Landlord Atlas

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

Verified September 21, 2026 All Georgia topics →

Georgia lets a landlord charge for a pet in two different ways, and which one is used decides everything.

Cited to O.C.G.A. § 44-7-30 (1), (2), (3) and 18 more cited sources · Verified September 21, 2026

A pet deposit that will be refunded counts as a security deposit, so it sits inside the ordinary ceiling of two months' rent together with the regular deposit and any advance rent, and there is no pet allowance on top. A pet fee the lease says will not be refunded is a nonrefundable fee, which the statute writes out of the meaning of a security deposit, so it is uncapped, is not escrowed and does not come back. The ceiling itself applies only to leases entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024. Monthly pet rent is not regulated at all. No lease has to state a pet policy, nothing limits breed, size or weight, and there is no rule about changing a pet rule mid-tenancy. Since July 1, 2026 a physically or mentally impaired person has a statutory right to keep a service dog in any rental and may not be charged extra for it, and faking that qualification, or denying the right, is now a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature carrying up to $2,000 and thirty days. That right covers a trained dog only: Georgia's definition expressly excludes a dog that just provides comfort or emotional support, and the words emotional support animal appear nowhere in Georgia law, so a tenant with such an animal must ask for a waiver as a reasonable accommodation, which is not automatic and which small landlords are exempt from.

Georgia pets & assistance animals at a glance

Which law governs Two bodies of law carry this page and they are different in kind. The money rules are in article 2 of title 44 chapter 7 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated: section 44-7-30 defines a security deposit to include a pet deposit and expressly excludes a nonrefundable fee from that definition, section 44-7-30.1 caps the security deposit at two months' rent for leases entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024, section 44-7-34 makes unpaid pet fees a ground for keeping the deposit, and section 44-7-36 exempts small natural-person landlords from the escrow and remedies machinery but not from the cap or the definitions. The assistance-animal answer is in title 30 chapter 4, the rights of persons with disabilities: as rewritten effective July 1, 2026, section 30-4-3 gives a physically or mentally impaired person the right to rent housing on the same terms as anyone else and to keep a service dog without paying extra compensation, section 30-4-1 defines a service dog in a way that excludes an animal kept only for comfort or emotional support, and section 30-4-4 makes both denying those rights and falsely claiming them a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature. Beside that sits the Georgia Fair Housing Act, sections 8-3-200 to 8-3-223, whose duty to make reasonable accommodations in rules and policies is the only route by which an animal kept for emotional support reaches Georgia law, and whose own exemptions are wider than the disability chapter's.
Where in the state the answers differ Three different scopes run through this page and they do not line up. The service-dog right and the bar on extra compensation reach every Georgia rental with one exception written into the definition of housing accommodations: a single-family residence whose occupants rent out not more than one room. There is no unit threshold, no owner-occupancy carve-out and no in-the-business test in that chapter. The Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty, by contrast, does not apply to a single-family dwelling sold or rented by an owner who owns no more than three of them at a time, who uses no broker, agent or salesperson and publishes no prohibited advertisement, or to rooms or units in a dwelling for no more than four families where the owner actually lives in one of them, and further limits cover religious organizations, private clubs and housing for older persons. The deposit machinery has a third scope: a natural person who, with a spouse and minor children, owns ten or fewer rental units is exempt from the escrow, surety-bond, damage-list and remedies sections, unless third parties manage the units for a fee, but that exemption does not reach the definitions section or the ceiling, so every Georgia landlord is bound by those. Finally the ceiling itself is limited by lease vintage: it applies only to residential leases entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024.
Which landlords are covered Every residential landlord is bound by the pet-money rules. The ceiling on deposits and the definition that puts a pet deposit inside it carry no exemption of any kind, and the small-landlord exemption in the deposit article reaches only the escrow, surety-bond, damage-list and remedies sections, not the definitions or the ceiling. The assistance-animal side splits. The service-dog right and the charge bar bind every landlord except in a single-family residence where the occupants let out not more than one room, which is written out of the definition of housing accommodations. The Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty, the only Georgia route for an animal kept for emotional support, is exempted for an owner of no more than three single-family dwellings who uses no broker and publishes no prohibited advertisement, and for an owner-occupied building housing no more than four families, with further limits for religious organizations, private clubs and housing for older persons. So a landlord who lives in one of four units is outside the state accommodation duty but still may not charge extra for a service dog. Georgia has no manufactured-home lot-lease act and no county-by-county adoption of a uniform act.
Pet deposit

