Landlord Atlas

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

Verified September 21, 2026 Correction October 8, 2026 All Delaware topics →

Delaware lets a landlord charge a pet deposit of up to one month's rent, and that deposit sits on top of the security deposit rather than inside it, so a tenant with a pet can be asked for two months of deposits in total.

Cited to 25 Del. C. § 5514 (a)(2)–(4), (b), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i)(1)–(3) and 25 more cited sources · Verified September 21, 2026

Damage the animal causes comes out of the pet deposit first. The pet ceiling also bites where the general one does not: the security-deposit cap applies only to leases of a year or more and not at all to furnished units, while the pet cap applies regardless of the length of the lease. A non-refundable pet fee is not allowed at all, and monthly pet rent is not mentioned in Delaware law. No pet deposit may be required for a duly certified and trained support animal of a disabled resident — but Delaware defines a support animal as one trained to do work or perform tasks, and the words 'emotional support' appear nowhere in its statutes, so that exemption does not cover an animal kept for emotional support. A blind tenant with a guide dog may not be charged extra, and a landlord who does can be fined $100. Faking an assistance animal is not an offense in Delaware. Towns may not make dog rules based on breed. Manufactured-home communities follow a separate set of rules, including a deposit for each pet.

Delaware pets & assistance animals at a glance

Which law governs Delaware's answers are spread across four titles and the reader needs all four. The money and lease rules are in the Landlord-Tenant Code at title 25: section 5141 defines a pet deposit and, in the same breath, excludes it from the definition of a security deposit; section 5514, subsection (i), sets the pet-deposit ceiling and its damage rules; section 5311 bars non-refundable fees; section 5310 lists the payments a prospective tenant may lawfully be asked for; section 5511 conditions the landlord's rules; and section 5513 sets the cure period for a rule breach. Manufactured-home communities run on a different section of the same title, section 7017, subsection (h). The housing right for an animal is in the white-cane chapter at title 16, sections 9505 and 9506, which give a blind tenant with a guide dog full and equal access to housing, bar extra compensation for the dog and fine a violator $100. The generic duty to make reasonable accommodations is the Delaware Fair Housing Act's, at title 6, section 4603A, subsection (a)(2), with its owner-occupied exemption at section 4607, subsection (e). The municipal breed bar is at title 22, section 116.
Where in the state the answers differ The thresholds run by owner type and by the kind of housing, not by place. The Landlord-Tenant Code's money and rules provisions bind every residential landlord with no threshold at all. The fair-housing duty to make reasonable accommodations does not apply to rentals of rooms or units in a dwelling containing living quarters for no more than four families living independently where the owner actually maintains and occupies one of them as a residence (title 6, section 4607, subsection (e)). The guide-dog housing right is wider: it excludes only a single-family residence whose occupants rent or furnish for compensation not more than one room in it (title 16, section 9505, subsection (b)). And a landlord who lives in the building, rents no more than three rooms and has no more than three tenants may end a tenancy immediately for a rule violation (title 25, section 5512). A manufactured-home community on rented lots is a separate regime with its own pet-deposit rules, stated as its own row below.
Which landlords are covered Every residential landlord, for the money and lease rules. The Landlord-Tenant Code regulates and determines all legal rights, remedies and obligations of all parties to any rental agreement of a rental unit in Delaware, wherever the agreement was signed, and a rental agreement is unenforceable so far as it conflicts with the Code and is not expressly authorized by it (section 5101, subsection (a)). Six arrangements are excluded, each opening with the words 'unless created solely to avoid such application': residence at an institution, residence by a member of a fraternal organization, residence in a hotel, motel, cubicle hotel or similar lodgings, a non-renewable rental agreement of 120 days or less in a calendar year for a dwelling in the five coastal hundreds, ground on which the tenant built or installed the improvements, and a certified recovery house. There is no small-landlord and no owner-occupied exemption. The assistance-animal rules bind narrower and wider sets than that, and the three scopes do not line up; they are set out under assistance animals below.
Pet deposit

Yes, up to a ceiling the statute sets for a pet deposit as such. No landlord may require a pet deposit in excess of one month's rent, regardless of the duration of the rental agreement (section 5514, subsection (i)(2)). The residential section says nothing about a deposit for each pet; that is the manufactured-home rule, stated as its own row below. It may be taken on top of the general deposit cap.

