Pet & Assistance Animal Laws by State
A 50-state comparison for residential rentals, with every state verified against official sources — the landlord-tenant acts, the civil-rights and disability titles, the professional-licensing and criminal titles, the administrative codes, the enrolled acts where the published code runs behind them, and, where a rule comes from the courts, the opinions. It covers what a landlord may charge for a pet and against which cap, whether a lease must state a pet policy, whether a landlord may restrict pets by breed, size or weight, and what the state's own law requires when a tenant asks to keep an assistance animal: the instrument and who it binds, the documentation a landlord may request and what a certifier must meet, whether an extra charge is barred and for which animals, and what a misrepresentation costs. Each row shows its own verified date, and each state links to its own page with every figure, threshold, definition, remedy and full citations. The federal layer — a dated history, not a rule — is carried once, at the foot of this page.
A pet deposit is capped as such in 7 states and counts inside the general deposit cap in 18 more, pet rent is capped in 1, 29 states have their own statute or rule on assistance-animal documentation, a state bar on charging for an assistance animal reaches an emotional support animal in 17, and misrepresenting one is an offense that reaches housing in 33 — while 3 states have no state instrument on assistance animals in housing at all.
Pet deposits, pet rent and fees, the assistance-animal instrument, charges, and the misrepresentation offense
| State | Pet deposit | Pet rent and fees | Assistance-animal instrument | Extra charge for an assistance animal | Misrepresentation offense | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama verified September 21, 2026 | Allowed, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant, lying to a certifier, certifier, vendor | Full law & citations |
| Alaska verified September 21, 2026 | Capped | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Arizona verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | Allowed, no cap | Fair-housing act only | No state bar — federal rules only | Public accommodations only, not housing | Full law & citations |
| Arkansas verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier, vendor | Full law & citations |
| California verified September 20, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | Non-refundable pet fee barred | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant, vendor, certifier | Full law & citations |
| Colorado verified September 20, 2026 | Capped | Capped | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Connecticut verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Fair-housing act only | No state bar — federal rules only | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Delaware verified September 21, 2026 | Capped | Non-refundable pet fee barred | Housing right, no documentation rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Florida verified September 20, 2026 | Allowed, no cap | Allowed, no cap | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier | Full law & citations |
| Georgia verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | Allowed, no cap | Housing right, no documentation rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant, landlord | Full law & citations |
| Hawaii verified September 21, 2026 | Capped | Non-refundable pet fee barred | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Idaho verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | Allowed, no cap | No state instrument | No state bar — federal rules only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Illinois verified September 20, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Indiana verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier, lying to a certifier | Full law & citations |
| Iowa verified September 20, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | No state bar — federal rules only | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier | Full law & citations |
| Kansas verified September 21, 2026 | Capped | No statute | Housing right, no documentation rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Public accommodations only, not housing | Full law & citations |
| Kentucky verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier, lying to a certifier, vendor | Full law & citations |
| Louisiana verified September 20, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier, vendor | Full law & citations |
| Maine verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier, vendor | Full law & citations |
| Maryland verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | Allowed, no cap | Housing right, no documentation rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Massachusetts verified September 21, 2026 | Not allowed | Non-refundable pet fee barred | Fair-housing act only | No state bar — federal rules only | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Michigan verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Fair-housing act only | No state bar — federal rules only | Public accommodations only, not housing | Full law & citations |
| Minnesota verified September 20, 2026 | Allowed, no cap | Allowed, no cap | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Mississippi verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | No state instrument | No state bar — federal rules only | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Missouri verified September 21, 2026 | Allowed, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant, lying to a certifier | Full law & citations |
| Montana verified September 20, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: certifier | Full law & citations |
| Nebraska verified September 21, 2026 | Capped | No statute | Housing right, no documentation rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Nevada verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | Non-refundable pet fee barred | Documentation statute or rule | No state bar — federal rules only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| New Hampshire verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | Non-refundable pet fee barred | Housing right, no documentation rule | No state bar — federal rules only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| New Jersey verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Fair-housing act only | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| New Mexico verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | No state instrument | No state bar — federal rules only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| New York verified September 20, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | Non-refundable pet fee barred | Fair-housing act only | Barred for a trained service animal only | No offense | Full law & citations |
