If your Kansas City, Missouri compliance playbook still says you must accept housing vouchers or cannot screen on credit, criminal, or eviction history, it is out of date. Missouri's 2025 preemption law changed the rules significantly, but it did not eliminate every Kansas City rental requirement. Between early and late 2025, the most aggressive parts of Kansas City's tenant-protection push were rolled back, first by a federal injunction, then by Kansas City's own council, and finally by a Missouri state law that preempted the core of the city's screening ordinance. A narrower set of local protections still applies, and getting the line right, between what was preempted and what survives, is exactly what a property manager needs to know in 2026.

This article covers Kansas City, Missouri (KCMO), not Kansas City, Kansas. The laws and ordinances discussed here are specific to the Missouri side.

2026 answer: Kansas City, Missouri landlords are no longer required by local law to accept Housing Choice Vouchers, and Missouri HB 595 (effective August 28, 2025) prevents local governments from restricting landlords' use of credit, eviction, property-damage, criminal-history, and income-qualifying criteria. Kansas City still maintains other rental requirements, including its Healthy Homes registration and permitting program and surviving tenant protections such as the 24-hour entry-notice rule, while federal fair housing law continues to apply in full.

What changed for Kansas City landlords in 2026?

Missouri House Bill 595, effective August 28, 2025, amended state law to preempt local ordinances that require landlords to accept housing assistance or that restrict the use of credit, eviction, property-damage, criminal-history, or income-qualifying criteria. Kansas City landlords therefore have more screening flexibility in 2026 than under the 2024 ordinance, while certain local rental requirements and full federal fair-housing obligations remain in effect. The sections below separate what was preempted from what survives.

How Kansas City got here: a two-year whiplash

To manage compliance now, it helps to see the sequence, because the rules changed twice in quick succession.

Missouri's statewide landlord-tenant framework leaves significant areas of residential regulation to state law, which helps explain why Kansas City adopted additional local requirements. In December 2019, the city passed its first Tenant Bill of Rights, adding local protections such as a notice-before-entry requirement, utility and property-condition disclosures, additional protected classes, and anti-retaliation rules, and tying them to the city's rental-registration framework.

Then, in January 2024, the council went much further with Ordinance 231019, effective August 2024. That ordinance made source of income (including housing vouchers) a protected basis and restricted how landlords could use credit scores, criminal history, and eviction records in screening. It was among the more aggressive local screening ordinances in the country.

The pushback was fast and decisive:

• February 2025: a federal district court granted a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the Section 8 voucher mandate.

• June 2025: Kansas City's council passed Ordinance 250491, removing government housing-assistance payments (including Housing Choice Vouchers) from the definition of source of income for housing purposes.

• July-August 2025: Missouri enacted House Bill 595, signed July 14, 2025 and effective August 28, 2025, amending RSMo 441.043 to preempt any Missouri city or county ordinance that prohibits refusing an applicant because their income includes housing-assistance funding, restricts screening on credit, eviction, property-damage, or criminal history or income-qualifying methods, limits security deposits, or requires an automatic tenant right of first refusal.

The net effect, as of 2026, is that the core screening and housing-assistance provisions of Ordinance 231019 are no longer enforceable to the extent they conflict with Missouri's preemption law, and Kansas City landlords have regained flexibility to set their own credit, eviction, and criminal-history screening criteria and to decline applicants based on housing-assistance funding.

What was preempted vs. what still applies in Kansas City, Missouri

What was preempted: the screening rules you no longer have to follow

Under HB 595 (RSMo 441.043) and following the federal injunction, in Kansas City you may now:

• Decline Section 8 / Housing Choice Vouchers. Participation is not mandatory; you are not required to accept vouchers as a condition of renting.

• Screen on credit, criminal, and eviction history according to your own customarily applied criteria, rather than being barred from using them as standalone grounds.

• Advertise your screening standards, provided the advertising doesn't run afoul of the surviving protections or federal fair housing law.

This is a genuine reversal from the 2024 rules, which is why stale guidance is a real risk: a manager still operating under Ordinance 231019's original screening limits is applying restrictions that no longer bind them. Because these decisions turn on documentation, keeping a clean rent and payments record for each tenancy helps you show consistent, income-based qualification if a screening or income-source decision is ever questioned.

