Can a landlord charge for a pet in California, and what does the law require for an assistance animal?

Yes — no pet figure exists, but a pet deposit is a security deposit however it is named and counts inside the general deposit cap.

California has no pet-deposit category at all. The word 'pet' appears once in the whole of Civil Code section 1950.5, inside the phrase 'professional carpet cleaning', and 'animal' does not appear in it. What decides the question is the definition: 'security' means any payment, fee, deposit or charge imposed at the beginning of the tenancy to be used for, among other things, the repair of damage beyond ordinary wear and tear or the cleaning of the premises at the end of the tenancy (subdivision (b)). A pet deposit is money of exactly that kind, so calling it a pet deposit changes nothing: it is security, it counts in full toward the one-month or two-month ceiling, and it must be refundable. Nothing at all may be charged for an assistance animal, and that rule sits in the Civil Rights Council's regulations rather than in any statute.

Refundability: A refundable pet deposit is lawful inside the cap; a non-refundable one is not. A lease or rental agreement may not contain a provision characterizing any security as 'nonrefundable' (Civil Code section 1950.5, subdivision (n)).

The general deposit cap it sits against: One month's rent for security of every kind, however denominated, in addition to the first month's rent paid on or before initial occupancy; two months' rent where the landlord is a natural person, or a limited liability company all of whose members are natural persons, owning no more than two residential rental properties with no more than four dwelling units offered for rent in total, and never two months against a service member (Civil Code section 1950.5, subdivision (c), paragraphs (1) and (5)). The security-deposits page carries the general cap, its return rules and its itemized statement.

Where the rule switches off or on: Subdivision (c) does not apply to security collected or demanded by the landlord before July 1, 2024 (Civil Code section 1950.5, subdivision (c), paragraph (6)), so a deposit taken under an older tenancy is measured by the law then in force.

No for a non-refundable pet fee, which a general or specific rule bars. Monthly pet rent is uncapped and no statute mentions it: the phrases 'pet rent' and 'pet fee' return no sections anywhere in the California codes.

Two things are true at once and a landlord needs both. Monthly pet rent is lawful and uncapped, because no statute addresses it. An up-front pet fee is not a lawful lease term in California: it is security, it counts toward the deposit ceiling, and the lease may not call it non-refundable. The remedy for a bad-faith claim or retention of security is statutory damages of up to twice the amount of the security, on top of actual damages (Civil Code section 1950.5, subdivision (m)). California sets no reasonableness test on a pet charge. A development financed on or after January 1, 2023 by the state housing department, or holding a low-income housing tax credit received on or after that date, may not impose a monthly fee for the ownership or maintenance of common household pets at all, though a refundable deposit remains available to it; that class is a separate row below.

Monthly pet rent: Monthly pet rent is uncapped and no statute mentions it: the phrases 'pet rent' and 'pet fee' return no sections anywhere in the California codes. A recurring monthly charge is genuinely rent rather than money imposed at the beginning of the tenancy, so the security definition does not reach it. The one bill that would have capped pet rent at 1 percent of the monthly rent, AB 2609, died in committee.

A one-time pet fee: A one-time move-in pet fee, or a pet cleaning fee, is security under Civil Code section 1950.5, subdivision (b): it is a payment, fee, deposit or charge imposed at the beginning of the tenancy to be used for repair of damage or for cleaning at the end of the tenancy. It therefore counts against the one-month or two-month ceiling and may not be written into the lease as non-refundable.

How far the non-refundable-fee rule reaches: The bar is definitional and it reaches move-in money only. Any payment, fee, deposit or charge imposed at the beginning of the tenancy for the listed purposes is security (Civil Code section 1950.5, subdivision (b)), and a lease or rental agreement may not contain a provision characterizing any security as 'nonrefundable' (subdivision (n)). Money that is genuinely rent, such as a recurring monthly pet charge, is outside the definition and outside the bar.

No — no statute requires a lease to state a pet policy, and no written-rules provision governs one.

No California statute requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed, supplies a default when the lease is silent, or governs a mid-term change to a private landlord's pet rule: the phrase 'pet policy' returns no sections statewide, and California has no written-rules or rules-amendment section of the kind several other states put in their landlord-tenant acts. The lease governs. The one rule that binds every landlord who allows animals is the declawing and devocalizing bar in Civil Code section 1942.7. One housing class carries a mandate: a development financed on or after January 1, 2018 under the state housing division, and on wider terms a development financed on or after January 1, 2023 or holding a post-2023 low-income housing tax credit, must authorize a resident to keep one or more common household pets; both are stated as their own rows below. A 2026 law requires every landlord to have a written pet policy from April 1, 2027; it is stated under legislation.