| North Carolina verified September 21, 2026 | Allowed, no cap | Allowed, no cap | Housing right, no documentation rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant, landlord | Full law & citations |
| North Dakota verified September 21, 2026 | Capped | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Ohio verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Fair-housing act only | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Oklahoma verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Oregon verified September 21, 2026 | Allowed, no cap | Non-refundable pet fee barred | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Pennsylvania verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | No state bar — federal rules only | Reaches housing: tenant, lying to a certifier, certifier, vendor | Full law & citations |
| Rhode Island verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Public accommodations only, not housing | Full law & citations |
| South Carolina verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| South Dakota verified September 21, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | No state bar — federal rules only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Tennessee verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | Allowed, no cap | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier | Full law & citations |
| Texas verified September 20, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Housing right, no documentation rule | Barred for a trained service animal only | Reaches housing: tenant | Full law & citations |
| Utah verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | Allowed, no cap | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant, lying to a certifier, landlord | Full law & citations |
| Vermont verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Fair-housing act only | No state bar — federal rules only | No offense | Full law & citations |
| Virginia verified September 20, 2026 | Counts inside the general deposit cap | Allowed, no cap | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: certifier | Full law & citations |
| Washington verified September 20, 2026 | No statute, no cap | Allowed, no cap | Fair-housing act only | Barred for a trained service animal only | Public accommodations only, not housing | Full law & citations |
| West Virginia verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | Allowed, no cap | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Public accommodations only, not housing | Full law & citations |
| Wisconsin verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | No statute | Documentation statute or rule | Barred, reaching an emotional support animal | Reaches housing: tenant, certifier | Full law & citations |
| Wyoming verified September 21, 2026 | No statute, no cap | Allowed, no cap | Housing right, no documentation rule | No state bar — federal rules only | Reaches housing: tenant, landlord | Full law & citations |
Each cell is the state's posture for a private-market residential tenancy exactly as the cited text states it. A pet deposit that counts inside the general deposit cap has no figure of its own; a capped pet deposit or pet rent has one, printed with its section on the state page. The assistance-animal column names the kind of state instrument that reaches assistance animals in housing; where it is the fair-housing act alone, no state text sets a documentation standard. The charge column says whether a state bar on charging for an assistance animal reaches an emotional support animal or only a trained service animal; where no state text bars a charge, the federal rules further down this page are the only ones. The offense column names whom a state misrepresentation offense reaches, and says so where the only offense is scoped to public accommodations and does not reach housing. Manufactured-home park, publicly financed, public-housing and senior-housing rules are carried as their own rows on the state page and never in these cells; city rules are on the local pages listed further down.
No figure appears here unless it was verified against official state sources on the date shown — see how we verify.
City, county and District pet laws
8 local records carry a rule of their own on a pet deposit, pet rent, a non-refundable pet fee, breed, or what a lease must say, on top of the state law in the table above. Each page says whether the rule is in force today, who it binds and which leases it reaches.
- Los Angeles, California — Pet-Friendly Publicly-Financed Housing
- West Hollywood, California — Pet deposit bar and dog breed rule
- District of Columbia — Pets in Housing Amendment Act of 2024 (binding from October 1, 2026)
- Boston, Massachusetts — Rights of Elderly and Handicapped Tenants to Have Pets (in force until December 31, 2026)
- Montgomery County, Maryland — Pet charge limits on regulated units, and the elderly and disabled pet right
- New York City, New York — The pet law (three-month waiver)
- Austin, Texas — Rental housing fee disclosure (binding from October 1, 2026, fully from January 1, 2027)
- Seattle, Washington — Pet damage deposits
Federal law on pets and assistance animals, in every state
The federal layer for the pets and assistance-animals topic, carried once for the whole site. It is a dated history rather than a single rule: the Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty has not changed since 1988 and the regulation under it has never contained the word animal, while the HUD guidance that most writing on this subject still quotes was withdrawn in September 2025, permanently rescinded in May 2026, and replaced by an enforcement position that governs HUD's own cause determinations and nothing else. Every row names who it binds, and most of the rows that carry real figures bind only federally assisted, public or rural-development housing. No state record restates these rows; a state record says only where its own law references or extends them. Each row below says who it binds before it says what it does.
Fair Housing Act: the reasonable-accommodation duty and who it reaches
Who it binds: Every housing provider the Fair Housing Act covers. Status: In force.
