely on a guess. The legal exposure, though, is the same everywhere in the state regardless of how many voucher holders happen to apply to your listings.

What this means for you

If your written screening criteria say no Section 8, no vouchers, or no subsidized housing, that language by itself is a fair housing violation waiting to happen in California, independent of anything else in your process. If you run credit checks, make sure your policy has a documented offramp for subsidized applicants to submit alternative proof of ability to pay before you deny anyone. And measure income requirements against the tenant's actual rent share, not the full contract rent, whenever a subsidy is in the picture. These are cheap fixes to your paperwork that close off a real source of legal risk.

If you would rather have someone else keep your screening criteria current with the law, that is part of what we do for owners at Schofield.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm with a licensed professional before you act.

Sources

Last verified: July 2026.

Topics: compliance, Section 8, source of income discrimination, fair housing, tenant screening

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Schofield Properties is a family run property management company at 323 Richmond St, El Segundo, CA 90245. We have managed the South Bay since 1972 and personally oversee about 186 doors today. Book a call to talk about your property.