Verifications
Renting a room means letting a stranger into your house, or moving into someone else's. Verification is how both sides get a little more certainty before that happens. Here's what works today and what we're still building.
Email check
Available nowA quick tap on a link we email you. It confirms the address is real and yours, so a host or applicant knows a message will actually reach you. It's free, and it's required before you can apply to a room.
ID check
Available nowA photo ID and a selfie, checked by Stripe. It confirms someone is who they say they are. Hosts can require it before anyone applies, and a lot do.
How ID checks workIncome
Partly thereToday an applicant shares an income range, not an exact number, and a host can ask for it on a listing. Connecting a bank or uploading a pay stub is being built. Until that lands, a host who wants documents asks for them directly.
Credit checks
Being builtPulling someone's credit comes with duties around consent and around telling a person when a report is the reason they were turned down. That machinery has to be right before the feature turns on, so it's taking a while. Until then hosts arrange their own, and a lot of them go on income and a reference instead.
Background checks
Being builtThis one comes after credit checks. Same consent and notice duties, plus rules about how criminal history can be used in housing. Looking at each case on its own holds up where a blanket rule doesn't, and we'd rather ship it that way than ship it fast. Hosts arrange their own for now.
Unido isn't a law firm and nothing here is legal advice. These pages explain how Unido works and point you to official sources. They don't tell you what the law requires in your situation. For that, talk to a lawyer or one of the free legal aid groups on our Resources page.
Last updated July 18, 2026. Written by the Unido team. A lawyer hasn't reviewed it yet. We'll say so here when one has.