The whole federal animal rule for private housing is one clause of the Fair Housing Act: discrimination includes a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford a person with a handicap equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. The word animal does not appear in that section of the Act at all. There is no breed clause, no size or weight clause, no emotional-support clause, no deposit or fee clause and no documentation standard anywhere in the statute. Two neighboring clauses bound the rule: it is also discrimination to treat a person differently in the terms, conditions or privileges of rental, or in the services or facilities that go with a dwelling, because of a handicap, which is the hook for the argument that a charge imposed only on a tenant with a disability is itself a discriminatory term; and nothing in the subsection requires that a dwelling be made available to a person whose tenancy would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others. Handicap is defined as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a record of such an impairment, or being regarded as having one, and it excludes current illegal use of or addiction to a controlled substance. The Act does not reach every landlord. It does not reach a private owner of three or fewer single-family houses who rents without a real estate broker, agent or salesman and without a discriminatory advertisement, nor an owner-occupied building of four or fewer units, though the advertising rule applies to both exempt owners even so. The operative text was last amended in 1988; the Code as served today is current through Public Law 119-103 of September 2, 2026. State fair-housing acts are frequently broader, and a state page says whether its act reaches the landlords the federal Act exempts.
Sources: 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f) (f)(2), (f)(3)(B), (f)(9); 42 U.S.C. § 3602(h) handicap; 42 U.S.C. § 3603(b) (b)(1)–(2)
HUD's reasonable-accommodation regulation, and the absence of any animal rule in it
Who it binds: Every housing provider the Fair Housing Act covers. Status: In force.
HUD's regulation under the Fair Housing Act says that it is unlawful for any person to refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford a handicapped person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling unit, including public and common use areas. The rule then gives two examples, and the first is the only animal in the entire part: a blind applicant who wants to live in a building with a no-pets policy with a seeing eye dog, where refusing is a violation because without the dog the applicant would not have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling. The same subpart defines handicap in the same terms as the statute and states expressly that a mental or psychological disorder, such as organic brain syndrome, emotional or mental illness and specific learning disabilities, is a physical or mental impairment, which is why a request tied to a mental disability is a live question under the regulation. The finding a landlord should take from this part is a negative one. Across all forty-six of its sections the words animal, breed, pet, service animal, assistance animal, emotional support and weight appear nowhere except in that one illustrative example, so there is no federal regulation on animals in housing for private landlords to comply with. The regulation dates from 1989, and the electronic Code of Federal Regulations serves it as up to date as of September 17, 2026, with title 24 last amended on August 20, 2026.
Sources: 24 CFR § 100.204 (a), (b) Example (1); 24 CFR § 100.201 Handicap; Physical or mental impairment; 24 CFR part 100 (the part entire) all sections; no animal, breed or pet provision
Charging for an assistance animal: the two general clauses the question runs through
Who it binds: Every housing provider the Fair Housing Act covers. Status: In force.
Because no federal regulation mentions animals, the question whether a landlord may charge a pet deposit, pet fee or pet rent for an assistance animal runs through two general clauses of the same regulation. The first makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person in the terms, conditions or privileges of the sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the services or facilities provided with it, because of a handicap. The second lists, among prohibited actions, using different provisions in leases or contracts of sale, such as those relating to rental charges and security deposits, because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin. One nearby sentence is often misquoted in this context: the regulation does say a landlord may not increase for handicapped persons any customarily required security deposit, but that sentence sits in the rule on physical modifications to the premises and is not about animals. A third clause bears on paperwork rather than money: it is unlawful to inquire whether an applicant has a handicap or into the nature or severity of one, except for inquiries made of all applicants. None of these clauses names an animal, a fee or a deposit amount, so for a trained assistance animal the charge question is genuinely unsettled under federal law, and a state or local rule may settle it either way.
Sources: 24 CFR § 100.202 (b), (c); 24 CFR § 100.65 § 100.65(b)(1); 24 CFR § 100.203 (a)
HUD's 2013 service and assistance animals notice: withdrawn September 17, 2025
Who it binds: No one — withdrawn guidance. Status: Withdrawn (September 17, 2025). Document: Service Animals and Assistance Animals for People with Disabilities in Housing and HUD-Funded Programs (FHEO Notice FHEO-2013-01) — Issued April 25, 2013; its own expiration line reads "Effective until Amended, Superseded, or Rescinded".