One important caution: Kansas City has not formally repealed every line of Ordinance 231019, so some of its text technically remains on the books even though HB 595 preempts it. The prudent reading is that the screening and voucher provisions are unenforceable as a matter of state law, but because the contours of the preemption have not been litigated across every scenario, careful operators keep the ordinance's documentation and uniform-application discipline rather than treating it as fully erased. Applying consistent screening criteria to every applicant is both good preemption insurance and good fair-housing practice.

What Kansas City local requirements still apply in 2026?

Preemption did not wipe out everything. Several local obligations still apply inside Kansas City, and these are what "beyond state law" now means for a KC property manager.

Veterans'-benefit recipients. HB 595 expressly preserves a city's ability to enforce an ordinance prohibiting discrimination against a tenant solely because they are a recipient of veterans' benefits. So while you may decline a housing voucher, a policy that rejects an applicant simply because their income comes from veterans' benefits is the one source-of-income category the state law specifically leaves cities free to protect. Whether other non-assistance income types (such as wages, disability, child support, or pensions) carry local protection depends on Kansas City's current ordinance text as amended in 2025, so confirm the city's present language before building a policy around it rather than assuming the pre-2025 protections still stand.

The 2019 Tenant Bill of Rights and related rental requirements. Kansas City continues to maintain local tenant protections and rental requirements beyond the screening rules affected by HB 595. These include entry-notice and disclosure requirements, as well as other applicable civil-rights and anti-retaliation protections. Those local requirements, tied to the city's rental-registration (Healthy Homes) program, include:

• A notice-before-entry rule: landlords must give at least 24 hours' notice of when, with whom, and for what reason they intend to enter. This is a meaningful local overlay, because Missouri has no general statewide entry-notice statute.

• Disclosure requirements: providing prospective tenants with utility-provider information, a written description of deficiencies and code citations issued on the property in the prior 24 months, and a copy of the Tenant Bill of Rights.

• Expanded protected classes (including gender identity and expression) and anti-retaliation protection for tenants who report violations.

Healthy Homes rental registration and permitting. Kansas City requires rental property owners to register and permit their units under its Healthy Homes Rental Inspection Program. That obligation is independent of the screening fight and remains in force.

Federal fair housing law, in full. The federal Fair Housing Act and HUD guidance (including guidance on the careful use of criminal-history screening) apply regardless of the state-law preemption. Preemption freed up state and local screening rules; it did not touch federal protections. A screening policy that is neutral on paper but produces a discriminatory effect can still create federal fair-housing liability.

The compliance picture for a Kansas City property manager in 2026

Putting it together: you have regained screening flexibility on credit, criminal, and eviction history and on vouchers, but you still operate inside a set of surviving local rules and full federal fair-housing law. The safe posture is to modernize your screening to the current rules while keeping the disciplined, documented process the old ordinance forced you to build.

Practically, that means a few things. Update any lease language, application forms, and advertising that still reflect the 2024 voucher-and-screening mandates, because those documents are the ones most likely to carry stale, now-incorrect commitments. Keep applying consistent, written screening criteria to every applicant, both because uniform application is your best defense if any part of the preemption is later narrowed, and because it is how you avoid federal disparate-impact exposure. Honor the surviving local rules, especially the 24-hour entry notice, the required disclosures, and Healthy Homes registration and permitting, which are easy to overlook precisely because they were overshadowed by the screening fight. And treat source of income carefully: declining a voucher is now lawful, but the veterans'-benefit protection is expressly preserved, and other income-type protections should be checked against the city's current ordinance.

A well-documented, consistently applied process ties all of this together. Running applications, screening decisions, and the required notices and disclosures through a structured records and documentation system is what lets you show a uniform process for every applicant, and building the surviving local obligations into a repeatable property-management workflow keeps the entry notices, disclosures, and registration from slipping through the cracks.

