What fair housing advertising rules say about listing copy

1. The one sentence, in four parts

Section 3604 opens with a chapeau and then runs six lettered subsections. The chapeau does two jobs in a single line: it says the section applies as section 3603 makes it apply, and it names the two sections that except conduct from it — §3603(b) and §3607. §3603 is quoted in full later on this page; of §3607, the two freestanding exemptions are quoted and the rest is named and not described. The chapeau is the reason a reader ends up in either.

Subsection (c) is the advertising provision and it is one sentence. It reads more clearly in four parts, and the parts fail in different ways.

THE VERBS come first: to make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published. The second half of that list is the half that reaches somebody who neither wrote the words nor set them in type.

THE OBJECT comes second: any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling. Three nouns rather than one. A “notice” and a “statement” are not confined to paid advertising on the face of the text, and “dwelling” is a defined term — §3602(b), quoted in section 9 of this page.

THE TRIGGER comes third, and it is the word the provision turns on: a notice, statement or advertisement that INDICATES any preference, limitation, or discrimination. “Indicates” is the verb Congress used; it is not “states”, and it is not defined in §3602 or anywhere else quoted here. What it takes for a communication to indicate something is the whole question in a complaint under this subsection, and this page does not answer it.

THE BASES come fourth: race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin. Seven, in that order. Two of the seven — handicap and familial status — carry statutory definitions that are narrower and more specific than the ordinary words, and both are quoted in section 9.

The sentence then closes by reaching one step past the notice itself: “or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination”.

2. The neighbours, and where this page stops quoting §3604

Subsection (c) does not sit alone, and reading it beside its neighbours makes one drafting difference visible that a summary hides.

Subsection (a) is about refusing to sell or rent after a bona fide offer, refusing to negotiate, or otherwise making unavailable or denying a dwelling. Subsection (b) is about the terms, conditions or privileges of a sale or rental, and about services and facilities provided in connection with one. Subsection (d) is about representing that a dwelling is not available for inspection, sale or rental when it is in fact available. Subsection (e) is about inducing or attempting to induce a sale or rental, for profit, by representations regarding who is entering or may enter the neighborhood.

Now compare the lists of bases across the quotations in this section and the last. Subsections (a) and (b) name race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin — six. Subsections (c), (d) and (e) name the same six plus handicap — seven.

The reason the six-item lists are shorter is printed further down the same section, and the first paragraph of it is quoted below so the point can be checked rather than taken. §3604(f)(1) makes it unlawful to discriminate in the sale or rental, or otherwise make unavailable or deny, a dwelling to any buyer or renter because of a handicap — of that buyer or renter, of a person residing or intending to reside in the dwelling, or of any person associated with that buyer or renter. Handicap in the sale and rental of a dwelling has its own paragraph, and subsections (a) and (b) do not carry the word.

The rest of subsection (f) — paragraphs (f)(2) through (f)(9) — is NOT quoted on this page and nothing here says what any of it contains. Quoting it properly is a different article about a different subject.

So the completeness claim on this page is deliberately narrow. It is not that every federal provision bearing on an advertisement is here. It is that subsection (c) is quoted whole, that the regulation HUD wrote under it is quoted whole, and that §3603 — the section §3604’s own chapeau names first — is quoted whole.

3. What HUD’s regulation adds, in its own words

HUD’s regulation under the Fair Housing Act is 24 CFR part 100, and the section corresponding to §3604(c) is §100.75. Four subsections, one of them with four numbered paragraphs, all eight units quoted below.

Start with the wording, because the two texts are not identical and both are on this page. The statute prohibits a notice that “indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin”. The regulation prohibits one “which indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination because of” the same seven. “Based on” against “because of”. The comparison is the reader’s to make; this page does not say whether the difference carries consequences.

Paragraph (b) is the one that changes the shape of the question. It says the prohibitions in the section apply to all WRITTEN OR ORAL notices or statements by a person engaged in the sale or rental of a dwelling. Oral, on the face of the text, alongside written. It then gives a list of what written notices and statements include — applications, flyers, brochures, deeds, signs, banners, posters, billboards or any documents used with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling — and that list is introduced with “include”, not with “means”.