This 2013 HUD notice is the source of almost everything a landlord has been told about assistance animals. It said that breed, size and weight limitations may not be applied to an assistance animal, that conditions and restrictions applied to pets may not be applied to assistance animals, that a landlord who may require a pet deposit may not require a deposit for an assistance animal, and that a request for a reasonable accommodation may not be conditioned on payment of a fee or deposit. None of those sentences has ever appeared in a statute or a regulation. HUD withdrew the notice by a memorandum signed on September 16, 2025 and effective September 17, 2025, and published the withdrawal in the Federal Register at 91 FR 17291 on April 6, 2026 under Docket No. FR-6571-N-01, seven months after the withdrawal took effect. A landlord reading this should know one further thing, because it explains why the old rules are still quoted everywhere. The withdrawal memorandum states that the withdrawn documents have been removed from HUD's website and should not be relied upon as authoritative, but the notice is in fact still served today at an address on HUD's live site and at a second address on HUD's archive site, and neither copy carries a rescission stamp, banner or cover note of any kind. Anyone who lands on either copy reads a document that looks current and binds no one.
Sources: FHEO Notice FHEO-2013-01 (April 25, 2013), as served on HUD's site header; § I; FHEO Notice FHEO-2013-01 (April 25, 2013), as served on HUD's archive site face; Notice of the Withdrawal of FHEO Guidance Documents (HUD, effective September 17, 2025) effective date; table of withdrawn documents; 91 FR 17291 (April 6, 2026), Notification of Withdrawal of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Guidance Documents, Docket No. FR-6571-N-01 DATES; table
HUD's 2020 assistance animals notice: withdrawn September 17, 2025 and permanently rescinded May 22, 2026
Who it binds: No one — rescinded guidance. Status: Rescinded (September 17, 2025). Document: Assessing a Person's Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act (FHEO Notice FHEO-2020-01) — Issued January 28, 2020; its own expiration line reads "Effective until Amended, Superseded, or Rescinded".
The 2020 notice was the one that set out how a landlord should assess a request for an animal and what documentation of a disability-related need for one could look like. It was withdrawn on the same date and by the same HUD memorandum as the 2013 notice, effective September 17, 2025 and published in the Federal Register at 91 FR 17291 on April 6, 2026. On May 22, 2026 the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity went further, writing that he was permanently rescinding the 2020 notice, and recording in a footnote that the 2020 notice had built on errors in the 2013 notice, that both notices were rescinded on September 17, 2025, and that the memorandum reconfirms those rescissions. The correction that matters to a reader is the same as for the 2013 notice: the document is still served today at an address on HUD's archive site with no rescission stamp on its face, while the 2020 fact sheet that accompanied it no longer resolves at all. Guidance is not law in any event, and this guidance has been withdrawn twice over, so a landlord or a tenant quoting it today is quoting a document that governs nothing.
Sources: FHEO Notice FHEO-2020-01 (January 28, 2020), as served on HUD's archive site header; Notice of the Withdrawal of FHEO Guidance Documents (HUD, effective September 17, 2025) table of withdrawn documents; 91 FR 17291 (April 6, 2026), Docket No. FR-6571-N-01 DATES; table; Enforcement Guidance - Assessing Requests for the Use of an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act (HUD, May 22, 2026) rescission paragraph; footnote 25
HUD's May 22, 2026 enforcement memorandum: what HUD will and will not pursue
Who it binds: No one — it states HUD's own enforcement position and binds no landlord or tenant. Status: An enforcement position, not law (May 22, 2026). Document: Enforcement Guidance - Assessing Requests for the Use of an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act, memorandum of the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity — Dated May 22, 2026.
This memorandum states how HUD's fair housing office will handle animal complaints. Going forward it will use the training component of the Americans with Disabilities Act definition of a service animal to assess animal-related accommodation complaints under the Fair Housing Act, and, effective immediately, it will find reasonable cause and recommend charges only in cases involving animals trained to provide disability-related assistance, that is, where the animal has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks directly related to the complainant's disability. Requests to waive a pet policy for animals trained to perform specific disability-related services are described as presumptively reasonable, requests to waive pet policies for untrained emotional support animals are not, and the office no longer expects landlords to extend to untrained emotional support animals the accommodations it expects for trained assistance animals. One qualification is the memorandum's own: unlike the two titles of the Americans with Disabilities Act it borrows from, an animal-related accommodation under the Fair Housing Act could involve a species other than a dog, provided the animal is trained to perform a disability-related service. Open emotional support animal cases are sent to a named deputy for case-by-case determination. What the memorandum does not do matters as much. It is an internal instruction about which complaints HUD will pursue, not a rule: it does not amend the statute or the regulation, and it says in terms that nothing in it affects the right of a party to seek redress through a private action in court, which the Act allows within two years of the practice complained of. It does not address how HUD will process complaints under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And it is silent on the questions landlords most often ask about: the word breed does not appear in it, nor does any substantive discussion of size or weight, and it mentions fees only in describing what the withdrawn notices had said, with no discussion of deposits at all. The memorandum also records that over 20 percent of the office's fair housing complaints involve untrained emotional support animals, which is the reason it gives for the change.