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

Georgia names pet deposits in its deposit statute and puts them inside the general ceiling. A security deposit means money or other security given by a tenant to a landlord to be held on the tenant's behalf under a residential rental agreement, and the term expressly includes damage deposits, advance rent deposits and pet deposits (section 44-7-30, subsection (3)). So a refundable pet deposit counts toward the two months' rent ceiling rather than sitting on top of it, and there is no per-pet allowance and no pet-specific figure anywhere in Georgia law. The deposit then carries the whole ordinary scheme: the escrow account or surety bond, the move-in and move-out damage lists, the thirty-day return and the treble-damages remedy. Unpaid pet fees are one of the grounds on which a landlord may keep the deposit, alongside unpaid rent, late fees, abandonment, unpaid utilities, tenant-contracted repair or cleaning work and actual damages from a breach, provided the landlord tries to mitigate. One exemption looks wider than it is: a natural person who with a spouse and minor children owns ten or fewer rental units, and who does not have third parties managing them for a fee, is outside the escrow, surety-bond, damage-list and remedies sections, but that exemption does not list the definitions section or the ceiling, so the small landlord is still bound by both.

Refundability: A refundable pet deposit is a security deposit and must be handled as one. A sum the parties agreed would not be refunded is a nonrefundable fee under section 44-7-30, subsection (1), and a security deposit expressly does not include nonrefundable fees or money that is not to be returned to the tenant under the terms of the agreement (subsection (3)). That definitional pair is the whole Georgia answer: whether the money is refundable decides whether the deposit rules touch it at all.

The general deposit cap it sits against: No landlord may demand or receive a security deposit in an amount that exceeds the equivalent of two months' rent (section 44-7-30.1). That is an aggregate ceiling covering the ordinary deposit, advance rent and the pet deposit together; the security-deposits page carries it with the rest of the deposit rules.

Where the rule switches off or on: The ceiling is limited by lease vintage. The 2024 act that created it applies to residential lease agreements entered into or renewed on or after July 1, 2024, so a lease signed before that date and never renewed is not subject to the two-month ceiling at all, and a reader checks the date the current agreement was signed or last renewed.
Pet rent and pet fees

Yes — pet rent or a pet fee may be charged, and no statute caps it.

Georgia does not bar nonrefundable fees; it defines the category in order to put it outside the deposit scheme. A nonrefundable fee means any money or other consideration paid by a tenant to a landlord under a residential rental agreement which the parties agreed would not be refunded (section 44-7-30, subsection (1)), and a security deposit does not include nonrefundable fees (subsection (3)). A pet fee agreed to be nonrefundable is therefore uncapped, unescrowed and unreturnable, and Georgia closes the loop from the other side by making unpaid pet fees a ground for keeping the deposit. Monthly pet rent is not addressed at all: no cap, no standard, no disclosure duty. Two limits belong with the answer. The exclusion depends on the agreement, so a charge the lease does not describe as nonrefundable is still a deposit. And ordinary contract law still polices the amount, because a sum that operates as a penalty rather than a genuine estimate of loss can be unenforceable, a point Georgia's own courts have applied to a large nonrefundable charge in a residential agreement.

Monthly pet rent: Monthly pet rent is unaddressed. No Georgia statute caps it, sets a reasonableness standard for it or requires it to be disclosed, and the nonrefundable-fee definition does not reach it, because a recurring charge for occupancy is rent rather than a deposit or a fee.