Paragraph (c) then names four families of discriminatory notice, introduced “include, but are not limited to”. Paragraph (1) reaches words, phrases, photographs, illustrations, symbols or forms which convey that dwellings are available or not available to a particular group of persons — an image sits inside it as squarely as a sentence does. Paragraph (2) reaches expressing a preference or limitation TO agents, brokers, employees, prospective sellers or renters or any other persons — a list that runs from a colleague to a client to anyone else. Its own words name no publication. Paragraph (3) reaches selecting media or locations for advertising which deny particular segments of the housing market information about housing opportunities. Paragraph (4) is addressed to whoever runs the advertisement rather than to whoever places it: refusing to publish it, or requiring different charges or terms for it.

Paragraph (d) refers the reader to 24 CFR part 109. Following that pointer is section 4’s subject. Not one word of part 109 is quoted on this page.

4. Neither text contains a list of words

The question this page opened with was “which words are banned”. Both texts that govern it are now on this page in full, and neither of them is a list of words.

§3604(c) names seven bases, three nouns and the verbs quoted in section 1. §100.75 names four families of conduct and a list of physical media, and one of those families expressly reaches photographs, illustrations and symbols as well as words and phrases. What neither text does is name a particular word, phrase, description or image.

What both texts describe instead is a relationship between a communication and a protected basis: whether the notice, statement or advertisement INDICATES a preference, limitation or discrimination because of one of the seven. That is a question about a particular communication in its own context, and it is not the kind of question a list answers.

There is one cross-reference in either text, and it is worth following. §100.75(d), quoted in section 3, refers the reader to 24 CFR part 109. HUD removed part 109 by final rule published at 61 FR 14378 on April 1, 1996, and the two passages below are that rule’s own words: the preamble’s reason, and the amendment that did it. The first of the two is the closing pair of sentences of a preamble paragraph whose earlier sentences are about 24 CFR part 103; those are not quoted here and this page says nothing about them.

One thing follows that is checkable against the quotations on this page: the paragraph quoted in section 3 is the text eCFR served on the read date recorded beside it, and it still refers the reader to part 109 in the present tense. This page names no successor document and asserts no consequence.

That is also the limit of what this page can offer. Whether any specific phrase indicates a preference is not a question it answers, and §100.75(c)(1) is a reminder that the enquiry is not confined to text at all — it names photographs, illustrations and symbols in the same breath as words. Word lists circulated by other bodies are not quoted or described here; a broker is the person who knows which of them an agent works under.

5. Where each of the opening phrases lands in the text

This page opened with four invented phrases. What follows is not a verdict on any of them — it is where each one lands in the words quoted above, so the reading starts in the right place instead of at a search result. The sections after this one are the exemptions and the definitions, and a reader who only wanted the routing can stop here.

All four run into the same verb first. §3604(c) and §100.75(a) both turn on whether the notice, statement or advertisement INDICATES a preference, limitation or discrimination — so the first question about any of them is about what the communication indicates, which is not a question a list can be consulted for.

“Perfect for a young family” runs into the familial status basis, and therefore into §3602(k), quoted in section 9 — a definition drawn around individuals under 18 domiciled with a parent, a legal custodian or that person’s designee, extended by its closing text to a person who is pregnant or securing custody.

“Quiet building, mature residents” runs into the same basis from the other direction, and then into §3607(b)(1), quoted in section 8, whose second sentence disapplies the subchapter’s familial status provisions with respect to housing for older persons — a term §3607(b)(2) defines and this page does not quote.

“Walking distance to the parish school” runs into the religion basis, which both §3604(c) and §100.75(a) name among their seven.

“Master suite plus a nanny room” runs into §100.75(c)(1), quoted in section 3, which reaches words, phrases, photographs, illustrations, symbols or forms that convey availability or unavailability to a particular group of persons.

And these are pointers, not a checklist. Naming the words a phrase runs into is not the same as naming every provision that bears on it, and nothing here claims to have listed them all.

6. The owner exemption, and the parenthesis in its first line

§3604’s chapeau said the section applies as §3603 makes it apply, and except as §3603(b) and §3607 exempt. §3603 is quoted below in full — three subsections, fourteen units.

Subsection (a) is the applicability provision, and (a)(2) is the line that sets the reach: after December 31, 1968, the prohibitions apply to all dwellings covered by paragraph (1) and to all other dwellings except as exempted by subsection (b). The general position, in other words, is that §3604 reaches dwellings at large, and the live question is what (b) takes back out.

