Kansas Tenant Screening Law 2026: Local Rules Preempted

SB 391 prohibits a Kansas city or county from enforcing an ordinance that stops a landlord from refusing a prospective tenant based on that tenant's income source, including income derived in whole or in part from the housing choice voucher program or any other housing assistance program in which landlord participation is voluntary.

[Cite: Kansas 2026 Session Laws, Chapter 152 (SB 391)]

The "voluntary" qualifier matters. This law is about whether a city can force a landlord to accept a voucher or similar assistance payment as a condition of doing business in that jurisdiction. It doesn't touch a landlord's own choice to participate in such a program.

Beyond source-of-income, the law separately preempts local restrictions on a landlord's ability to use or consider income-qualifying methods, credit scores, credit reports, eviction history, property damage history, or criminal history when evaluating a prospective tenant.

[Cite: Kansas 2026 Session Laws, Chapter 152 (SB 391)]

That's a considerably wider scope than a headline focused on "voucher discrimination" would suggest. A Kansas city that had built any local ordinance around limiting how criminal history or eviction history factors into a screening decision loses the ability to enforce that ordinance under this same law.

The preemption extends to local ordinances that limit the amount of a security deposit a landlord can charge, and to ordinances requiring landlords to grant tenants an automatic right of first refusal.

[Cite: Kansas 2026 Session Laws, Chapter 152 (SB 391)]

That right-of-first-refusal piece is easy to overlook in coverage focused on screening, but it functions independently: a local rule requiring a landlord to offer a departing or existing tenant first crack at a renewal or a different unit before marketing it elsewhere is preempted the same way a deposit cap or a screening restriction is.

Governor Laura Kelly vetoed SB 391 on April 8, 2026, writing that the bill would make it harder for Kansas renters to find an affordable place to live at a time of rising housing costs.

[Cite: Kansas Secretary of State, Messages from the Governor on Senate Bill 391]

The legislature overrode that veto on April 9 and 10, 2026, according to the official certification in the state's published Session Laws record, and the bill became law shortly after.

[Cite: Kansas Secretary of State, 2026 Session Laws Chapter 152 certification]

This is worth being precise about, since two different dates matter for different reasons. The Act itself took effect upon its publication in the statute book, shortly after the April 2026 override. But the specific nullification of existing conflicting local ordinances runs on a separate date: any such ordinance adopted before July 1, 2026 becomes null and void as of that date.

[Cite: Kansas 2026 Session Laws, Chapter 152 (SB 391)]

That means a Kansas landlord in a city with an existing conflicting ordinance should treat July 1, 2026 as the date that ordinance actually stops carrying legal weight, even though the statute preempting it was already law before that date arrived.

Lawrence's city ordinance had barred landlords from rejecting an applicant based solely on that applicant's income source, particularly federal rental assistance, and had been in place for roughly three years, surviving at least one prior legal challenge.

[Cite: independent reporting on Lawrence's source-of-income ordinance and SB 391]

That ordinance becomes void under SB 391 as of July 1, 2026, which makes Lawrence the most concrete illustration of what this statewide preemption actually removes from a city's toolkit, even though the law itself applies to any Kansas jurisdiction with a similar rule, not to Lawrence alone.

Despite the breadth of what SB 391 covers, it doesn't preempt every local tenant protection a city might have adopted. Lawrence's separate protections based on immigration status and on survivor status, covering domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, or stalking, remain intact and aren't affected by this law.

[Cite: independent reporting on Lawrence's ordinance scope following SB 391]

A landlord shouldn't read this preemption as wiping out a city's entire tenant-protection framework. It's targeted specifically at the screening, deposit, and right-of-first-refusal categories listed in the statute itself.

During legislative hearings, landlord representatives argued that local ordinances restricting screening discretion discouraged investment in Kansas rental housing, while city officials and housing advocates argued the changes encroach on local home-rule authority and that ordinances like Lawrence's simply prevented income source from being used as the sole disqualifying factor, not as a factor at all.

[Cite: legislative testimony on SB 391, as reported by Kansas Reflector]

That context doesn't change what the law now requires, but it explains why this preemption reached well beyond Lawrence's single ordinance and into a broader statewide standard covering multiple Kansas jurisdictions that had adopted similar local rules.

Because this is a state preemption rather than a repeal targeted at one city, any Kansas municipality that had adopted comparable restrictions on income-source screening, credit or criminal history consideration, deposit caps, or right-of-first-refusal requirements loses the ability to enforce those provisions under this same statute.

[Cite: Kansas 2026 Session Laws, Chapter 152 (SB 391)]

A property manager operating across multiple Kansas cities should treat this as a statewide floor reset for these specific topics, not a Lawrence-only development, and should confirm whether any other city where they operate had a similar ordinance now affected by this law.

The practical starting point is reviewing screening policies and deposit practices in any Kansas jurisdiction where a local ordinance previously restricted income-source consideration, credit or criminal history use, deposit amounts, or right-of-first-refusal requirements, and confirming that ordinance is now preempted rather than assuming it still applies simply because it remains on the city's books.

Separately, confirming that any other locally required tenant protections, particularly those tied to immigration status or survivor status, remain in place and unaffected avoids overcorrecting and assuming this law removed more local authority than it actually did.