A one-time pet fee: A one-time pet fee that the lease says will not be refunded is a nonrefundable fee, which the deposit statute expressly excludes from the meaning of a security deposit. It is therefore lawful and uncapped, is not held in escrow, does not count toward the two months' rent ceiling, and does not have to be returned or itemized. The exclusion turns on agreement: the parties must actually have agreed that the sum would not be refunded, and a charge not so agreed falls back inside the deposit definition.
Pet policy in the lease, and changing it mid-tenancy

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

Georgia requires nothing and supplies nothing. There is no statutory list of lease subjects at all, nothing requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed or on what terms, and there is no statutory default for or against pets when the lease is silent. Georgia also has no rules-adoption or mid-term-change section for a new pet rule to pass through, no limit on the number of animals, no cure period for an unauthorized pet and no bar on a condition such as declawing or devocalization. The landlord-tenant chapter uses the word animal nowhere and the word pet only twice, in the deposit definition and in the retention grounds. No publicly financed or income-restricted housing program carries a pet duty either: the state housing agency's published rules are building codes, planning, grants and tax-credit programs, with no rental-tenancy chapter at all. The lease governs.
Breed, size and weight restrictions

Yes.

No Georgia statute or rule limits, authorizes or preempts a breed, size or weight restriction in a tenancy, and there is no breed carve-out for an assistance animal. The words breed, weight and size appear nowhere in the landlord-tenant chapter, the operative sections of the Fair Housing Act carry no animal term of any kind, and the Commission on Equal Opportunity's fair-housing rules contain no breed or animal word either. A tenant facing a breed policy applied to a service dog has two levers and neither is a breed rule: the access right and charge bar in the disability chapter, and the duty to make reasonable accommodations in rules and policies, which the Court of Appeals applies on the federal test. Georgia's dog-control title sets minimum standards and expressly lets a local government adopt more restrictive dog-control ordinances (section 4-8-1), so a municipal breed-specific ordinance sits inside that grant; it is animal control, not a rule for a landlord's lease.
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.

Georgia rewrote its disability chapter effective July 1, 2026, and the housing section is short. A physically or mentally impaired person is entitled to rent, lease or purchase, as other members of the general public, all housing accommodations offered for rent, lease or other compensation in the state, subject to conditions and limitations established by law and applied alike to everyone. Every such person who has or obtains a service dog, and every person engaged in training one, is entitled to full and equal access to those housing accommodations and may not be required to pay extra compensation for the dog; but the person is liable for any damage the dog does to the premises. Nothing in the section requires a landlord to modify the property in any way or to provide a higher degree of care for an impaired person than for anyone else (section 30-4-3). No documentation rule is attached to any of that. Before July 1, 2026 the section reached only blind, visually disabled, physically disabled and deaf persons and spoke of a guide dog or service dog; mental impairment entered Georgia's housing section for the first time with that rewrite, while the animal vocabulary narrowed to a service dog as newly defined. Beside the housing right, and separately from it, the Georgia Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to discriminate in the terms, conditions or privileges of the rental of a dwelling because of a disability, and defines that discrimination to include a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services when they may be necessary to give a person an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling (section 8-3-202, subsection (a), paragraph (7)). That clause carries no animal word, no documentation rule and no charge rule, and it is the only route by which an animal kept for emotional support reaches Georgia law at all.