Number limits: Nothing caps or floors the number of pets in a private tenancy. In a publicly financed development the number may be limited, and expressly so: 'limitations on the number of animals in a unit based on the unit's size' are among the reasonable conditions the development may impose (Health and Safety Code section 50466, subdivision (a), paragraph (2)(C)). A tenant with a disability may have more than one assistance animal, each individually assessed (2 CCR section 12185, subdivision (d)(4)).

Conditions a landlord may not impose: A person or company that occupies, owns, manages or provides services in connection with real property and allows an animal on the premises may not advertise in a manner designed to discourage an application because the applicant's animal has not been declawed or devocalized, may not refuse or make unavailable the occupancy of real property because a person refuses to declaw or devocalize an animal, and may not require a tenant or occupant to declaw or devocalize an animal (Civil Code section 1942.7, subdivision (a)). 'Animal' there means any mammal, bird, reptile or amphibian. A city attorney, district attorney or other law enforcement prosecutorial entity may enforce the section; the civil penalty is up to $1,000 per advertisement for the advertising limb and up to $1,000 per animal for the other two. The section states no private right of action.

Yes, for a private landlord — the only bar reaches a named publicly financed or agency-managed housing class.

In an ordinary private tenancy California says nothing about a landlord's breed, size or weight rule for pets: the term 'breed' returns no sections in the whole Government Code, the home of the fair-housing act, and two in the whole Civil Code, neither of them a landlord-tenant section. The only pet breed rule in housing binds publicly financed developments, which may not treat a breed prohibition or a weight limit as a reasonable condition, though a dog determined to be potentially dangerous or vicious under the Food and Agricultural Code may still be excluded. A separate provision of the Food and Agricultural Code, section 31683, tells a city that no program regulating any dog may be specific as to breed, except for the spay-and-neuter programs the Health and Safety Code allows; that is animal control, not a landlord rule, and it does not stop a city from legislating about pets in rental housing.

A second rule beside it: A second and wider rule sits beside the subsidized mandate and reaches every kind of housing, but only for assistance animals: no breed, size or weight limit may be applied to an assistance animal, other than the specific restrictions that apply to miniature horses as service animals (2 CCR section 12185, subdivision (d)(5), with the same words at section 14331, subdivision (d)(5), for entities receiving state support). That rule is California's own, made under Government Code section 12935, and it is not a restatement of any federal instrument.

Size and weight: The two rules do not use the same words and the difference is worth having. In a publicly financed development the excluded conditions are a prohibition on a breed and a limitation on the weight of the pet — size is not named (Health and Safety Code section 50466, subdivision (a), paragraph (2)(C)). For an assistance animal all three are barred: breed, size and weight (2 CCR section 12185, subdivision (d)(5)). Outside those two rules no California statute reaches a landlord's breed, size or weight limit for a pet.

Yes — a state statute or rule sets what a landlord may request or what a certifier must meet for an assistance animal in housing. Both a statute and an administrative rule under it speak to it. State law incorporates a federal statute or codified regulation by reference.

It is unlawful for the owner of a housing accommodation to discriminate against a person because of disability (Government Code section 12955, subdivision (a)), and 'discrimination' includes a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services where they may be necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling (Government Code section 12927, subdivision (c), paragraph (1)). Everything an animal-related accommodation actually requires is then set by regulation. A request need not be made in a particular manner or at a particular time, orally or in writing, and need not use the phrase 'reasonable accommodation' (2 CCR section 12176, subdivision (f), paragraph (3)). Requests must be promptly considered, and an undue delay, including no response within a reasonable time, may itself be a denial (section 12177, subdivisions (d) and (e)). A request may not be denied for lack of information without first asking for the clarification and giving a reasonable opportunity to supply it (section 12177, subdivision (b)). A landlord may impose control conditions so long as they do not interfere with the animal's normal performance and are no more restrictive than those imposed on other animals on the property (section 12185, subdivision (d)(6)). A refusal on direct-threat grounds must rest on an individualized assessment of objective evidence about the specific animal's actual conduct, not on speculation, stale evidence or what other animals have done, though a dog finally determined by a court to be a potentially dangerous or vicious dog is presumed to pose a direct threat (section 12185, subdivision (d)(9)(B) and (D)). Separately, the Disabled Persons Act makes it a denial of equal access to refuse housing to a blind, deaf or otherwise disabled tenant because of a guide, signal or service dog, while preserving lease terms that reasonably regulate the animal's presence and the tenant's liability for damage (Civil Code section 54.1, subdivision (b), paragraph (6)); that Act does not reach an emotional support animal.