Subsection (b) opens with the parenthesis this article exists for. Its words are “Nothing in section 3604 of this title (other than subsection (c)) shall apply to” the two categories it then describes. The advertising prohibition is named inside the exemption’s own opening line as the thing the exemption does not reach.

The two categories are a single-family house sold or rented by an owner, hedged by four provisos, and rooms or units in a dwelling of no more than four families living independently where the owner actually maintains and occupies one as a residence.

The fourth proviso in (b)(1) then does something further, and it runs the other way. After December 31, 1969, the sale or rental of such a house is excepted only if it is sold or rented (A) without the use in any manner of the sales or rental facilities or services of any real estate broker, agent, or salesman — or of any person in the business of selling or renting dwellings, or their employees or agents — and (B) without the publication, posting or mailing, after notice, of any advertisement or written notice in violation of section 3604(c). So subsection (c) appears twice in §3603(b): once as the prohibition the exemption never reached, and once as a condition of the exemption itself.

Subsection (c) of §3603 then defines, for purposes of (b), when a person is deemed to be in the business of selling or renting dwellings: three or more transactions as principal within the preceding twelve months, two or more as agent other than in the sale of his own personal residence, or ownership of a dwelling designed or intended for occupancy by, or occupied by, five or more families.

7. The regulation’s version of the same carve-out

HUD’s regulation carries its own exemptions section at 24 CFR §100.10, quoted below in full, and it is worth reading beside §3603(b) rather than instead of it.

The carve-out is in both texts and is worded differently in each. The statute names a subsection: “Nothing in section 3604 of this title (other than subsection (c))”. The regulation names a subject: “Nothing in this part, other than the prohibitions against discriminatory advertising, applies to”. One points at a letter, the other at a category. Both are quoted on this page and neither is summarised in place of being quoted.

Paragraph (a) lists four things the part does not do — the religious-organization exemption, the private-club exemption, occupancy limits, and conduct against a person convicted of the illegal manufacture or distribution of a controlled substance — and paragraph (b) addresses familial status and housing for older persons. None of those five carries the advertising carve-out that paragraph (c) carries; the carve-out appears in (c) alone.

The conditions in (c)(1) are also written differently from the statute’s provisos. (c)(1)(i) is about not owning or having any interest in more than three single family houses at any one time. (c)(1)(ii) is about selling or renting without the use of a real estate broker, agent or salesperson or the facilities of any person in the business of selling or renting dwellings, with the 24-month limit for an owner who did not reside in the house. The publication condition the statute states at §3603(b)(1)(B) does not appear in those words in §100.10(c)(1). This page quotes both texts and does not reconcile them.

8. The second exemption section, and how wide its words are

The other section §3604’s chapeau names is 42 U.S.C. §3607. It is built differently from §3603(b) in one respect a reader of subsection (c) should notice: it carries no parenthesis excepting (c). The two provisions quoted below open with the words “Nothing in this subchapter”, which is wider than §3604 rather than narrower.

Subsection (a) covers two situations in two sentences. A religious organization, association or society — or a nonprofit institution or organization operated, supervised or controlled by or in conjunction with one — is not prohibited from limiting the sale, rental or occupancy of dwellings which it owns or operates for other than a commercial purpose to persons of the same religion, or from giving preference to such persons, unless membership in that religion is restricted on account of race, color, or national origin. And a private club not in fact open to the public, which as an incident to its primary purpose or purposes provides lodgings it owns or operates for other than a commercial purpose, is not prohibited from limiting rental or occupancy of those lodgings to its members or from preferring them.

Subsection (b)(1) does two separate things in two sentences: it preserves reasonable local, State or Federal restrictions on the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling, and it says no provision of the subchapter regarding familial status applies with respect to housing for older persons.

THE REST OF §3607 IS NOT QUOTED HERE. Its second sentence above turns on “housing for older persons”. The definition of that term sits at §3607(b)(2), which this page does not quote, and paragraphs (b)(2) through (b)(5) are named by locator here and nothing more — which also means this page cannot tell a reader whether any particular housing answers the term.

Neither of the two provisions quoted below is written as a rule about advertising, and neither names subsection (c). What they do is set the outer edge of the subchapter, which is where a reader who followed §3604’s chapeau ends up.

9. Which of subsection (c)’s words are defined, and which are not

42 U.S.C. §3602 is the definitions section for the subchapter, and it is short enough to quote whole: a chapeau, fifteen lettered definitions, their children, and two blocks of closing text. All of it is below.

Four of the fifteen shape subsection (c) directly. “Dwelling” at (b) reaches a building, structure or portion of one occupied as — or designed or intended for occupancy as — a residence by one or more families, AND any vacant land offered for sale or lease for the construction or location of such a building. The vacant-land half of that definition is qualified by what the land is offered for, and the definition is quoted below. “Family” at (c) includes a single individual. “Person” at (d) includes entities as well as individuals, which matters because (c) prohibits causing a notice to be published. “To rent” at (e) includes to lease, to sublease, to let, and otherwise to grant for a consideration the right to occupy premises not owned by the occupant.

“Handicap” at (h) is defined by three alternatives — a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more of a person’s major life activities, a record of having such an impairment, or being regarded as having one — followed by closing text excluding current, illegal use of or addiction to a controlled substance.

“Familial status” at (k) is drawn more narrowly than the phrase sounds. It means one or more individuals who have not attained the age of 18 years being domiciled with a parent or another person having legal custody, or with that person’s designee with written permission; and its closing text extends the protection to any person who is pregnant or in the process of securing legal custody of a minor. The term is drawn around minors in the household. It is not drawn around marital status or around household size.

Now the other direction, which is the more useful half. Subsection (c) turns on six words: notice, statement, advertisement, indicates, preference and limitation. Not one of the fifteen definitions below defines any of the six. That absence is checkable against the quotations rather than taken on trust, and it is the same absence section 4 described from the other side.

10. The four layers this page does not quote

Everything above is one subsection of a federal statute, the regulation HUD wrote under it, and the two sections the statute’s own chapeau points at. Four things a question about a listing can also turn on are not here, and naming them is part of being accurate about what is.

STATE AND LOCAL LAW. This page quotes no state statute and no local ordinance, and describes none. Federal law is not the whole of the law that can reach a listing, and a sentence beginning “in most states” would be a claim about fifty statutes nobody sourced — so there is none here. Where a reader’s own rule sits is a question for their state legislature, for their state’s enforcement agency, and for their broker.

WHAT PART 109 USED TO SAY. Section 4 quotes the rule that removed it and nothing else about it. No text of the former part 109 appears on this page, and no claim is made here about what it contained while it stood.

THE REST OF 24 CFR PART 100. The part runs from §100.1 to §100.600. Two of its sections are quoted on this page — §100.10 and §100.75 — and this page says nothing about any other section of it.

CASE LAW. This page quotes no judicial opinion. Sourcing one properly means quoting it, and the allowlist behind this page’s sources is for the text of the law itself.

Checking the quotes, and what they do not cover

The completeness claim on this page is narrow and is meant to be checked. Three instruments are quoted WHOLE: 42 U.S.C. §3603, three subsections and fourteen units; 42 U.S.C. §3602, a chapeau plus fifteen lettered definitions, their children and two blocks of closing text, twenty-seven units; and 24 CFR §100.10, eleven units. So is the pair the page is actually about — 42 U.S.C. §3604(c) and all eight units of 24 CFR §100.75. Two instruments are quoted in PART and say so where they are quoted: from §3604, the chapeau, subsections (a) to (e) and the four units of (f)(1), with (f)(2) to (f)(9) named and not described; from §3607, subsections (a) and (b)(1), with (b)(2) to (b)(5) named and not described. Seventy-four quotations in all, seventy-two of statute and regulation and two from the 1996 Federal Register issue that removed 24 CFR part 109.

The links are free to open, and the publishers were chosen rather than defaulted to. The statutes go to the Office of the Law Revision Counsel rather than to a numbered edition of the U.S. Code: a numbered edition is a frozen snapshot, so re-reading one returns the same words forever even after Congress has changed them, while OLRC serves the section as it currently stands. The regulation goes to eCFR, whose “as of” date for title 24 is printed beside every regulatory citation in the sources list below. The one frozen source on the page is the 1996 Federal Register issue in section 4, and it is frozen on purpose: what is quoted from it is a completed amendment, so returning the same words forever is the point rather than the risk. Each quote also carries the date it was loaded. Misquotation and amendment are different problems and only the choice of publisher does anything about the second.

What the page cannot do is apply any of it. Whether a particular listing, photograph, sign, script or offhand remark indicates a preference, limitation or discrimination is the entire question in a fair housing advertising complaint; it is decided on the specific communication, on the context it appeared in, on state and local law, and on authorities this page does not quote. Nothing here is a list of safe words, because neither text quoted above contains one.

Real Deal Pro, Inc. is a software company. It is not a real estate brokerage, not a fair housing agency and not a law firm. Nothing here is legal advice or a compliance opinion; for an actual listing or an actual complaint, ask a lawyer who practises in this area, and for anything touching a licence, ask your broker and the commission in your state.

Wrapping up

The federal rule about listing copy is one sentence. 42 U.S.C. §3604(c) makes it unlawful to make, print, or publish — or cause to be made, printed, or published — any notice, statement, or advertisement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.

HUD’s regulation at 24 CFR §100.75 states that the prohibitions in its section apply to all written OR ORAL notices and statements by a person engaged in the sale or rental of a dwelling, lists the physical forms a written notice takes, and gives four families of discriminatory notice that expressly reach photographs, illustrations and symbols, expressions of preference to the persons its paragraph (2) names, the selection of advertising media, and a publisher’s refusal to run an advertisement. Neither text names a particular word. The one place in either of them that points anywhere else — §100.75(d)’s reference to 24 CFR part 109 — has pointed at a removed part since 1996.

And the owner exemption stops short of exactly this prohibition. §3603(b) exempts certain owner sales and rentals from “Nothing in section 3604 of this title (other than subsection (c))”, and then conditions the exemption on the house being sold or rented without an advertisement in violation of §3604(c). What none of that supplies is an answer about a particular sentence in a particular listing. That is decided on the communication, on state and local law, and on case law — none of which is on this page.

Related reading

• What 47 CFR §64.1200(c), (d) and (e) say about prospecting calls

  Paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) of 47 C.F.R. §64.1200, quoted first word to last

• What RESPA section 8 actually prohibits

  The other federal statute in this corpus that reaches what an agent may pay and be paid

• The federal lead-based paint disclosure rule, in its own words

  The federal disclosure that names the agent personally and runs before the contract

• How the Closing Disclosure three-day rule works, and what the creditor needs from you

  The federal deadline that runs inside the settlement rather than before the listing

• How a lease ends under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act

  What federal law says about ending the lease that the advertised rental becomes

• What 16 CFR §460.16 puts in a new home's sales contract: insulation type, thickness and R-value

  Another federal rule on the words in an advertisement — this one about insulation R-values, and what a new-home seller is exempted from

• How the housing-for-older-persons exemption works: 24 CFR part 100, subpart E, quoted whole

  The regulation under §3607(b)(2) — what makes housing "for older persons", quoted whole

Sources

Every quotation above is taken from the documents below, on the date shown; the explanation around each quote is ours. Statutes are amended and uniform acts are revised — check the current text before relying on any of it.

1. [1] 42 U.S.C. §3604 — Discrimination in the sale or rental of housing and other prohibited practices — Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml, read August 24, 2026
2. [2] 24 CFR §100.75 — Discriminatory advertisements, statements and notices (eCFR, current as of August 20, 2026) — Office of the Federal Register and the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.ecfr.gov/current/title-24/subtitle-B/chapter-I/part-100/subpart-B/section-100.75, read August 24, 2026
3. [3] 61 FR 14378 — Regulatory Reinvention; Streamlining of HUD’s Regulations Implementing the Fair Housing Act (final rule, April 1, 1996) — Office of the Federal Register, U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1996-04-01/html/96-7786.htm, read August 24, 2026
4. [4] 42 U.S.C. §3603 — Effective dates of certain prohibitions — Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml, read August 24, 2026
5. [5] 24 CFR §100.10 — Exemptions (eCFR, current as of August 20, 2026) — Office of the Federal Register and the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.ecfr.gov/current/title-24/subtitle-B/chapter-I/part-100/subpart-A/section-100.10, read August 24, 2026
6. [6] 42 U.S.C. §3607 — Religious organization or private club exemption — Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml, read August 24, 2026
7. [7] 42 U.S.C. §3602 — Definitions — Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml, read August 24, 2026