Who it binds: Two scopes, and they do not match. The housing right and the charge bar in the disability chapter have no landlord-size exemption at all. The only limiting device is inside the definition of what the right attaches to: housing accommodations means any real property used, occupied or intended as the home, residence or sleeping place of one or more human beings, but does not include a single-family residence whose occupants rent, lease or furnish for compensation not more than one room in it (section 30-4-1, subsection (2)). Everything else is inside, with no unit threshold, no owner-occupancy exemption, no broker condition and no in-the-business test, and the chapter contains no exemption section. The Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty is exempted twice over: nothing in its operative section, other than the advertising paragraph, applies to a single-family dwelling sold or rented by an owner who owns no more than three such dwellings at a time and who acts without any real estate broker, agent or salesperson and without a prohibited advertisement, or to rooms or units in a dwelling for no more than four families where the owner actually maintains and occupies one of them as a residence (section 8-3-202, subsection (b)). The same section defines who is in the business, preserves a defense where a tenancy would be a direct threat to others or would cause substantial physical damage to their property, and a further section adds limits for religious organizations, private clubs and housing for older persons. The practical result is that a landlord with three or fewer single-family rentals, or one living in a building of four units or fewer, is outside the state accommodation duty, and with it outside the only Georgia route for an animal kept for emotional support, while still being forbidden to charge extra for a service dog.
What counts as an assistance animal Since July 1, 2026, 'service dog' means any domestic canine that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks that directly assist a physically or mentally impaired person, that directly relate to that person's specific disability and that involve taking a specific action when needed, or that is still in training under a trainer's guidance; and the term expressly does not include a dog that has not been trained to do a specific job or task, or that solely provides comfort, companionship or emotional support, regardless of the person's disability status (section 30-4-1, subsection (5)). Three limits in that sentence all do work: the animal must be a domestic canine, so no other species qualifies; it must be individually trained to take a specific action; and a comfort-only dog is excluded by name. 'Physically or mentally impaired person' means anyone, of any age, who is substantially limited or unable to perform one or more activities of daily living over an extended period as a result of developmental deficiencies, aging, learning disabilities, physical injury or disease, cognitive impairments or psychological disabilities (subsection (4)), and activities of daily living are the essential routine tasks that provide for basic needs (subsection (1)). Owner training and trainer are both defined, so a person with a disability who trains their own dog is covered (subsections (3) and (6)). The Fair Housing Act uses 'disability' in the familiar three-part form of a physical or mental impairment substantially limiting a major life activity, a record of such an impairment or being regarded as having one, excluding current illegal drug use (section 8-3-201). The terms assistance animal, support animal, emotional support animal and companion animal appear nowhere in Georgia law.
Documentation a landlord may request, and what a certifier must meet

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

Georgia has no documentation rules at all, in statute or in regulation. Nothing says what a landlord may ask for, who may write anything, how long a treating relationship must have run, what an online registration or certificate proves, whether a form may be required, whether medical records may be demanded, or whether and how quickly a landlord must answer. Nobody signs anything in Georgia: no professional carries a duty in connection with a service dog and no licensing board discipline attaches. One near-miss is worth knowing about because pre-2026 summaries still repeat it. Until June 30, 2026 the public-accommodations section required that a guide dog or service dog be identified as having been trained by a school for seeing eye, hearing, service or guide dogs, and carried conditions about school credentials and an identifying collar. The 2026 act struck all of that and replaced it with control conditions, and none of it ever reached housing in any event, because that section is about common carriers, hotels, lodging places and other places of public 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 an express no-extra-charge clause, in a statute.

A physically or mentally impaired person who has or obtains a service dog, and a person training one, may not be required to pay extra compensation for the dog in housing (section 30-4-3, subsection (b)). The bar is absolute in a tenancy and no landlord is exempt from it, except where the property is a single-family residence letting out not more than one room. It reaches a service dog and nothing else, because the term is defined as a domestic canine individually trained to take a specific action, and expressly excludes a dog that solely provides comfort, companionship or emotional support. So there is no categorical no-charge rule in Georgia for an animal kept for emotional support. Such a tenant must ask for a waiver as a reasonable accommodation under the Fair Housing Act, and the outcome is not automatic: the Court of Appeals affirmed judgment for a landlord in 2023 where a tenant with post-traumatic stress disorder sought to have pet fees and a pet deposit waived for his animal, holding that he had not shown the waiver would itself relieve the effect of his disability any further than keeping the dog already did. One neighboring rule is often mistaken for this one: the public-accommodations section carries its own bar on an extra charge for a service dog, but it is limited to common carriers, hotels, lodging places and other places of public accommodation, and does not reach rental housing.