Who it binds: Every owner of a housing accommodation, which is one of the widest landlord definitions in the country: the Fair Employment and Housing Act's 'owner' reaches the lessee, sublessee, assignee, managing agent, real estate broker or salesperson, anyone with a legal or equitable right of ownership, possession or the right to let, and the state and its subdivisions, and a letting arranged through a hosting platform is inside it (Government Code section 12927, subdivisions (d) and (e)). The Act's only housing exemption is a refusal to rent a portion of an owner-occupied single-family house to one roomer or boarder living within the household, and the advertising bar applies even there (subdivision (c), paragraph (2)(A)). There is no three-unit or four-unit exemption of the kind the federal act carries. The Disabled Persons Act is narrower — it excludes a single-family residence whose occupants let no more than one room for compensation — and it protects trained guide, signal and service dogs only. A housing provider that receives any state financial assistance carries the parallel duties at 2 CCR section 14331 in addition.

The rule's currency: 2 CCR sections 12005 and 12185 (the Civil Rights Council's housing regulations, subchapter 7, article 18) and 2 CCR sections 14020 and 14331 (subchapter 9, state-supported programs), in the California Code of Regulations as the publisher the Office of Administrative Law names as the official compilation serves it, current through 9/4/26 Register 2026, No. 36. Section 12185 was filed September 16, 2019 and operative January 1, 2020, and has not been amended since; section 12005 has been amended four times, last filed November 22, 2023 and operative January 1, 2024; section 14331 is new, filed March 19, 2024 and operative July 1, 2024.

For a service animal, exactly two questions and no demonstration: whether the person is an individual with a disability, and what the disability-related task the animal has been trained to perform is (2 CCR section 12185, subdivision (b)). For a support animal there is no question list at all; the request runs through the ordinary accommodation machinery, and the landlord may seek only information necessary to establish that the person has a disability, a description of the accommodation sought, and the relationship between the disability and the need for it (section 12185, subdivision (c)(1), with sections 12178, subdivisions (c) and (d)). A landlord may not ask about the particular diagnosis or medical condition, the severity of the disability, medical records, medical history, or unrelated disability or health information (section 12178, subdivision (e)), and must keep what is supplied confidential (section 12176, subdivision (e)(1)).

An online certificate is not, by itself, sufficient. A caregiver, reliable third party or agency may supply it. The law tests the certifier's conduct before issuing. A treatment relationship is required. The certifier's own rule requires a relationship with the person of at least thirty days before writing the documentation. A landlord may offer a form but may not require it. A landlord may not require medical records, a diagnosis or its severity.

Who may certify: There is no license list. Supporting information may come from any reliable third party who is in a position to know, and the regulation names five kinds: a medical professional; a health care provider, including the office of a medical practice or a nursing registry; a peer support group; a non-medical service agency or person, including In-Home Supportive Services or Supported Living Services providers; or any other reliable third party (2 CCR section 12178, subdivisions (f) and (g)). Self-certification is permitted where it is credible. The separate statute that governs a health care practitioner writing an emotional-support-dog letter requires that practitioner to hold a valid, active license, to state its effective date, number, jurisdiction and type in the document, and to be licensed in the jurisdiction where the document is given (Health and Safety Code section 122318, subdivision (a), paragraphs (1) and (2)) — but that is a duty owed to the practitioner's board, not a test the landlord applies.

The relationship test: The 30-day period binds the writer, not the reader, and this is the single most misstated point of California law on this subject. A health care practitioner may not provide documentation of a need for an emotional support dog unless the practitioner has established a client-provider relationship with the individual for at least 30 days beforehand (Health and Safety Code section 122318, subdivision (a), paragraph (3)(A)), and that requirement is waived for an individual verified to be homeless, by a homeless-management information system identification, by a continuum of care or contracted homeless-services provider, or by visual confirmation from a homeless-services provider of a person living in a shelter, an encampment, an outdoor makeshift shelter or a vehicle (paragraph (3)(B)). A breach sends the practitioner to a licensing board (subdivision (c)). It is not a ground on which a landlord may reject a letter: section 122319, subdivision (b), says nothing in that article restricts or changes a person's rights to reasonable accommodation and equal access to housing, and the landlord's own test is the individualized-assessment rule in 2 CCR section 12185, subdivision (c)(2).

The certifier's duties: A health care practitioner may not provide documentation of a need for an emotional support dog unless five things are true: the practitioner holds a valid, active license and states its effective date, number, jurisdiction and type in the document; is licensed to provide the service within the scope of that license in the jurisdiction where the document is given; has established a client-provider relationship with the individual for at least 30 days, unless the individual is verified to be homeless; has completed a clinical evaluation of the individual regarding the need for the dog; and has given the individual verbal or written notice that knowingly and fraudulently representing oneself as the owner or trainer of a canine licensed, qualified or identified as a guide, signal or service dog is a misdemeanor (Health and Safety Code section 122318, subdivision (a)). A 'health care practitioner' is a person licensed and regulated under Division 2 of the Business and Professions Code acting within the scope of that license (subdivision (b)). A breach may be disciplined by the practitioner's licensing board (subdivision (c)).

California does not test the letter by who signed it; it tests what the letter shows, and it tests the writer separately. A landlord evaluating a support-animal request may seek only enough to establish a disability, the accommodation sought and the link between them, and may not ask about a diagnosis, its severity, medical records or medical history. The information may come from any reliable third party — a medical professional, a health care provider, a peer support group, a non-medical service agency, or credible self-certification. A certification from an online service that does not include an individualized assessment by a medical professional is presumptively not information from a reliable third party, and vests, identification cards and certificates are not in themselves documentation of either a disability or a need; but the presumption is not fatal, because the landlord must give the tenant an opportunity to supply further information meeting the ordinary standard before denying the request. A landlord may ask a tenant to use a form or follow a procedure, but may not refuse a request or refuse to engage over the tenant's failure to use it, and the form may not seek information that is not necessary. California sets no annual re-evaluation, no vaccination rule for an assistance animal and no deadline for the landlord's answer; what it sets instead is a promptness standard under which an undue delay can itself be a denial. The 30-day treatment period in the Health and Safety Code binds the practitioner who writes the letter and is enforced by a licensing board, not by the landlord.

No — a state bar on an extra charge reaches an emotional support animal on the face of the definition it hangs on; the bar is an express no-extra-charge clause, in an administrative rule.

An individual with an assistance animal may not be required to pay any pet fee, additional rent or other additional fee, including an additional security deposit or liability insurance, in connection with the animal (2 CCR section 12185, subdivision (d)(2)). Because 'assistance animal' is defined to include a support animal, and a support animal is defined to include an emotional support animal, the bar reaches an emotional support animal and not only a trained service animal. The parallel rule for a provider receiving state support is one word shorter — it omits 'additional rent' — but is otherwise identical (section 14331, subdivision (d)(2)). Two cautions belong on the same page. The bar is regulatory: no California statute says it, and the nearest statutory neighbors are about physical modifications rather than animals. And the pet-charge law itself carries no carve-out, so a landlord who reads only Civil Code section 1950.5 will find nothing there excluding an assistance animal. The rule has stood in its present form since January 1, 2020.

The definition it hangs on: 'Assistance animals' include service animals and support animals … An assistance animal is not a pet. It is an animal that works, provides assistance, or performs tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, or provides emotional, cognitive, or similar support that alleviates one or more identified symptoms or effects of an individual's disability … 'Support animals' are animals that provide emotional, cognitive, or other similar support to an individual with a disability. A support animal does not need to be trained or certified. Support animals are also known as comfort animals or emotional support animals (2 CCR section 12005, subdivision (d) and (d)(2)).

The tenant is liable for damage beyond ordinary wear and tear, by express words.

An individual with an assistance animal may be required to cover the costs of repairs for damage the animal causes to the premises, excluding ordinary wear and tear (2 CCR section 12185, subdivision (d)(3), with the same sentence at section 14331, subdivision (d)(3)). On the statutory side, the Disabled Persons Act separately preserves a tenant's liability for damage done by a guide, signal or service dog (Civil Code section 54.1, subdivision (b), paragraph (6)(B)).

An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: a civil penalty, a misdemeanor, and licensing discipline, reaching the person claiming the animal, a vendor of false documents, and the certifier who signs. Penalty terms: $500 for a first violation; $1,000 for a second violation; $2,500 for a third or any later violation; and misdemeanor — up to six months in the county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. The text names no venue and no court has construed its reach, so it reaches housing by its general words.

California has three separate exposures and they land on three different people. Knowingly and fraudulently representing, selling or offering for sale an emotional support dog as being entitled to the rights and privileges the law gives a guide, signal or service dog carries a civil penalty of $500 for a first violation, $1,000 for a second and $2,500 for a third or later one; the same ladder applies to a seller who breaks the written-notice duty owed to an emotional-support-animal buyer (Health and Safety Code section 122319, subdivision (a), paragraph (1)). Knowingly and fraudulently representing oneself, verbally or in writing, as the owner or trainer of a canine licensed, qualified or identified as a guide, signal or service dog is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in the county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both (Penal Code section 365.7). A health care practitioner who writes an emotional-support-dog letter without meeting the statutory criteria may be disciplined by a licensing board. No prior warning is required for any of the three. Two limits matter to a reader. The criminal section reaches only a canine misrepresented as a guide, signal or service dog, so misrepresenting an animal as an emotional support animal is not a crime under it. And section 122319, subdivision (b), preserves in terms every existing federal and state right to reasonable accommodation and equal access to housing, including under the Fair Employment and Housing Act, the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Disabled Persons Act. The criminal section is not confined to public accommodations, so on its face it reaches a rental applicant or tenant; no California court has construed its reach in housing.

Who enforces it: An action for the civil penalties may be brought only by the Attorney General, a district attorney, a county counsel or a city attorney (Health and Safety Code section 122319, subdivision (a), paragraph (2)). A landlord has no action under that section and no private party does. The criminal limb is prosecuted as an ordinary misdemeanor, and the practitioner limb runs through the practitioner's own licensing board (section 122318, subdivision (c)). No California statute makes misrepresenting an assistance animal a ground for eviction.

In part — state law preempts the kinds of local rule named as barred, and any power named is one state law grants.

California preempts one narrow thing and says nothing about the rest. The narrow preemption is in the Food and Agricultural Code: no local program regulating any dog may be specific as to breed. That reaches a city's dog-control ordinance, not a landlord's lease. On pets in rental housing the state is silent: no provision of the fair-housing act, the Civil Code or the Health and Safety Code preempts or authorizes a local pet rule for rentals, and the phrases 'pet policy', 'pet rent' and 'pet fee' return no sections anywhere in the California codes. Cities legislate here on their own police power and charter authority, and two of them matter to a landlord. West Hollywood bars an additional pet security deposit for a tenancy beginning on or after March 24, 2022 and bars a landlord from banning a specific dog breed, with an exemption the city's department may grant on a showing of good cause. Los Angeles requires a housing development publicly financed by or through the City to allow at least one pet per unit and to keep any pet deposit reasonable and refundable. Both figures and conditions live on those cities' own pages, not here.

Breed-specific local animal-control rules barred: A city or county may adopt or enforce its own program for the control of potentially dangerous or vicious dogs, and may make it more restrictive than the state's, but no program regulating any dog may be specific as to breed, except for the spay-and-neuter programs the Health and Safety Code allows. This bars a city's breed-specific dog-control program. It is not a landlord rule and it does not stop a city from legislating about pets in rental housing. Text: Cal. Food & Agric. Code § 31683.

Developments financed on or after January 1, 2018 under the state housing division: pets must be allowed, subject to the stated conditions. The Department of Housing and Community Development must require each housing development financed on or after January 1, 2018 under the state housing division to authorize a resident to own or otherwise maintain one or more common household pets in the resident's dwelling unit, subject to state laws and local ordinances on public health, animal control and animal anticruelty (Health and Safety Code section 50466, subdivision (a), paragraph (1)). A 'common household pet' is a domesticated animal, including but not limited to a dog or cat, commonly kept in the home for pleasure rather than for commercial purposes (subdivision (b)). This older limb carries no fee rule and no breed rule; those arrived with the 2023 limb below. Text: Cal. Health & Safety Code § 50466 · (a)(1), (b).

Developments financed, or holding a low-income housing tax credit, from January 1, 2023: pets must be allowed, subject to the stated conditions; breed, size or weight restrictions are barred. A development financed on or after January 1, 2023 under the state housing division or by any money the Department of Housing and Community Development administers or provides, and any development that is the basis for a low-income housing tax credit received on or after that date, must authorize a resident to own or maintain one or more common household pets subject to reasonable conditions (Health and Safety Code section 50466, subdivision (a), paragraph (2)(A)). Reasonable conditions include policies on nuisance behavior, leashing, a requirement to carry liability insurance, limits on the number of animals based on the unit's size, and prohibitions on potentially dangerous or vicious dogs as determined under the Food and Agricultural Code — but a reasonable condition does not include a prohibition on a breed of common household pet or a limitation on the pet's weight (paragraph (2)(C)). A monthly fee for the ownership or maintenance of common household pets may not be imposed, though a refundable deposit under Civil Code section 1950.5 remains available (paragraph (2)(B)). The section preserves reasonable-accommodation duties for a resident with a disability and the landlord's ability to control harm to third parties (subdivision (c)). The monthly-fee bar and the breed and weight rule hang on this paragraph only and do not reach the 2018 limb. Text: Cal. Health & Safety Code § 50466 · (a)(2)(A)–(C), (b), (c)(2), (c)(3).