Delaware treats a pet deposit as its own species of deposit rather than as part of the security deposit, and that is the whole shape of the answer. A 'pet deposit' is any deposit held for the term of the rental agreement for the presence of an animal in a rental unit, and a 'security deposit' is any deposit 'exclusive of a pet deposit' (section 5141, paragraphs (27) and (33)). Because the two are defined apart, the two ceilings stack: a tenant on a one-year lease with a pet may lawfully be asked for one month's security deposit and one month's pet deposit, two months in total. Damage caused by an animal must be deducted from the pet deposit first, and from the security deposit only where the pet deposit is not enough. The pet ceiling also reaches further than the general one: it applies regardless of the duration of the agreement, while the security-deposit cap binds only on leases of a year or more and does not apply to furnished units at all — so on a six-month lease, or in a furnished unit, Delaware caps the pet deposit and not the security deposit. The pet deposit must also be returned where the landlord fails to supply possession (section 5304) and on termination after fire or casualty (section 5309, subsection (b)). No pet deposit at all may be required where the pet is a duly certified and trained support animal for a disabled person who is a resident of the rental unit, and Delaware defines a support animal narrowly; that is set out under assistance animals below.

Refundability: It is refundable and it carries most of the security-deposit machinery, but not all of it. Subsection (i)(1) applies subsections (b), (e), (f), (g) and (h) to a pet deposit: escrow in a federally insured bank with a Delaware office; remittance within twenty days of the end of the tenancy; an itemized list of damages within twenty days, with ten days for the tenant to object in writing; double the amount wrongfully withheld, and forfeiture plus double where the account was undisclosed or unescrowed; and the forwarding-address rules with a one-year backstop for a written claim. Subsections (c) and (j) are not on that list, so the pet deposit's purpose is fixed by subsection (i)(1) itself rather than by the general three-purpose list, and the rule letting a deposit rise with the rent does not reach it.

The general deposit cap it sits against: One month's rent for the ordinary security deposit — but only where the rental agreement is for a year or more, or, for a tenancy of undefined term or month to month, only once the tenancy has lasted a year (section 5514, subsection (a)(2) and (a)(3), the latter excepting federally assisted housing regulations); and the limits do not apply at all to furnished rental units (subsection (a)(4)). The security-deposits page carries the general cap and its return rules.
Pet rent and pet fees

No for a non-refundable pet fee, which a general or specific rule bars. Monthly pet rent is unaddressed.

A Delaware landlord may take a pet deposit and may charge monthly pet rent, but may not charge a non-refundable pet fee. The second reading is confirmed from the other direction by the 'assurance money' section, which sets a closed list of what a prospective tenant may lawfully be asked to pay: an application fee, a security deposit, a surety bond fee or premium, a pet deposit or similar deposit reserving the unit for a time certain, or reimbursement of specific sums the landlord spent on credit or other investigations (section 5310, subsection (a)). The legislature named the pet charge it permits, and named it twice; a pet fee is not on the list. A landlord must keep application records for six months, and the Consumer Protection Unit of the Attorney General's office investigates complaints under that section and may issue cease-and-desist orders (subsection (b)). Monthly pet rent is left alone entirely.

Monthly pet rent: Monthly pet rent is unaddressed. No Delaware statute caps, authorizes or forbids a recurring pet charge that is rent, and no reasonableness standard attaches to it. The phrases 'pet rent' and 'pet fee' do not appear anywhere in the thirty-one titles of the Delaware Code as housing terms.

A one-time pet fee: A one-time non-refundable pet fee is unlawful. A pet deposit is the charge Delaware permits, and the statute lists it as such twice; a pet fee is on neither list and is caught by the general bar.

How far the non-refundable-fee rule reaches: The bar is general and it is two sentences long: 'Except for an optional service fee for actual services rendered, such as a pool fee or tennis court fee, a landlord shall not charge to a tenant any nonrefundable fee as a condition for occupancy of the rental unit' (section 5311). The single exception is cumulative — the fee must be optional and it must buy an actual service, and both examples are amenity access. A charge for keeping a pet is neither optional for a tenant who has the pet nor a service rendered in exchange, so it is a non-refundable fee imposed as a condition for occupancy and it is barred. The bar does not use the word 'pet'; its reach comes from its own generality.
Pet policy in the lease, and changing it mid-tenancy

No — but a written-rules or mid-term-change provision would govern a pet rule the landlord adopts.

