New Mexico Rental Listing Law 2025: Base Rent and All Fees Must Be Itemized, and Screening Fees Are Capped at $50

Secondary coverage of this law cites July 1, 2025 as the effective date, but the codified statute text itself states no specific effective-date clause was included in Laws 2025, Chapter 122, which means the default rule under Article IV, Section 23 of the New Mexico Constitution applies: 90 days after the legislature adjourned, landing on June 20, 2025.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.1, 47-8-19.2, 47-8-19.3, as enacted by Laws 2025, Chapter 122]

A landlord who set a compliance calendar around July 1 should move that date back 11 days; anything charged or published between June 20 and July 1, 2025 that didn't comply with these new rules was already a violation.

An owner has to disclose, in plain language, all costs of a rental agreement in a published listing, including the base rent and a description of all fees or charges that will be assessed during the residency, itemized and readily identifiable in the listing itself.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.1, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122, Section 2]

That's a listing-level requirement, not a lease-signing-level one; a landlord satisfying this obligation only in the lease document, after the applicant has already decided to apply based on an incomplete listing, hasn't met the statute's actual trigger point.

The statute specifically states that a property owner bears no liability when a third-party website fails to properly display cost information that the owner originally provided.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.1, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122, Section 2]

That protection only covers a listing platform's own display failure; a landlord who never submitted complete itemized fee information to the platform in the first place is still the one out of compliance, not the platform.

A screening fee can't exceed $50, and it's meant to cover the actual cost of obtaining information about the applicant, including a consumer credit report, a reference check, or a screening service.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.2, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122, Section 3]

That ties the fee to actual cost recovery rather than a flat allowance; a landlord charging the full $50 regardless of what the underlying screening actually cost should be prepared to show the fee reflects real screening expenses.

The statute requires owners to process applications and fees in order, meaning a new applicant's screening fee generally shouldn't be charged or processed while a prior applicant for the same unit is still being screened.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.2, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122, Section 3]

A landlord collecting multiple applicants' screening fees simultaneously for the same vacancy, without regard to processing order, risks triggering the refund obligations built into this statute.

A landlord has to return a screening fee within 30 days if a prior applicant accepts the unit, or if the owner fails to obtain a credit report, perform a reference check, use a screening service, or otherwise process the application.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.2, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122, Section 3]

That 30-day window is a firm deadline, not a target; a landlord who collects a screening fee and then decides not to rent the unit to that applicant for reasons unrelated to screening still owes a timely refund if the screening itself never actually happened.

The statute allows a refund to be made by certified mail, by destroying an uncashed check at the applicant's request, or by the applicant retrieving the payment directly.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.2, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122, Section 3]

That flexibility gives a landlord more than one compliant way to handle the refund, but each method still has to actually return the money or destroy the payment within the 30-day window; simply noting a refund was "processed" internally without one of these concrete steps isn't enough.

An owner can't charge the same applicant a screening fee more than once within a 90-day period, even across different properties the owner controls.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.3, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122]

A property management company operating several buildings under common ownership needs a way to check whether an applicant has already paid a screening fee at one of its other properties in the past 90 days before charging again.

The statute requires an owner to provide the applicant with a copy of any screening report obtained about them.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.3, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122]

A landlord denying an applicant based on a screening report, without providing a copy of that report when requested, is out of compliance with this disclosure requirement regardless of whether the denial itself was justified.

The statute specifically bars charging additional application processing fees on top of the capped $50 screening fee.

[Cite: N.M.S.A. 47-8-19.2, as created by Laws 2025, Chapter 122, Section 3]

A landlord who separately itemizes a "processing fee" alongside the $50 screening charge is effectively exceeding the cap this law sets, even if each individual line item looks small on its own.

The practical starting point is auditing every current listing for complete, itemized fee disclosure, since the listing itself, not just the lease, is where this law's disclosure obligation attaches.

For screening specifically, building a simple log of which applicants have been charged a screening fee and when, across every property under common ownership, is what actually makes the 90-day no-repeat-charge rule and the 30-day refund deadline enforceable in practice rather than just a policy on paper.