Sources: Enforcement Guidance - Assessing Requests for the Use of an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act (HUD, May 22, 2026) header; the new standard; footnote 30; private right of action; Section 504 and ADA carve-out
The rulemaking the May 2026 memorandum promises: not proposed
Who it binds: No one — no rule has been proposed. Status: Not proposed.
The May 2026 memorandum closes by saying that HUD's regulations for animal-related reasonable accommodations by private housing providers have not been updated in 35 years, and that the Department intends to engage in notice and comment rulemaking on animal-related reasonable accommodations with the aim of harmonizing its regulations, to the maximum extent possible, with those of the Americans with Disabilities Act. As of September 20, 2026 no such rulemaking had been proposed. Nothing on the subject appears in the Federal Register as a proposed rule, an advance notice or a request for information; the only two HUD proposed rules of 2026 that touch reasonable accommodations at all are a proposal on equal access to housing in HUD programs, published at 91 FR 22779 with comments closed on June 29, 2026, and a proposal on federal financial assistance, published at 91 FR 32198 with comments closed on July 13, 2026, and neither concerns animals. Until a rule is proposed and made final, the regulation in force is the one written in 1989, which contains no animal provision, and there is no open comment period on this subject for a landlord to take part in.
Sources: Enforcement Guidance - Assessing Requests for the Use of an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act (HUD, May 22, 2026) Future Rulemaking
The Americans with Disabilities Act definition of a service animal, which HUD now borrows in part
Who it binds: Public entities and public accommodations, not housing providers as such. Status: In force.
The Department of Justice regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act define a service animal, in identical words for public entities and for public accommodations, as any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or other mental disability. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals under that definition. The work or tasks must be directly related to the individual's disability, and the examples given run from guiding a person who is blind and alerting a person who is deaf to pulling a wheelchair, assisting during a seizure and interrupting impulsive or destructive behaviors. The definition ends by excluding what most disputes are about: the crime deterrent effects of an animal's presence, and the provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort or companionship, do not constitute work or tasks. A separate provision of the same regulations, 28 CFR 35.136(i), deals with miniature horses on its own terms. This definition binds public entities and places of public accommodation under those two titles of the Act, not private housing as such, although the Act does reach housing at public and private universities, public housing programs run by state, county and city governments, and emergency shelters. It appears in the federal layer of this topic for one reason: HUD's May 2026 memorandum borrows from it. HUD borrowed the training component only, and its own footnote says an accommodation under the Fair Housing Act could involve a species other than a dog provided the animal is trained, so the common statement that HUD adopted the Americans with Disabilities Act definition is not accurate. The Department of Justice's current public page on service animals says that emotional support and comfort dogs are not service animals, and that under the Fair Housing Act there may be different rules when a resident or applicant uses a service animal or another animal to assist with a disability. Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations is served as up to date as of September 17, 2026.
Sources: 28 CFR § 35.104 Service animal; 28 CFR § 36.104 Service animal; 28 CFR part 35 § 35.136(i) (miniature horses); U.S. Department of Justice, Service Animals (ada.gov topic page) what service animals are not; housing
Pets in federally assisted housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities
Who it binds: Owners of federally assisted rental housing for the elderly or for persons with disabilities. Status: In force.