No Delaware statute requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed — the disclosure section asks only for the owner's or agent's name and business address — and none supplies a default when the lease is silent. What Delaware does instead is condition the landlord's own rules, cumulatively, with written tenant consent required for a mid-term change that substantially modifies the lease. On renewal, a landlord who intends to renew on amended terms must give at least sixty days' written notice before the agreement expires, specifying the modified provisions and the amount of any rent or security deposit and the date the change takes effect; the tenant is treated as accepting unless the tenant gives notice of termination at least forty-five days before the last day of the term, and a rejection counts as an effective termination notice (section 5107). That machinery does not apply where the rent and deposit are income-based under federal housing rules. An unauthorized pet runs through the ordinary breach route: written notice specifying the rule breached, at least seven days to remedy it, and a warning that a substantially similar breach within a year may be relied on for summary possession without a further cure period; the landlord may also cure the breach and bill the actual and reasonable cost as additional rent (section 5513). There is no number, species or weight limit anywhere in Delaware law, and no publicly financed housing class carries a pet mandate.

Changing the rule mid-tenancy: A tenant must obey the landlord's obligations and restrictions, whatever the landlord calls them — rules, regulations, restrictions or otherwise — only if all six conditions in section 5511, subsection (a), are met: the restriction promotes the health, safety, quiet, private enjoyment or welfare of the tenants, the preservation of the landlord's property from abuse and the fair distribution of services; it was brought to the tenant's attention at the time the tenant entered into the agreement; it is reasonably related to its purpose; it applies to all tenants of the property in a fair manner; it is explicit enough to tell the tenant what to do; and, if it was not made known at the start of the tenancy, it has been brought to the tenant's attention and, where it works a substantial modification of the lease agreement, consented to in writing by the tenant. A new no-pets rule, a new breed or weight rule or a new pet charge introduced during a tenancy is a substantial modification and does not bind without that written consent.
Breed, size and weight restrictions

Yes.

No Delaware housing statute reaches breed, size or weight, and none carves an assistance animal out of a landlord's breed rule. The word 'breed' does not appear at all in the property title or in the Delaware Fair Housing Act. Where it does appear, nineteen times across six titles, it is agriculture, the consumer law on selling dogs and cats, criminal trespass, animal-shelter and kennel rules, mosquito breeding, labeling, or one of three clauses that bar public bodies from acting on breed. That asymmetry is the Delaware fact worth having: a Delaware town may not make a dog ordinance based on breed, and no Delaware court may declare a dog dangerous or potentially dangerous solely because of its breed or perceived breed — but a Delaware landlord may still refuse the breed. A tenant whose animal is an accommodation relies on the fair-housing duty and the federal floor instead.
Assistance animals: the state instrument and who it binds

Yes — a disability-title housing right, with no documentation rule. The operative rules are statutory. State law incorporates a federal statute or codified regulation by reference.

Delaware's housing right for an animal is express, narrow and old. People who are blind, visually impaired or have physical disabilities are entitled to full and equal access, as other members of the general public, to all housing accommodations offered for rent, lease or compensation in the State, subject to the conditions and limitations the law places on everyone (title 16, section 9505, subsection (a)). A person who is totally or partially blind and has a guide dog is entitled to that same full and equal access, may not be required to pay extra compensation for the dog, and is liable for any damage the dog does to the premises (subsection (d)). Nothing in the section requires a landlord to modify the property in any way or to provide a higher degree of care (subsection (c)). A violation of the chapter is punishable by a $100 fine on conviction in a Justice of the Peace Court (section 9506). Beside that sits the generic duty in the Delaware Fair Housing Act: discrimination on the basis of a person's disability includes a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services where they may be necessary to afford the person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling (title 6, section 4603A, subsection (a)(2)). That Act is animal-silent — the words 'animal', 'service animal', 'support animal' and 'emotional support' appear nowhere in its chapter — and it carries two limits that matter here: it preserves any state or local law affording greater access (subsection (e)), and it does not require a dwelling to be made available to a person whose tenancy would constitute a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others (subsection (f)). Delaware sets no procedure for asking, no permitted questions and no duty on anyone who writes a letter.

