Basis of Presentation (Policies)

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2017

Accounting Policies [Abstract]

Principles of Consolidation

These financial statements include the accounts of Rent-A-Center, Inc. and its direct and indirect subsidiaries. All intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated.

Newly Adopted Accounting Pronouncements

Newly Adopted Accounting Pronouncements

In March 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-09, Compensation - Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting, which includes multiple provisions intended to simplify various aspects of the accounting for share-based payments. Rent-A-Center adopted ASU 2016-09 beginning January 1, 2017. We adopted the recognition of excess tax benefits in the provision for income taxes rather than paid-in-capital, and the classification of excess tax benefits on the statement of cash flows on a prospective basis. We elected to continue to estimate forfeitures expected to occur in our determination of compensation cost recognized each period. Furthermore, we adopted the minimum statutory withholding requirements and classification of employee taxes paid on the statement of cash flows on a modified retrospective and full retrospective basis, respectively. Additional amendments included in the accounting standard update were not applicable to us. Impacts resulting from adoption were immaterial to the consolidated financial statements.