Congress gave tenants of federally assisted rental housing for the elderly or handicapped a statutory right to keep pets. No owner or manager of such housing may, as a condition of tenancy or otherwise, prohibit or prevent a tenant from owning common household pets or keeping them in the unit, or discriminate against anyone in admission or continued occupancy because of pet ownership. The same statute directs HUD to write rules under which an owner or manager may prescribe reasonable rules for keeping pets, and says those rules may consider factors such as the density of tenants, pet size, types of pets, the potential financial obligations of tenants and standards of pet care. It also preserves the power to require removal of a pet whose conduct or condition is duly determined to be a nuisance or a threat to the health or safety of other occupants. The statute dates from 1983 and has never been amended. HUD's rules under it apply to assisted projects for the elderly or persons with disabilities and to the public housing program. They exclude from the pet rules entirely any animal used to assist, support or provide service to a person with a disability, and an owner or a public housing agency may not apply or enforce a pet policy against such an animal, an exclusion whose words reach further than trained animals do. Within the pet rules an owner may limit four-legged warm-blooded pets to one per unit in the housing programs, may place reasonable limitations on the size, weight and type of common household pets, and may require a refundable pet deposit, which may be used only for reasonable expenses directly attributable to the pet, with the unused portion refunded within a reasonable time after the tenant moves. For subsidized tenants and tenants of assisted projects the maximum deposit is an amount HUD fixes from time to time by notice, and that notice is not identified here; for all other tenants of projects for the elderly or persons with disabilities the pet deposit may not exceed one month's rent when the pet is brought onto the premises; and where the accumulation rule applies the deposit is built up through an initial payment of no more than $50 and subsequent monthly payments of no more than $10 until the deposit is reached. The mandatory rules require inoculations, sanitary standards including a limit of changing litter no more than twice a week, restraint in common areas, and annual registration of the pet with a certificate signed by a licensed veterinarian stating that the pet has had every inoculation state and local law requires. None of these rules was amended in 2025 or 2026 and no amendment has been proposed. Two things are worth noticing together: this is a pet right rather than an assistance-animal right, and Congress expressly allowed size and type rules here, which is the opposite of what the withdrawn 2013 notice told private landlords.
Sources: 12 U.S.C. § 1701r-1 (a), (b)(2), (c), (d); 24 CFR § 5.300 (a); 24 CFR § 5.303 (a), (b); 24 CFR § 5.318 (b)(1), (c), (d); 24 CFR § 5.350 mandatory pet rules
Pets in public housing that is not designated for the elderly or persons with disabilities
Who it binds: Public housing agencies. Status: In force.
A separate HUD regulation covers pets in public housing, except in developments for the elderly or persons with disabilities, which stay under the assisted-housing pet rules. Like those rules it does not apply to animals that assist, support or provide service to persons with disabilities, and an agency may not apply or enforce its pet policies against them. Otherwise a resident may own one or more common household pets, subject to the agency's reasonable requirements, if the pet is maintained responsibly, in accordance with state and local public health, animal control and animal anti-cruelty laws, and in accordance with the agency's annual plan. The reasonable requirements the regulation allows are unusually concrete: payment of a non-refundable nominal fee to cover the reasonable operating costs relating to the presence of pets, a refundable pet deposit to cover additional costs attributable to the pet, or both; limits on the number of animals in a unit based on unit size; prohibitions on types of animals the agency classifies as dangerous, provided the classification is consistent with state and local law, and prohibitions on individual animals based on factors including size and weight; restrictions based on the size and type of building or project; registration of the pet; and a requirement that pets be spayed or neutered. One thing is forbidden outright: an agency may not require that a pet's vocal chords be removed. And a pet deposit taken in public housing must be placed in the type of account state or local law requires for pet deposits, or, if that law is silent on pet deposits, for rental security deposits, with the agency complying with that law on retention, interest and return. That last rule hands the governing standard for a public housing pet deposit back to state law, which each state page sets out. The regulation dates from 2000 and was not amended in 2025 or 2026.
Sources: 24 CFR § 960.703 applicability; 24 CFR § 960.705 (a); 24 CFR § 960.707 (a), (b), (c), (d), (e)
Section 504: HUD-funded housing and the duty to modify housing policies
Who it binds: Recipients of federal financial assistance for housing. Status: In force.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, as HUD implements it, binds any recipient of federal financial assistance from the Department, which includes public housing agencies, owners with HUD contracts and owners of property assisted through HUD's block grant and home investment programs. Its general bar is that no qualified individual with handicaps shall, solely on the basis of handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving that assistance. Its housing rule is more specific: a recipient shall modify its housing policies and practices to ensure that they do not discriminate on the basis of handicap against a qualified individual with handicaps, and may not impose policies such as prohibiting assistive devices, auxiliary alarms or guides in housing facilities that have the effect of limiting the participation of tenants with handicaps. Housing policies the recipient can show are essential to the program are not treated as discriminatory if modifying them would fundamentally alter the nature of the program or impose undue financial and administrative burdens. Like the Fair Housing Act regulation, this part says nothing about animals: the words animal, pet, service animal and assistance animal appear nowhere in it, and the nearest thing to one is the reference to guides in housing facilities, which dates from 1988. One citation error is worth avoiding, because HUD's own May 2026 memorandum makes it: the accommodation section in the employment subpart is about employment, and the housing rule is the housing adjustments section. HUD's May 2026 memorandum states that it does not address how the Department will process complaints under Section 504 or under the Americans with Disabilities Act, so for a HUD-funded landlord the duty described here is unchanged.
Sources: 24 CFR part 8 (Nondiscrimination based on handicap in federally assisted programs and activities of HUD) § 8.4(a); § 8.33; § 8.11 (employment); Enforcement Guidance - Assessing Requests for the Use of an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act (HUD, May 22, 2026) Section 504 and ADA carve-out
Rural Development multifamily housing: a pet deposit cap and no deposit for an assistance animal
Who it binds: Owners of Rural Development multifamily housing. Status: In force.
The Department of Agriculture's Rural Development multifamily housing program has its own animal rules, and unlike HUD's withdrawn notices they are a regulation. The occupancy rule says that housing projects should establish reasonable written pet rules, that no rule may be promulgated that would prevent occupancy by a household member who requires a service or assistance animal, and that in elderly housing borrowers must not prohibit tenants from keeping domestic animals in their rental units as pets. The security deposit rule carries a figure: an additional security deposit for pets may be charged as long as the additional deposit is not greater than basic rent for one month, no additional security deposit for assistance animals is allowed where an assistance animal is necessary for the normal functioning of a household member with a disability, and borrowers must not charge additional security deposits based on the disabilities of tenants or on other personal characteristics. The fair housing rule in the same part gives, as an example of a reasonable accommodation, permitting a disabled tenant to have a companion animal. Three things follow for a landlord. This binds borrowers in the rural rental housing programs, who are private landlords for most other purposes and number in the tens of thousands, disproportionately in rural areas. The rule uses the older and broader vocabulary, service or assistance animal and companion animal, and nothing in the HUD guidance history of 2025 and 2026 touched it. And it is the only place in federal law where a pet deposit cap and a bar on charging for an assistance animal sit side by side in a binding text. Title 7 of the Code of Federal Regulations is served as up to date as of September 17, 2026.
Sources: 7 CFR part 3560 (Direct multi-family housing loans and grants) § 3560.104 (fair housing); § 3560.157(e) (pets/assistance animals); § 3560.204 (security deposits)
United States v. Five Properties, LLC: the open federal case on an emotional support animal
Who it binds: The parties to the case. Status: Litigation.
The United States is currently litigating an assistance-animal accommodation case against a private landlord in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, United States v. Five Properties, LLC, No. 2:25-cv-01213. The tenant complained in 2018 that the management company refused to accommodate her mental disability by letting her live in her apartment with her emotional support dog, and filed a HUD complaint a month later. In January 2025, roughly six and a half years afterwards, HUD completed its investigation and issued a charge of discrimination and a determination of reasonable cause, and the government then sued on her behalf. The landlords moved for summary judgment and the court denied the motion on November 5, 2025. A motion to intervene was granted on January 9, 2026, hearings were set by an order of August 4, 2026, and witness and exhibit lists were filed on September 8, 2026. Nothing has been decided, and a landlord should draw no rule from it yet. It is worth watching for one reason: the charge behind it was issued before the September 2025 withdrawal of HUD's notices and before the May 2026 memorandum, and the animal is an untrained emotional support animal, so whatever the court decides will be the first contested judicial reading of where federal law now stands.
Sources: United States v. Five Properties, LLC, No. 2:25-cv-01213 (E.D. La.), order denying summary judgment, R. Doc. 29 (Nov. 5, 2025) background; disposition
Henderson v. Five Properties, LLC: the closed private case, and how far it reaches
Who it binds: The parties to the case. Status: Litigation.
In the closed case that HUD's May 2026 memorandum attaches as its first exhibit, the same district court granted summary judgment to the landlord on July 16, 2025 and dismissed with prejudice the tenant's Fair Housing Act and Louisiana Equal Housing Opportunity Act claims. The facts bound the ruling tightly. The animal fee was a one-time payment of $400 against a total housing cost of $910 a month over a fifteen-month term, a little under three percent of the total cost of housing; the tenant offered no evidence about how many other tenants paid the fee or what the fee was worth to the landlord's revenue; and she said she could have paid the fee had it been broken into installments, which is why the court held a waiver was neither reasonable nor necessary. The court weighed the multi-factor test another circuit uses for fee waivers, and it declined to defer to HUD's notice or to the 2004 joint statement of HUD and the Department of Justice, calling both unpersuasive in light of the Supreme Court's 2024 decision on judicial interpretation of statutes. The case was not appealed, and it ended with a costs order on October 28, 2025. What it is not is a holding that a landlord may charge pet fees for assistance animals. It is one district judge's fact-bound summary judgment ruling on one fee, in the same district where the United States is now litigating the opposite position against the same defendant.
Sources: Henderson v. Five Properties, LLC, No. 2:24-cv-00750 (E.D. La.), order and reasons, R. Doc. 93 (July 16, 2025) fee analysis; conclusion
Breed, size and weight limits on an assistance animal: no federal rule either way
Who it binds: No one — no such federal duty exists. Status: No federal duty.
No federal statute and no federal regulation bars a landlord from applying breed, size or weight limits to an assistance animal. The sentence quoted everywhere for the opposite proposition, that breed, size and weight limitations may not be applied to an assistance animal, appears only in HUD's 2013 notice, which was withdrawn effective September 17, 2025. The word breed appears nowhere in HUD's fair housing regulation, the word animal appears nowhere in the Fair Housing Act's discrimination section, and the word breed appears nowhere in HUD's May 2026 memorandum either. Two things remain true and should not be over-read in the other direction. The Act still requires an individual assessment rather than a blanket judgment about a category of animal, since a dwelling need not be made available only where a particular tenancy would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others. And whether a blanket breed rule applied to a trained service animal is itself a refusal of a reasonable accommodation, or a discriminatory term of a rental, is an open question under the general clauses rather than a question federal law has answered either way. In federally assisted housing for the elderly and in public housing the federal rules go the other way and expressly allow limits on pet size and type. State and local law is where an actual breed rule is most likely to be found, and each state page says whether the state has one.
Sources: 24 CFR part 100 (the part entire) no breed, size or weight provision in any section; 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f) (f)(3)(B), (f)(9); FHEO Notice FHEO-2013-01 (April 25, 2013), withdrawn effective September 17, 2025 § I; 91 FR 17291 (April 6, 2026), Docket No. FR-6571-N-01 DATES
Every row was read on its publisher's own site on September 20, 2026. How: Every row was read on the publisher's own host on September 20, 2026. The United States Code on the House Office of the Law Revision Counsel's site supplied 42 U.S.C. 3602, 3603 and 3604, whose text is current through Public Law 119-103 of September 2, 2026, and 12 U.S.C. 1701r-1, whose page states its text is that in effect on September 19, 2026 at the earlier release point of Public Law 119-102; each section's release point was taken from that section rather than assumed from another. The electronic Code of Federal Regulations supplied 24 CFR part 100 entire (all forty-six sections, including 100.65, 100.200, 100.201, 100.202, 100.203 and 100.204), 24 CFR part 5 subparts C and L, 24 CFR part 8, 24 CFR part 960 subpart G, 24 CFR part 982, 28 CFR 35.104 and 36.104, and 7 CFR part 3560, with each title's currency line taken from the publisher: titles 7, 24 and 28 are up to date as of September 17, 2026, title 24 last amended August 20, 2026, title 28 last amended September 10, 2026 and title 7 last amended September 16, 2026. HUD's own hosts supplied the April 2013 notice, the January 2020 notice at HUD's archive address, the September 2025 notice of withdrawal of guidance documents and the May 22, 2026 enforcement memorandum, each taken as HUD serves it today, and the Federal Register supplied the withdrawal notice at 91 FR 17291, published April 6, 2026 under Docket No. FR-6571-N-01 with a withdrawal date of September 17, 2025. The Federal Register's index of HUD documents was searched across 2025 and 2026 for assistance animals, service animals, emotional support animals, pet ownership and reasonable accommodations: the only animal items are that withdrawal notice and two quarterly regulatory-waiver notices, and no rulemaking on animal-related reasonable accommodations has been proposed. The two Eastern District of Louisiana matters were taken from the courts' own filed documents rather than from secondary coverage. The Department of Justice's service-animal page supplied its wording as served on September 20, 2026.