Who it binds: Three scopes that do not line up, and a landlord has to know which question is being asked. The Landlord-Tenant Code's rules — the pet deposit, the fee bar, the rules section and the breach procedure — bind every residential landlord, with no small-landlord exemption and only the six excluded arrangements. The fair-housing duty to make reasonable accommodations does not bind an owner-occupied small landlord at all: it does not apply to rentals of rooms or units in a dwelling containing living quarters occupied or intended to be occupied by no more than four families living independently of each other, where the owner actually maintains and occupies one of them as a residence, and the accommodation section is named expressly in that exemption (title 6, section 4607, subsection (e)). The guide-dog housing right is the broadest of the three: it excludes only a single-family residence whose occupants rent, lease or furnish for compensation not more than one room in it (title 16, section 9505, subsection (b)), so it binds the owner-occupied fourplex that the fair-housing exemption releases. Delaware writes its own exemptions rather than adopting the federal Act's.
What counts as an assistance animal Delaware's statutes have never used the words 'assistance animal' or 'emotional support animal' — neither phrase appears anywhere in the thirty-one titles of the Code. What exists is three definitions in three places, plus one term used and never defined. In the Landlord-Tenant Code, a 'support animal' is any animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks to meet the requirements of a disabled person, including but not limited to minimal protection work, rescue work, pulling a wheelchair or retrieving dropped items (title 25, section 5141, paragraph (38)) — open as to species, closed as to training. In the Equal Accommodations Law, a 'service animal' is a dog individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or other mental disability (title 6, section 4502, paragraph (28)) — dog only, and public accommodations only. In the criminal provisions on harming a service dog, a 'service dog' is any guide dog, signal dog or other animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability (title 16, section 3056F, subsection (a)). And 'guide dog', the term the housing right itself turns on, is used three times in the white-cane chapter and never defined anywhere.
Documentation a landlord may request, and what a certifier must meet

No state text sets a documentation standard for an assistance animal in housing.

Delaware has no documentation rule at all. No statute gives a landlord any right to ask a question, names a certifier or a license class, sets a form, sets a deadline for an answer, limits what records may be demanded, or says anything about how a request is made or considered. No Delaware licensing board has a ground of discipline for writing an animal letter, and the professions title contains no reference to a service animal, a support animal, an assistance animal or emotional support. What Delaware has instead is an eligibility bar, and it sits inside the money rule rather than inside a documentation rule. The pet deposit is excused only where the pet is a 'duly certified and trained support animal for a disabled person who is a resident of the rental unit'. Read with the definition, that stacks three conditions: the animal is individually trained to do work or perform tasks; it is additionally 'duly certified', for which Delaware establishes no certification scheme, registry, certifier or standard anywhere in its Code or its administrative rules; and the disabled person is a resident of the unit, so the exemption does not reach a live-in aide's animal or an animal for a disabled occupant who is not a resident. The federal accommodation standard imposes none of those three, which is why a landlord who reads only the deposit section will reach the wrong answer about an animal that is a necessary accommodation.
Charges for an assistance animal

Under state law, yes — the state bar reaches only a trained service, guide, hearing or assistance dog, or a certified animal; the federal rules still govern an emotional support animal; the bar is a carve-out written into the deposit statute.

Delaware bars the charge twice, and both bars turn on training, so neither reaches an emotional support animal. A landlord may not require any pet deposit where the pet is a duly certified and trained support animal for a disabled person who is a resident of the rental unit (title 25, section 5514, subsection (i)(3)), and a support animal is defined as an animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks. Separately, a totally or partially blind tenant with a guide dog may not be required to pay extra compensation for the dog in any housing accommodation (title 16, section 9505, subsection (d)). The two do not cover the same ground. The deposit exemption reaches any species but only a task-trained animal, and it bars only a deposit; the guide-dog bar reaches one disability and one kind of animal, but the words 'extra compensation' are wider than 'deposit' and would reach pet rent. Neither reaches an animal kept for emotional support, and the words 'emotional support' appear nowhere in Delaware law. A tenant with such an animal relies on the fair-housing duty to make reasonable accommodations and on federal law, subject to the owner-occupied exemption that switches the state duty off entirely in a dwelling of four families or fewer where the owner lives in one of them. A manufactured-home community uses the same exemption with one word dropped: 'certified and trained', without 'duly'.

The definition it hangs on: 'Support animal' shall mean any animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks to meet the requirements of a disabled person, including, but not limited to, minimal protection work, rescue work, pulling a wheelchair or retrieving dropped items (25 Del. C. § 5141(38)).