Common mistakes to avoid in 2026

• Still operating under Ordinance 231019's original screening limits, which HB 595 preempted effective August 28, 2025

• Believing you are required to accept Section 8 vouchers (you are not, after the federal injunction and HB 595)

• Rejecting an applicant solely because they receive veterans' benefits, which the state law expressly lets the city protect

• Assuming pre-2025 local protection for all other income types still applies without confirming the city's current ordinance

• Overlooking the surviving 2019 Tenant Bill of Rights rules, especially the 24-hour entry notice and required disclosures

• Forgetting the Healthy Homes rental registration and permitting requirement

• Abandoning uniform, documented screening just because the screening restrictions were preempted (it's still your best fair-housing defense)

• Forgetting that the federal Fair Housing Act and HUD criminal-screening guidance apply in full regardless of state preemption

• Leaving old voucher-and-screening language in leases, applications, or advertising

Frequently asked questions

1. Is Kansas City's Ordinance 231019 still in effect in 2026?
Its core provisions are not enforceable. A federal court enjoined the Section 8 voucher mandate in February 2025, Kansas City removed housing assistance from its source-of-income definition in June 2025, and Missouri HB 595 (effective August 28, 2025) preempted the local screening restrictions. Some ordinance text technically remains on the books because the city hasn't formally repealed all of it, but the screening and voucher provisions are treated as preempted and unenforceable.

2. Does Missouri HB 595 apply to Kansas City, Missouri?
Yes. HB 595 amended RSMo 441.043 and applies statewide, including Kansas City, Missouri. Effective August 28, 2025, it prevents cities and counties from enforcing specified local restrictions on housing-assistance acceptance and tenant screening. The statute expressly preserves local protection for recipients of veterans' benefits.

3. Can a Kansas City landlord reject Section 8 vouchers now?
Yes. After the February 2025 federal injunction and Missouri HB 595 (effective August 28, 2025), Kansas City landlords are not required to accept Housing Choice Vouchers. Whether to accept vouchers is now a business decision, not a legal mandate.

4. Can Kansas City landlords screen on credit, criminal, and eviction history again?
Yes. RSMo 441.043, as amended by HB 595, preempts local ordinances that restrict the use of credit scores, credit reports, criminal history, eviction or property-damage history, and income-qualifying methods, so landlords may apply their own consistent screening criteria, subject to federal fair housing law and HUD guidance.

5. What is Missouri HB 595?
HB 595 is a 2025 Missouri law (signed July 14, 2025, effective August 28, 2025) that amended RSMo 441.043 to preempt any Missouri city or county ordinance that prohibits refusing an applicant because their income includes housing-assistance funding, restricts screening on credit, eviction, property-damage, or criminal history or income-qualifying methods, limits security deposits, or requires an automatic tenant right of first refusal. It expressly preserves a city's ability to protect recipients of veterans' benefits.

6. Is source of income still protected in Kansas City?
Only in a narrower way. Income from housing assistance (vouchers) is no longer a protected basis after HB 595, and a landlord may decline a voucher. HB 595 does expressly let the city protect recipients of veterans' benefits. Whether other lawful income types carry local protection depends on Kansas City's current ordinance text as amended in 2025, so confirm the present language before relying on it.

7. Does anything from the 2019 Tenant Bill of Rights still apply?
Yes. The 2019 Tenant Bill of Rights was a separate ordinance, and several of its protections remain relevant in 2026, including the 24-hour notice-before-entry rule, utility and property-condition disclosures, expanded protected classes, and anti-retaliation protections, tied to the city's rental-registration program.

8. Do federal fair housing rules still apply in Kansas City?
Yes, in full. The federal Fair Housing Act and HUD guidance apply regardless of the state-law preemption. A consistent, documented screening process is the best protection against federal fair-housing liability, including disparate-impact claims.

This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. Local ordinances, state preemption, and their interaction are evolving in Kansas City, Missouri, and some questions have not been fully litigated; confirm the current status with a Missouri attorney or the City of Kansas City before acting. The developments described here include Kansas City Ordinance 231019 and the 2019 Tenant Bill of Rights, the February 2025 federal injunction, Kansas City Ordinance 250491 (2025), and Missouri House Bill 595 amending RSMo 441.043,  effective August 28, 2025, together with the federal Fair Housing Act.