The definition it hangs on: 'Service dog' means any domestic canine that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks that directly assist a physically or mentally impaired person and directly relate to such person's specific disability and to take a specific action when needed to assist the person, or if still in training, that is operating under the guidance of a trainer. Such term shall not include a dog that has not been trained to do a specific job or task or that solely provides comfort, companionship, or emotional support to a person, regardless of such person's disability status. (O.C.G.A. § 30-4-1(5), effective July 1, 2026.)

Remedy: Denying or interfering with the rights the chapter gives, including the right not to be charged, is a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature carrying a fine of up to $2,000, confinement for up to thirty days, or both (section 30-4-4, subsection (a)). The chapter creates no private claim for damages, so a tenant's civil route runs through the Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty instead.
Damage caused by an assistance animal Georgia states the liability directly and states it broadly: the person is liable for any damage done to the premises by the service dog (section 30-4-3, subsection (b)). There is no parity clause putting the tenant on the same footing as any other animal owner, and no exclusion for ordinary wear and tear. The same section adds that nothing in it requires a landlord to modify the property in any way, or to provide a higher degree of care for an impaired person than for anyone else (subsection (c)). Georgia has no statute immunizing a landlord who permits an animal from liability for what it does.
Misrepresenting an assistance animal

An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: a misdemeanor, reaching the person claiming the animal and a landlord who denies or interferes with the right. Penalty terms: a fine not to exceed $2,000.00; and confinement for not more than 30 days, or both the fine and the confinement.

Georgia got its first misrepresentation offense on July 1, 2026. Any individual who deliberately misrepresents himself or herself as qualified to use a service dog, or to train or raise service dogs, for the purpose of obtaining accommodations or securing rights under the chapter, is guilty of a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature, punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, confinement for up to thirty days, or both (section 30-4-4, subsection (b)). It reaches housing, because the rights secured under the chapter include the housing right and the freedom from an extra charge, so a tenant who fakes service-dog qualification to obtain a rental or to escape a pet charge is inside it. No prior warning is required. Its scope is a service dog as the chapter defines one, so misrepresenting an animal kept for emotional support is not an offense in Georgia, for the simple reason that Georgia law has no such category. Anything written about this state before July 2026 states the position wrongly, because before that date Georgia had no misrepresentation offense of any kind.

The landlord-side offense: The landlord side is an offense in the same section. Any person, firm or corporation, or the agent of one, who denies or interferes with admittance to or enjoyment of the facilities the chapter names, or otherwise interferes with the rights of a physically or mentally impaired person or of a person engaged in training or raising a service dog as the chapter provides, is guilty of a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature, punishable by a fine of up to $2,000, confinement for up to thirty days, or both (section 30-4-4, subsection (a)). Because the chapter's rights include the housing right and the bar on extra compensation, a landlord who charges for a service dog is inside that offense.

Who enforces it: Prosecution. Both limbs are misdemeanors of a high and aggravated nature, which is a Georgia grade rather than an ordinary misdemeanor, and both carry the same maximum. There is no second-offense escalation, no civil penalty, no private claim under the chapter and no licensing sanction, because no Georgia professional has a duty here.
Can cities add their own rules

Yes, within the powers state law names in this row.

Georgia devolves fair housing narrowly, says nothing about local pet rules in housing, and grants local governments dog-control authority above the state minimum. A city or county may copy the state's discriminatory-housing-practice sections word for word, but may not expand or reduce the rights the article grants, so a municipal pet-charge or breed ordinance in rentals would fall outside the grant rather than inside it. The companion section is a referral rule tied to federal certification of a substantially equivalent local law and confers no power to legislate. Two separate statewide preemptions sit beside the answer and are not part of it. The state bars any local ordinance regulating the amount of rent for privately owned residential rental property, and whether that reaches monthly pet rent is an open question nobody has answered. And since 2025 no local government may require the registration of residential rental property, or inspect one without probable cause, which forecloses the commonest municipal vehicle for a pet-policy filing duty. Georgia's dog-control title expressly authorizes municipal and county ordinances that regulate dogs more restrictively than the state's minimum standards (section 4-8-1), which is where a local breed-specific ordinance would sit; that is animal-control authority, not authority over what a landlord charges or puts in a lease. No Georgia city carries a pets-in-housing record.

