ABSTRACT
Amid rising housing costs in the United States, a new market of ‘Rent Now, Pay Later’ (RNPL) loans has emerged, offering short-term credit to tenants struggling to meet rent payments. This paper examines the structure and practices of RNPL lenders, drawing on market analysis, consumer complaints, and publicly available financial and regulatory data. The findings indicate that RNPL products often replicate payday lending models while obscuring their true costs through complex fees and misleading disclosures, with some loans reaching effective annual percentage rates above 180%. The analysis also identifies significant consumer risks, including payment stacking, repeated debit practices, operational errors that may expose renters to eviction, and bank–fintech partnerships that may enable lenders to bypass state consumer protections. The paper concludes that RNPL loans represent a growing form of high-cost, potentially predatory credit embedded within rent payment systems, raising urgent regulatory and consumer protection concerns.
Borrowers, Protect and Kaufman, Ben, Rent Now, Pain Later: How ‘Rent Now, Pay Later’ Loans Put Working People at Risk (February 4, 2026), Protect Borrowers Research Paper.
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