State Legislators Introduce New Tenant Protection Policies During 2025 Legislative Sessions, Underscoring Efforts to Strengthen Renters’ Rights

By Nada Hussein, NLIHC State and Local Research Analyst  

NLIHC has identified more than 150 pieces of state legislation introduced in 2025 to advance tenant protections, reflecting the persistent efforts of housing advocates and tenant leaders throughout the country. These proposed laws and programs help ensure that renters can access and remain in safe, stable housing of their choice, free from discrimination and unfair treatment. NLIHC tracks the introduction, passage, and implementation of state and local-level tenant protections in our State and Local Tenant Protections Database.  

Currently, the federal government provides very few protections for renters. As such, states and localities play an important role in closing the gaps in existing federal tenant protections. Tenant protections can bolster affordability, accessibility, adequacy, equity, and safety for renters. Lawmakers and administrators can address the issues impacting renter households by: ensuring that housing is affordable by enacting rent stabilization measures; ensuring housing is accessible by protecting tenants against discriminatory housing practices; ensuring housing is adequate by requiring that tenants’  homes are free from health and safety hazards; and ensuring housing is equitable by requiring lease agreements to be language accessible - among other policy solutions that safeguard renters from threats to housing stability.  

Although most state tenant protections introduced this year did not pass, housing advocates led strong – and even historic – campaigns to strengthen renters’ rights. By building cross sector coalitions, strengthening political will, and engaging tenants at all stages of the political process, advocates made clear that there is momentum at the state-level to enact protections for renter households.  

The following memo provides information on high-level legislative trends for 2025, including the categories in which tenant protections were introduced this year at the state-level only. In highlighting these efforts, tenant advocates and housing organizations are able to gain insight into the types of policies that were introduced, the core components of each of the bills, and the specific language used, which in turn, can help advocates in other states develop legislation within their own communities or connect with partners across the country to talk through advocacy strategies. For a full list of tenant protection policies that informed this memo, please visit the tracker here. NLIHC compiled a similar wrap-up memo in 2024 that highlighted how tenant protections fared across state legislative sessions in that year. 

Eviction Record Sealing and/or Expungement 

Eviction record sealing and expungement laws are protections that seek to minimize the negative consequences of having an eviction filing present on a tenant’s public record by making records inaccessible to landlords, property owners, or third-party entities, including credit screening companies. Through eviction record sealing laws, a tenant’s eviction record is hidden from public view, while eviction record expungement laws completely remove an eviction filing from the legal record. 

As of 2025, 21 states have active eviction record sealing or expungement laws. During this 2025 legislative year, 14 states introduced laws to either strengthen existing sealing or expungement protections or create new ones. Of the states where legislation was introduced – Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawai’i, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina – just three passed, with Indiana updating existing state legislation and Delaware and North Dakota creating new protections for renters.  

Delaware’s new eviction record expungement law, “Senate Bill 115,” stipulates that a renter with an eviction record must satisfy at least one of the following requirements before moving to have their eviction record expunged, including waiting at least 5 years since a judgement was entered against the tenant; the tenant has satisfied any monetary judgements present against them; the court dismissed the landlord’s complaint; or the final judgement was awarded in favor of the tenant, among other stipulations. NLIHC’s state partner in Delaware, the Housing Alliance of Delaware, supported the passage of the bill.  

“Just Cause” Eviction Standards 

Known also as “good cause” or “for cause” laws, “just cause” eviction protections limit the reasons or causes for which a landlord can evict a tenant or refuse to renew a tenant’s lease when the tenant is not in violation of the lease or a law. Instead, just cause eviction standards explicitly define the reasons for which a tenant can be evicted, including reasons such as non-payment of rent or another verifiable violation of the tenant’s lease agreement. 

Since the COVID-19 public health crisis between 2020 and 2023, just cause eviction laws have gained traction at the state and local levels. As of 2025, 10 states nationwide, as well as in Washington D.C., have just cause eviction laws. In 2025, 8 states, including Connecticut, Hawai’i, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island introduced state level just cause legislation. None of these bills, unfortunately, passed this year.  

In the state of Connecticut, a broad coalition of housing advocates, tenant leaders, unions, and legal aid service providers advocated to update the state’s existing just cause ordinance which currently only applies to renter households where the occupants are 62 years of age or older. Though the state’s just cause bills “House Bill 6889” and “Senate Bill 988” did not pass through the legislature, housing advocates in the state, which included NLIHC state partner, the Partnership for Strong Communities, employed significant advocacy efforts to strengthen renters’ rights, making it one of the organization’s top policy priorities for 2025. Despite the loss encountered in the Connecticut House of Representatives, housing advocates built a strong presence in the legislature, including groups such as the Connecticut Tenants Union and the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, who connected with lawmakers, held rallies at the state Capitol, and engaged with tenants to speak out in favor of just cause. These efforts showcased the importance of people power and raised awareness around the importance of addressing no-fault evictions, especially as the state saw a 24% increase in no-fault evictions over the last five years.   

Laws Strengthening Code Enforcement Procedures and Habitability Standards 

Under code enforcement and habitability laws, municipalities seek to enforce administrative housing codes to ensure the safety and quality of residential dwelling units. By passing such laws, lawmakers mandate that landlords and property owners ensure that residences are fit for habitation and that essential services like electricity, running water, and functioning heating and cooling systems are present. 

State and local lawmakers can advance a diverse set of policies to ensure tenants are able to reside in housing that is free from health and safety concerns. Such policies include hiring additional building code inspectors, instituting a rental registry to track landlords and property owners, and requiring that maintenance issues are rectified by a certain deadline. Six state tenant protection bills were introduced this year, in Hawai’i, Maine, Michigan, New York, Oklahoma, and Oregon, to address habitability. Of these state bills, none were signed into law. The bills in Maine and Michigan had some success, but in the end did not pass. In Maine, the proposed law was held by the governor without being signed. The Michigan bill (“Senate Bill 19”) made it to a third reading. While the bills in Michigan did not pass, there is momentum for lawmakers to address habitability issues in the rental market. In September 2025, state Democrats put forth 17 consolidated tenant protection bills into a package that includes legislation to ensure safe and hazard-free housing conditions.  

Laws that strengthen code enforcement procedures are diverse in nature, but the common principle is to ensure that tenants reside in habitable housing that is free from health and safety hazards. Of the proposed laws this year, Hawai’i (“Senate Bill 306”) would have capped a tenant’s rent if a habitability issue was present in their home, while also ensuring that if a landlord could not remove a tenant from their home before the habitability concerns were addressed in a timely manner. In Maine, “Legislative Docket 1927” would have added mold to the state’s implied warranty of habitability. An implied warranty of habitability includes conditions codified into law that rental homes need to meet for habitability. By the end of session, Hawai’i’s bill died in committee, while Maine’s bill was not signed by the governor.   

Laws Expanding Notice Requirements or Laws Related to the Summons Process for Eviction 

Laws that expand notice period requirements aim to increase a tenant’s access to timely information and require landlords to provide information prior to filing an eviction or related to the eviction process. In 2025, 13 pieces of legislation were introduced across the District of Columbia and eight states: Hawai’i, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. Oklahoma, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia all passed their bills, though those in Oklahoma and Virginia were vetoed by their respective governors.  

Laws Limiting Excessive Rental Fees or Increasing Transparency Around Fees 

“Junk fees” are rental fees that exacerbate the rental housing unaffordability crisis by requiring tenants to pay additional costs on top of their base rental payments, including when applying for a rental unit as a prospective renter, residing in a unit, moving, or even during the eviction process. During a tenant’s lease term, these laws seek to increase transparency in the rental housing market by uncovering any hidden, surprise, or arbitrary rental fees, including convenience fees, processing fees, administrative fees, excessive late fees, security deposit fees, and utility fees. Junk fee legislation has grown in popularity in recent years, with the Biden administration releasing a brief in 2023 that exposed the harmful nature of rising rental costs. 

In August 2024, NLIHC released a toolkit on laws limiting excessive rental fees, or “junk fees.” The toolkit, which includes information on the ways in which state and local housing advocates can address excessive junk fees for renters, details the core components of such protections and highlights the now-24 states that have enacted such protections for renters. During this 2025 legislative session, 15 pieces of state legislation were introduced in Colorado, Florida, Hawai’i, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington. Nevada successfully passed “Assembly Bill 121” to require landlords to offer tenants a fee-free way of paying rent while also requiring landlords to refund certain rental fees to prospective renters. New Mexico successfully passed “Senate Bill 267,” which requires landlords to refund a prospective renter’s application screening fee if they are not chosen for a unit. Such protections that target application fees charged to tenants are critical because prospective renters often apply for multiple housing units when searching for home, which, in turn, can lead a renter to accumulate hundreds of dollars in application costs with no guarantee that the renter will even secure a unit. 

Rent Stabilization Laws 

Rent stabilization laws limit the ability of landlords and property owners to implement excessive rent hikes that price tenants out of their housing. Such laws typically regulate both the frequency and amount of rent increases. In 2025, NLIHC tracked the introduction of 10 pieces of legislation that would have enacted new rental stabilization laws, hoping to join the District of Columbia, California, and Oregon, that have already enacted these protections. While the District of Columbia, Hawai’i, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Rhode Island did not pass their proposed legislation, advocates in Washington won a historic campaign to secure rent stabilization protections for renter households.  

Under “House Bill 1217,” renters in Washington State will have their rents capped at 7% plus the change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or 10%, whichever is less. NLIHC’s state partner, the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance (WLIHA) helped lead the efforts to secure anti-rent gouging protections for renters across the state, which took effect immediately upon signature by Washington Governor Bob Ferguson in May 2025. As noted by WLIHA, more than 5,700 individuals contacted their lawmakers in support of “House Bill 1217.” 

To learn more about NLIHC’s state and local work, please visit: https://nlihc.org/state-and-local-innovation 

To learn about the protections in place across the country, please visit: https://nlihc.org/tenant-protections 

Are there any protections not currently listed in our State and Local Tenant Protections Database that you are aware of? Please email NLIHC State and Local Research Analyst Nada Hussein at [email protected]