The fair-housing act preserves or devolves local ordinances: A political subdivision of the state may adopt verbatim the laws against discriminatory housing practices in the named sections of the fair-housing article as a local ordinance, but may not expand or reduce the rights granted by the article. That is a copying power and nothing more: a local ordinance capping pet deposits, banning pet rent or barring breed policies in rentals would expand rights beyond the article and is outside the grant. Text: O.C.G.A. § 8-3-220.

The fair-housing act preserves or devolves local ordinances, a second instrument: Where a local fair housing law provides rights and remedies substantially equivalent to the article's, as certified under the federal fair housing amendments, the state administrator notifies the local agency of a complaint that appears to violate the local law and takes no further action if the local official begins proceedings within thirty days. This is a complaint-referral rule and it confers no ordinance power at all. Text: O.C.G.A. § 8-3-210.

Local rent control barred: No county or municipal corporation may enact, maintain or enforce any ordinance or resolution that would regulate in any way the amount of rent to be charged for privately owned single-family or multiple-unit residential rental property, with a saving for property belonging to the county, the municipality or an authority it created. Whether the words about the amount of rent reach monthly pet rent has never been construed; the statute's wording is broad and monthly pet rent is rent, but nothing decides it. Text: O.C.G.A. § 44-7-19.

Localities may regulate the keeping or licensing of animals: The dog chapter establishes state minimum standards for the control and regulation of dogs and does not prohibit local governments from adopting and enforcing ordinances or resolutions that provide for more restrictive control and regulation of dogs (section 4-8-1, in force July 1, 2012). A municipal breed-specific ordinance sits inside that grant; the grant is animal control and confers no power over a landlord's charges or lease terms. Text: O.C.G.A. § 4-8-1.
Housing classes with their own pet rule No manufactured-home park, publicly financed, public-housing or senior-housing rule departs from the answers above
Insurance and dog breeds No statute restricts an insurer's use of dog breed in underwriting
How state law refers to the federal rules Georgia points at federal law twice, and in both places it points at rules and cases rather than at any agency notice. The Commission on Equal Opportunity's fair-housing rules direct the state administrator, for guidance on reasonable modifications and on reasonable accommodations, to the examples set out in the federal fair-housing regulations at 24 C.F.R. sections 100.203(c) and 100.204(b), and to any other relevant sources. Those are regulations in force, and the federal section of the 50-state page carries their status rather than this page. Separately, Georgia's courts read the two acts together: because the Georgia Fair Housing Act and the federal act are nearly identical, the Court of Appeals treats federal cases construing the federal act as persuasive precedent when deciding a claim under the state act. That is why the one Georgia decision on waiving pet fees for an assistance animal applies a federal appellate test rather than a Georgia-specific standard, and it means Georgia's answer for an animal kept for emotional support moves with federal case law. No Georgia statute or rule adopts any federal agency notice.
Changes already signed into law No signed act is waiting to change these answers
Leading court decisions Leslie v. 1125 Hammond, LP, No. A23A0568 (Ga. Ct. App. June 7, 2023) (residential setting; bears on charges for an assistance animal): An apartment tenant with post-traumatic stress disorder asked his landlord to waive the pet fees and the pet deposit for his service animal as a reasonable accommodation, and sued under the federal fair housing act and the Georgia Fair Housing Act when nothing was done. Applying the four-element federal test, the court held that he had not shown that waiving the pet fees would itself relieve the effect of his disability any further than the benefit he already had from keeping the dog, and that there was in any event a lack of evidence that the landlord actually refused the request. Judgment for the landlord was affirmed. It is the only Georgia decision on waiving pet charges for an assistance animal, and no Georgia decision construes the disability chapter's housing section at all.

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

Georgia 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

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: Georgia 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 Georgia, and is there a limit?
Yes — no pet figure exists, but a pet deposit is a security deposit however it is named and counts inside the general deposit cap. Georgia names pet deposits in its deposit statute and puts them inside the general ceiling.
Can a landlord charge pet rent or a non-refundable pet fee in Georgia?
Yes — pet rent or a pet fee may be charged, and no statute caps it. Georgia does not bar nonrefundable fees; it defines the category in order to put it outside the deposit scheme.
Does a Georgia lease have to state a pet policy?
No — no statute requires a lease to state a pet policy, and no written-rules provision governs one. Georgia requires nothing and supplies nothing.
Can a Georgia landlord restrict pets by breed, size or weight?
Yes. No Georgia statute or rule limits, authorizes or preempts a breed, size or weight restriction in a tenancy, and there is no breed carve-out for an assistance animal.
Does Georgia 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 Georgia landlord ask for when a tenant requests an assistance animal?
No state text sets a documentation standard for an assistance animal in housing. Georgia has no documentation rules at all, in statute or in regulation.
Can a Georgia 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 an express no-extra-charge clause, in a statute. A physically or mentally impaired person who has or obtains a service dog, and a person training one, may not be required to pay extra compensation for the dog in housing (section 30-4-3, subsection (b)).
What is the penalty for falsely claiming an assistance animal in Georgia?
An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: a misdemeanor, reaching the person claiming the animal and a landlord who denies or interferes with the right. Penalty terms: a fine not to exceed $2,000.00; and confinement for not more than 30 days, or both the fine and the confinement.

Citations

How this record was verified: Georgia's official code is published through a public-access viewer that is closed to automated retrieval, so the statutory text here comes from two reads of that same official viewer. Title 44 chapter 7, the landlord-tenant chapter, comes from an official copy of the viewer saved on August 20, 2026, covering all six articles and seventy-nine section documents, each carrying the viewer's own currency line, 'Current through the 2026 Special Session of the General Assembly.' Title 8 chapter 3 article 4, the Georgia Fair Housing Act, and the whole of title 30 chapter 4, the rights of persons with disabilities, come from an interactive read of the same viewer made on September 21, 2026, carrying the same currency line, together with full-text exports of sections 30-4-2 and 30-4-3. Because Georgia adjourned on April 2, 2026 and the special session is already reflected, the viewer is complete for this topic. Everything else was read directly from the state's own hosts. The Governor's signed-legislation roll was enumerated in full rather than sampled: 1,407 distinct act rows across 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 and the 2026 special session, of which 807 are statewide, and 171 statewide candidate acts were retrieved as enrolled acts and searched in full text. Two of those acts were read line by line, House Bill 668 of 2026, which rewrote the whole of title 30 chapter 4 effective July 1, 2026, and House Bill 404 of 2024, which added the security-deposit ceiling and carries its own applicability section. The Georgia administrative code was read at its September 2, 2026 currency: the Commission on Equal Opportunity's two chapters, on administration and on the Georgia fair housing law, were each read in full, and the Department of Community Affairs' rule index was enumerated at thirty-seven chapters, none of them a rental-tenancy chapter. The administrative host's own search box renders its results with scripts and returns nothing to a direct read, so every administrative negative here rests on opening the chapters one by one rather than on that box. Eight searches of the state appellate opinion archive were run one at a time; two opinions were read in full, Leslie v. 1125 Hammond, LP, decided June 7, 2023, which is the one Georgia decision on a request to waive pet fees for a service animal, and Tatelman v. Smith, decided September 1, 2026, which was read and set aside as a dispute over who owns a dog rather than a housing case. No Georgia decision construes the housing section at all. Two further reads on the same official viewer, current through the 2026 Special Session: section 4-8-1 in full, and full-text searches of title 4 for breed and of title 33, the insurance title, for breed, canine, dog and animal, each hit opened by section.

What was read to state each absence on this page: