There is no legal or universal minimum credit score to rent an apartment. No federal rule, no Texas statute, and no El Paso ordinance sets a required number. Every threshold you run into is a policy set by the individual landlord or property manager.
That surprises people, because the process can feel as strict as a mortgage. It is not the same thing. Knowing how rental screening actually works, and what it looks at besides a score, puts you in a much calmer position when you fill out the application.
What credit score do you actually need to rent?
None in particular, as a matter of law. myFICO states there is no official or legally required credit score for renting, and Experian says the same: there is no single standard or legal minimum score required to get approved for a lease.
What exists instead is a benchmark that gets quoted a lot. A score of 670 or higher is commonly described as showing good creditworthiness, and Experian frames it that way. That is a signal to a landlord, not a cutoff. A lower score does not automatically mean a denial. It usually means the landlord looks harder at the rest of your application, or asks for something extra before saying yes.
What scores do landlords actually look for?
Reported market norms, which is different from a rule. Most landlords look for somewhere around 620 to 650 to approve without conditions, competitive apartments in tight markets often want 700 or higher, and there are still options below 620.
Those numbers come from housing and finance publishers like Capital One and SoFi reporting on the market, not from any law, so treat them as what tends to happen rather than a line you must clear. The reported pattern looks roughly like this: a score in the 580 to 619 range is often approvable with a larger deposit or a co-signer, and below 580 usually means finding a private landlord who screens flexibly. Single-family houses sometimes run a little higher than apartment complexes. The point is that the range is wide and the door is rarely fully closed.
Do landlords even see your regular credit score?
Often not the one you are watching. Many tenant screeners use a purpose-built rental score rather than the FICO a mortgage lender would pull.
TransUnion's SmartMove product, common for landlords, uses ResidentScore, a proprietary score on a 350 to 850 range built from payment history, balances, credit history, and inquiries. TransUnion says it identifies 15 percent more evictions and 19 percent more skips than typical credit scores, which is what a landlord is trying to predict. Experian runs RentBureau, a specialty consumer reporting agency focused specifically on rental history. So the number a leasing office sees may not match the score in your credit app, and that is normal.
What else does a rental application check?
Quite a bit more than a score. Screening reports pull rental and eviction history plus income, and weigh those alongside credit.
A SmartMove screening, for example, bundles a credit report, a criminal background check, eviction and rental history, and an income estimate. A steady income and a clean rental record can carry weight even when the credit score is soft. This is part of why a single number rarely decides the whole application. The landlord is building a picture of whether the rent will get paid, and the score is one piece of it.
What does Texas law actually say about this?
Texas sets no minimum score, but it does give you a right to know the criteria. Texas Property Code Section 92.3515 requires a landlord to make the tenant selection criteria available to you, along with the grounds on which an application can be denied.
Those criteria may include credit history, criminal history, rental history, and current income. The statute is about disclosure and fairness, not a score floor. It also has real teeth on fees: if a landlord rejects your application without having made that notice available, the law says the landlord shall return the application fee and any application deposit. No El Paso rule adds a minimum score on top of that. If a leasing office ever tells you there is a legal score requirement to rent here, that is not accurate.
Will applying for an apartment hurt your credit?
Usually not. Modern tenant screening typically runs a soft inquiry, which does not lower your score.
TransUnion SmartMove says its tenant credit check results in a soft inquiry that does not affect the applicant's score, and Equifax has introduced soft-inquiry tenant screening as well. There is a caveat worth keeping: some older or third-party screening setups can still run a hard pull. If you are applying to several places in a short window and want to be sure, it is fair to ask the leasing office which kind of check they run.
What are your options with a low or thin file?
You have more than you might think. A co-signer or guarantor, a larger security deposit, proof of steady income, references from past landlords, and seeking out individual landlords are all standard ways to get approved when the score is not where you want it.
These are bureau-endorsed approaches, not workarounds. Experian lists them as the ordinary tools for renters whose credit is limited or damaged. A thin file is common for younger renters and for people rebuilding, and it is not a crisis. It usually just means leading with the parts of your application that are strong.
Can renting build your credit for next time?
It can, but not on its own. Rent does not automatically show up on your credit report. You have to opt into a rent-reporting program for those payments to count.
The CFPB is clear that rent is not reported automatically, and that renters need to enroll in a program to get positive payments onto a file, usually appearing about 30 days after the first report. Coverage varies by service. Experian's RentBureau and Experian Boost reflect on your Experian report only, while other rent-reporting services may reach one, two, or all three bureaus. If building credit through rent is your goal, how rent reporting works in 2026 walks through the tradeoffs.
If your credit is standing between you and the place you want, the first step is knowing exactly what a landlord will see. Book your free credit strategy review, and if you want to understand the process first, how credit repair actually starts lays it out plainly.