Remedy: For the guide-dog bar, a criminal fine: a person who violates the white-cane chapter is fined $100 for every violation on conviction in a Justice of the Peace Court (title 16, section 9506), and denying or interfering with the rights that chapter protects is separately a misdemeanor (section 9504). A $100 penalty for charging a blind tenant extra for a guide dog is a small figure, but it is a real one and it is in the statute. The deposit exemption itself carries no separate penalty beyond the ordinary deposit remedies.
Damage caused by an assistance animal

The tenant is liable for damage the animal causes like any other tenant, by express words.

Three rules, deliberately different. In an ordinary tenancy, damage caused by an animal is deducted from the pet deposit first and from the security deposit only where the pet deposit is not enough (title 25, section 5514, subsection (i)(1)) — a one-way order. In a manufactured-home community the order runs both ways: pet damage comes out of the pet deposit first, and where the non-pet deposit is not enough to cover non-pet damage, that damage may be taken from the pet deposit even though a pet did not cause it (section 7017, subsection (h)(1) and (h)(2)). For a guide dog the rule is bare: the blind handler is liable for any damage the dog does to the premises (title 16, section 9505, subsection (d)), with no wear-and-tear qualifier. Over all of it sits the fair-housing limit that no dwelling need be made available where the tenancy would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would cause substantial physical damage to the property of others.
Misrepresenting an assistance animal

None — no offense, penalty, forfeiture, eviction ground or licensing sanction exists.

Delaware has no offense and no civil penalty for misrepresenting an animal as a service, support or assistance animal, and no landlord remedy attached to a false claim. Across all thirty-one titles of the Code the word 'misrepresent' and its forms appear near an animal word only three times, and none of them is a status offense: two are in the consumer law on selling dogs and cats, which bars a seller from misrepresenting a dog's registration or breed, and the third is in the cruelty statute, which reaches a person who obtains a pet under false pretenses and delivers it to a shelter, clinic or other facility. What Delaware has instead runs the other way. It is a class B misdemeanor to intentionally interfere with the use of a service dog by obstructing or intimidating the user or jeopardizing the safety of the user or the animal, a class A misdemeanor to injure or disable one, a class D felony to kill one and a class E felony to steal one, with full restitution ordered in every case (title 16, section 3056F). Those protect the animal and its handler; they are not offenses of pretending.

The landlord-side offense: The penalties Delaware does have run against the person who denies the right, not the person who fakes one. Denying or interfering with the rights the white-cane chapter protects is a misdemeanor (title 16, section 9504), and every violation of that chapter carries a $100 fine on conviction (section 9506). Because the guide-dog housing right and its no-extra-compensation rule are in that chapter, a landlord who charges a blind tenant extra for a guide dog is exposed to that fine.
Can cities add their own rules

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

Delaware bars breed-based municipal dog ordinances outright, in a single sentence in the municipal-powers chapter. County dog law went the same way a decade ago: the county dog provisions, including the service-dog offenses and county dog law management, are all marked transferred to the State health title with effect from May 25, 2016, and what the counties have left is the power to fund animal control as a service, not to legislate breed. Two further clauses bar breed-based action by any Delaware body: no dog may be considered dangerous or potentially dangerous solely because of its breed or perceived breed, and no dog may be declared potentially dangerous on that basis. On pet charges there is no local authority at all — the Landlord-Tenant Code is the measure of all rights, remedies and obligations of all parties to any rental agreement of a rental unit in the State, so a municipal pet-deposit or pet-fee rule has nothing to attach to. One clause points the other way and it is a rule of construction rather than a grant: in defining the scope of any duty the Fair Housing Act imposes, including the duty of reasonable accommodation, higher or more comprehensive obligations established by otherwise applicable federal, state or local enactments may be considered (title 6, section 4601, subsection (b)). The Superior Court set that subsection out in full in the one live Delaware rental case about an assistance animal, so it is applied law rather than decoration. No Delaware city or town has a pet ordinance for this page to point at.

Breed-specific local animal-control rules barred: The municipal governments shall enact no law, ordinance or regulation relating to dogs, or restrictions on dogs, based on a dog's breed or perceived breed. The section is one sentence long and it sits in the general chapter on municipal powers rather than in an animal title, which is why it is easy to miss. Text: 22 Del. C. § 116.
Housing classes with their own pet rule Manufactured-home communities: lots rented under 25 Del. C. ch. 70: pet deposit — capped; a pet rule binds only if disclosed or agreed in writing; an extra charge for an assistance animal — barred for a trained service animal only. A manufactured-home community runs a different pet-deposit regime from an ordinary tenancy, and five things about it are reversed or added. A landlord may require a pet security deposit for each pet, and only if the rental agreement provides for it (section 7017, subsection (h)(1)). The ceiling is one month's rent, but it may be exceeded where the tenant agrees and the full amount is specified in the rental agreement (subsection (h)(3)) — a waivable cap, where the ordinary residential ceiling is absolute. Damage caused by a tenant's pet comes out of the pet security deposit first and out of the non-pet deposit only if that is not enough; but the order also runs the other way, so where the non-pet deposit is not enough to cover non-pet damage, that damage may be taken from the pet deposit even though a pet did not cause it (subsections (h)(1) and (h)(2)). A pet security deposit here is expressly 'a type of security deposit', which is the opposite of the ordinary rule that puts a pet deposit outside the definition, and it carries subsections (b), (d), (e), (f) and (g) of the same section. No pet security deposit may be required where the pet is a certified and trained support animal for a person with a disability who lives in a manufactured home on a rented lot — the same exemption as the ordinary one with the word 'duly' dropped (subsection (h)(4)). And a pet living in the home, or on the lot, is deemed owned and controlled by the tenant who lives there whoever legally owns it (subsection (h)(5)). Text: 25 Del. C. § 7017 · (h)(1)–(5).
Insurance and dog breeds No statute restricts an insurer's use of dog breed in underwriting
How state law refers to the federal rules Delaware references federal law in three places on this page, and the first is a supremacy clause. Where a tenant's rent and security deposit are a function of income under the regulations or guidelines of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, the renewal-modification machinery does not apply and those federal rules govern the determination and future adjustment of the rent and deposit; and for a tenant occupying a federally subsidized unit, any conflict between the Landlord-Tenant Code and a federal regulation or guideline is resolved in favor of the federal one (title 25, section 5107, subsection (d)). Because that clause reaches deposits, it reaches the pet deposit. The month-to-month deposit cap carries its own carve-out for federally assisted housing regulations (section 5514, subsection (a)(3)). And in defining the scope of the state accommodation duty, higher or more comprehensive obligations established by applicable federal, state or local enactments may be considered (title 6, section 4601, subsection (b)). No federal agency notice or joint statement is referenced anywhere in Delaware law. The point that matters most to a reader is the gap this leaves: Delaware's two housing charge bars both require training, its statutes never use the words 'emotional support', and so a Delaware tenant's rights for an animal kept for emotional support are federal ones, mirrored by the state accommodation duty and switched off entirely in an owner-occupied dwelling of four families or fewer. The federal section of the 50-state page carries the federal layer.
Changes already signed into law No signed act is waiting to change these answers
Leading court decisions Delaware Human and Civil Rights Commission v. Greenbrier Condos, L.L.C., C.A. No. N24C-02-153 EMD (no official reporter citation has issued) (Delaware Superior Court; 2024; residential setting; bears on the assistance-animal rule): The Commission sued the owner of a residential apartment community and its property manager on behalf of a disabled tenant who has an emotional support animal and wanted a first-floor apartment because she has difficulty walking, pleading two discrimination counts and a failure to make a reasonable accommodation. The court denied the motion to dismiss as to the first and third counts, reading the Act to let the Commission or the aggrieved party bring claims made in the original complaint and addressed in the charge even where the investigating division found reasonable cause on only some of them, and setting out the Act's liberal-construction clause in full before doing so. The ruling is procedural: it lets the accommodation claim proceed rather than deciding it. It is the only Delaware decision applying the state accommodation duty to an animal in a rental.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Delaware Pet & Assistance Animal Laws (verified September 21, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/pets/delaware/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Delaware assistance-animal documentation at a glance

The state's instrument sets no documentation standard, so every row below reads not stated unless a slot is addressed elsewhere in state law; the federal rules further down this page apply on top. The full text of each slot, with its section, is in the table above.

Slot What the state's text says
Who may certify, and on what test Not stated
The certifier's minimum relationship period Not stated
Telehealth Not stated
Online registration or certificate Not stated
Form Not stated
Medical records Not stated
Written answer from the landlord Not stated
Annual re-evaluation Not stated
Proof of vaccination or licensing Not stated

Housing classes in Delaware with their own pet rule

Each row is a housing class whose own instrument sets at least one pet cell differently from the private-market answers above; a dash is a cell the class's instrument does not set, so the residential answer on this page does not carry over to it either way. The full text of each row is in the table above.

Class Pet deposit Pet rent and fees In the lease Breed, size, weight Extra charge for an assistance animal From
Manufactured-home communities: lots rented under 25 Del. C. ch. 70 Capped — Binds only if disclosed or agreed in writing — Barred for a trained service animal only —

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. The full text of each row, with its citations, is on the 50-state page.

Notes and caveats

Common questions: Delaware pets & assistance animals

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Can a landlord charge a pet deposit in Delaware, and is there a limit?
Yes, up to a ceiling the statute sets for a pet deposit as such. No landlord may require a pet deposit in excess of one month's rent, regardless of the duration of the rental agreement (section 5514, subsection (i)(2)).
Can a landlord charge pet rent or a non-refundable pet fee in Delaware?
No for a non-refundable pet fee, which a general or specific rule bars. Monthly pet rent is unaddressed.
Does a Delaware lease have to state a pet policy?
No — but a written-rules or mid-term-change provision would govern a pet rule the landlord adopts. No Delaware statute requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed — the disclosure section asks only for the owner's or agent's name and business address — and none supplies a default when the lease is silent.
Can a Delaware landlord restrict pets by breed, size or weight?
Yes. No Delaware housing statute reaches breed, size or weight, and none carves an assistance animal out of a landlord's breed rule.
Does Delaware have its own assistance-animal law for rentals?
Yes — a disability-title housing right, with no documentation rule. The operative rules are statutory.
What documentation can a Delaware landlord ask for when a tenant requests an assistance animal?
No state text sets a documentation standard for an assistance animal in housing. Delaware has no documentation rule at all.
Can a Delaware landlord charge a pet deposit or pet rent for an emotional support animal?
Under state law, yes — the state bar reaches only a trained service, guide, hearing or assistance dog, or a certified animal; the federal rules still govern an emotional support animal; the bar is a carve-out written into the deposit statute. Delaware bars the charge twice, and both bars turn on training, so neither reaches an emotional support animal.
What is the penalty for falsely claiming an assistance animal in Delaware?
None — no offense, penalty, forfeiture, eviction ground or licensing sanction exists. Delaware has no offense and no civil penalty for misrepresenting an animal as a service, support or assistance animal, and no landlord remedy attached to a false claim.

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (September 21, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Citations

How this record was verified: All thirty-one titles of the Delaware Code were taken as the State's own authenticated title documents and converted to text, giving a body of about 44.6 million characters, each title carrying the same notice on its first page: the text is considered an official version of the State of Delaware statutory code and includes all acts enacted as of August 27, 2026, up to and including 85 Del. Laws, c. 453, 455-458, 460. Each title had been updated on the State's server on September 16, 2026. Every pet and animal term was then located to its own section rather than counted. Title 25, the property title, was worked through in full for the Landlord-Tenant Code and the manufactured-home community chapter, with sections 5101, 5102, 5105, 5107, 5141, 5304, 5309, 5310, 5311, 5511, 5512, 5513, 5514 and 7017 read clause by clause and their credit lines read with them. Title 6 was worked through for the Delaware Fair Housing Act and the Equal Accommodations Law, title 16 for the white-cane chapter and the dog statutes, title 24 for a provider duty, title 11 for an offense, title 22 and title 9 for municipal and county power, title 31 for a publicly financed housing mandate and title 18 for an insurance rule. The Delaware Administrative Code was searched through the Register of Regulations' own service for six animal and pet terms. The Governor's signed-legislation feed for the 153rd General Assembly, 534 items, was taken in full and each title and synopsis searched; the enrolled acts 85 Del. Laws c. 104, 84 Del. Laws c. 428 and 84 Del. Laws c. 390 were opened and compared. Both printed versions of 6 Del. C. § 4607 were compared line by line. A named search of the open case-law index across the Delaware courts returned seven opinions and three were read in full. Every date was read against September 21, 2026.

What was read to state each absence on this page: