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

Yes, with no statutory limit.

No Illinois statute mentions a pet deposit, and Illinois has no security-deposit cap for an ordinary residential lease, so there is no ceiling for a pet deposit to sit inside or on top of (a mobile home park lease caps the whole deposit at one month's rent, 765 ILCS 745/12(b)). What the amount is remains a matter of contract. How the money is handled is not: a refundable pet deposit is money received to secure the payment of rent or to compensate for damage to the leased premises, which is what 765 ILCS 710/1(a) governs, so it carries that act's itemized-statement and return machinery and its double-damages remedy. A one-time non-refundable pet fee is outside that description and outside the act. Two prohibitions sit at the edges of the ordinary market: no pet-related deposit, pet fee or related pet assessment may be required of a tenant with an assistance animal (310 ILCS 120/10(f)), and a mobile home park owner may not impose a pet fee on a resident who owns the home (765 ILCS 745/9). Both are stated in their own place below.

Yes — no statute caps, authorizes or forbids pet rent or a pet fee.

Illinois caps nothing and authorizes nothing here: the compiled statutes contain no section on pet rent, and the Landlord and Tenant Act contains no animal word at all. There is no reasonableness test for a tenant fee and no duty today to state a pet charge in the lease. One change is already on the books and dated: from January 1, 2027, every non-optional fee in a residential lease, whether one-time or recurring, must be stated on the first page of the lease or the tenant is not liable for it, a landlord may not rename a charge to escape the section, and the same fees must be disclosed in the property listing (765 ILCS 705/35). A pet fee and pet rent under a lease that permits the pet are non-optional charges, so the duty reaches them even though the section never says pet; leases in owner-occupied premises of six units or fewer are exempt. That date is stated as a future version below, with the discrepancy between the official surfaces.

A one-time pet fee: A one-time pet fee is neither authorized nor barred. Because it is not money received to secure rent or to compensate for damage, it falls outside the Security Deposit Return Act, so it carries no return duty, no itemized statement and no interest; Illinois has no general bar on non-refundable fees for it to fall into either.

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

No Illinois statute requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed, supplies a default when the lease is silent, limits how many animals a tenant may keep, or governs a mid-term change to a pet rule. Illinois never adopted the uniform residential landlord and tenant act, so there is no general written-rules section of the kind other states use to carry a pet clause, and the Landlord and Tenant Act itself contains no animal word. One housing class carries a mandate instead of a default: a tenant of a multifamily rental unit of 500 square feet or more that was acquired, constructed or rehabilitated with Illinois Affordable Housing Trust Fund money after January 1, 2022 and designated for low and very low-income families must be allowed to keep at least two cats or one dog under 50 pounds, and what the pet policy there may require is a closed six-item list. That class is stated as its own row below.

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

Illinois law says nothing about a private landlord's breed, size or weight rule for pets. The only breed rule in housing binds Trust Fund assisted multifamily units of 500 square feet or more, which must allow the animals the mandate names regardless of breed or height, with carve-outs for service animals and animals in training, for a dog deemed dangerous or vicious under the Animal Control Act, for supportive living facilities and for elderly housing. Local government is a different story and is worth knowing: a municipality or other political subdivision may control and regulate dogs, cats and other animals only so long as no regulation, policy or ordinance is specific to breed (510 ILCS 5/24), and a vicious dog may not be classified in a manner specific to breed (510 ILCS 5/15). That is why no Illinois city can adopt a breed rule for rentals in either direction. The insurance bar on breed-based underwriting binds insurers, not landlords, and is stated separately below.

A second rule beside it: A second rule reaches breed from the assistance-animal side: 310 ILCS 120/10(c) states the only grounds on which a documented request may be refused or withdrawn, and they are an undue financial and administrative burden, a fundamental alteration, or reliable objective evidence about the specific animal after an individual assessment. Breed is not among them, so a breed rule cannot be applied to an animal a tenant needs, in any building.

Size and weight: The Trust Fund mandate fixes its own size line: at least two cats or one dog that weighs under 50 pounds, regardless of breed or height (310 ILCS 65/10(o)). Outside that class no Illinois statute reaches a size, weight or number limit on 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. The operative rules are statutory. State law incorporates a federal statute or codified regulation by reference.

Two instruments work together. Refusing to make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services, where the accommodation may be necessary to give a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, is a civil rights violation (775 ILCS 5/3-102.1(C)(2)), and requiring an extra charge in a lease, rental agreement or contract because a person has a guide, hearing or support dog, other than for actual damage the dog does to the premises, is a separate civil rights violation (775 ILCS 5/3-104.1). The Assistance Animal Integrity Act then governs the request itself: a housing provider who receives a request for an exception to a policy prohibiting or restricting animals may require reliable documentation of the disability and of the disability-related need only where one or the other is not readily apparent or known (310 ILCS 120/10(a)), may ask for more documents only where the first set does not meet the statutory standard (subsection (d)), and may refuse or withdraw a documented request only on a closed list of grounds: an undue financial and administrative burden, a fundamental alteration of the provider's operations, or, after an individual assessment, reliable objective evidence that the specific animal poses a direct threat, causes substantial physical damage or has a pattern of uncontrolled behavior its handler has not effectively corrected (subsection (c)). The needs of other residents may be weighed, but a request may not be refused solely because of another resident's disability-related needs; the provider must try to balance them (subsection (e)). Nothing in the Act requires documentation of a specific diagnosis, and nothing in it stops a provider from checking that the documents are authentic (subsections (g) and (h)). A separate act, the White Cane Law (775 ILCS 30), gives a right to be accompanied by a guide or support dog without an extra charge, but only in streets, public buildings, common carriers, hotels and other places open to the public, so it does not reach a tenancy.

Who it binds: Every housing provider, with no threshold. The Assistance Animal Integrity Act defines a housing provider as any owner, housing provider, property management company, property manager, government entity, condominium board, condominium association, cooperative or related entity engaged in the selling, leasing, management, control or governance of residential housing, and any agent or employee of one; all five sections of the Act contain no exemption of any kind. The Human Rights Act's own exemptions for a single-family sale, an owner-occupied building of four families or fewer and a rented room in a private home are written as exemptions from Section 3-102 alone, so on the face of the text they do not reach the disability duty in 3-102.1 or the support-dog charge bar in 3-104.1. No Illinois decision construes that scope.

Reliable documentation of the disability and of the disability-related need for the animal, and only where the disability or the need is not readily apparent or known to the housing provider (310 ILCS 120/10(a)). Where more than one animal is requested, documentation establishing the need for each animal may be asked for unless the need for an animal is apparent. Further documents may be required only where the first set does not meet the statutory standard, and where the first set does not show the therapeutic relationship the provider may ask for information describing the professional relationship between the tenant and the person who wrote it (subsection (d)). The documentation must be in writing, be made by a person with whom the tenant has a therapeutic relationship, and describe the disability-related need for the animal (subsection (b)).

A treatment relationship is required. A caregiver, reliable third party or agency may supply it. An online certificate is not, by itself, sufficient. 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: Anyone in a therapeutic relationship with the tenant, which 310 ILCS 120/5 defines in three branches: a physician or other medical professional, a mental health service provider, or a non-medical service agency or reliable third party who is in a position to know about the person's disability. Each branch requires care given in good faith, for and with actual knowledge of the disability and of the disability-related need for the animal. Illinois names no license type, no license number, no state of licensure and no profession list anywhere in the Act, so a licensed professional is not required. What is excluded is an entity that issues a certificate, license or similar document purporting to confirm a disability or a need without a meaningful assessment of the person.

The relationship test: No minimum length of relationship anywhere in Illinois law. The test is qualitative and sits inside the definition of a therapeutic relationship: care provided in good faith, for and with actual knowledge of the person's disability and of that person's disability-related need for the animal (310 ILCS 120/5).

Illinois puts the whole rule on the landlord's side of the counter. A housing provider may ask for reliable written documentation of the disability and of the need for the animal only where one or the other is not readily apparent or known, may ask that the request be made on a standard form but may not refuse the request because the tenant did not use the form, and may not require documentation of a specific diagnosis. It may check that the documents are authentic. The writer need not be licensed: a physician or other medical professional, a mental health service provider, or a non-medical service agency or reliable third party in a position to know all qualify, so long as the care was given in good faith with actual knowledge of the disability and the need. A certificate from an outfit that confirms a disability without a meaningful assessment is excluded by the definition itself, which is how Illinois disposes of bought online certificates. The state sets no minimum length of relationship, no rule on remote or in-person evaluation, no annual re-evaluation, no vaccination rule for an assistance animal and no deadline for the landlord's answer, and it places no duty and no penalty on the person who writes the documentation.

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 a statute.

A housing provider may not require a tenant with an assistance animal to pay a pet-related deposit, a pet fee or a related pet assessment, and may not require the tenant to buy special liability insurance or coverage for the animal (310 ILCS 120/10(f)). The clause says the bar applies even where the provider allows pets and requires pet owners to pay those costs, which forecloses the argument that charging everyone equally is enough. Because an assistance animal is defined as an emotional support or service animal, the bar reaches an emotional support animal by its own words, and it has done so since January 1, 2020. What the provider may still charge is the cost of repairing damage the animal does to the unit or the common areas.

The definition it hangs on: "'Assistance animal' means an emotional support or service animal that qualifies as a reasonable accommodation under the federal Fair Housing Act or the Illinois Human Rights Act" (310 ILCS 120/5).

Remedy: The Assistance Animal Integrity Act carries no penalty clause of its own. Requiring an extra charge in a lease or rental agreement because a person has a guide, hearing or support dog, other than for actual damage the dog does to the premises, is itself a civil rights violation under 775 ILCS 5/3-104.1, as is refusing a reasonable accommodation under 775 ILCS 5/3-102.1(C)(2), and a landlord may not increase a customarily required security deposit for a person with a disability (775 ILCS 5/3-102.1(C)(1)).

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

A housing provider may require the tenant to cover the cost of repairing damage the animal causes to the dwelling unit or the common areas, reasonable wear and tear excepted, in the same manner it would for damage caused by any other resident (310 ILCS 120/10(f)). For a guide, hearing or support dog the Human Rights Act says the same thing from the other direction: no extra charge other than for actual damage done to the premises by the dog (775 ILCS 5/3-104.1).

Landlord immunity: A housing provider is not liable for injuries caused by a person's assistance animal that it permitted on the property as a reasonable accommodation under the Fair Housing Act, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Illinois Human Rights Act or any other federal, state or local law (310 ILCS 120/15). In Trust Fund housing a parallel immunity covers injuries caused by an ordinary household pet, except for willful and wanton misconduct (310 ILCS 65/18(b)).

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

Illinois has no offense, civil or criminal, for misrepresenting an animal as an assistance animal, and none for a person who writes or sells the documentation. Article 48 of the Criminal Code, the animals article, carries eleven sections, and its only two fraud-shaped ones concern livestock registry certificates and stallion and jack pedigrees. Across the compiled statutes the words misrepresent, falsely represent and fraudulently represent produce no animal offense at all. The widely repeated claim that 720 ILCS 5/48-8 makes faking a service animal a crime in Illinois misreads that section, which punishes the opposite conduct: denying a handler entry to a public place of accommodation. What a landlord has instead is the documentation rule above, the right to ask for more where the first documents fall short, the right to check that they are authentic, and the closed list of grounds for refusing a request.

On the landlord's side: No Illinois offense reaches a housing provider who refuses an assistance animal either; the remedy there is the civil rights violation under the Human Rights Act. The criminal section readers often meet, 720 ILCS 5/48-8, punishes denying a person with a disability or a trainer the right to enter and use a public place of accommodation with a service animal, a Class C misdemeanor, and it does not reach a tenancy.

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

Illinois preempts one thing and leaves the rest to home rule. No city may regulate by breed, in either direction, so a local ban on breed restrictions in rentals is as unavailable as a local breed ban; local government keeps its ordinary power over the keeping and licensing of animals. Nothing in the compiled statutes authorizes or preempts a local rule on pet deposits, pet rent, pet fees or pet-friendly mandates, so a home-rule unit is free on those questions today. From January 1, 2027 a one-way floor arrives: a home rule unit, a non-home rule municipality or a non-home rule county may regulate fees charged to tenants, but its rule must be at least as restrictive as 765 ILCS 705/35, which the act declares a limitation on the concurrent exercise of home-rule power. Chicago's residential landlord and tenant ordinance carries no pet rule of its own, so a refundable pet deposit there is simply a security deposit under that ordinance and carries its interest, receipt and damages rules.

Breed-specific local animal-control rules barred: A municipality or other political subdivision may not adopt any regulation, policy or ordinance specific to breed. The Animal Control Act preserves local power over animals expressly on that condition, and a companion section adds that a vicious dog may not be classified in a manner specific as to breed (510 ILCS 5/15). The bar is written to reach a policy as well as an ordinance, so a public body's own breed-specific pet policy is within it on the face of the text. Text: 510 ILCS 5/24.

Localities may regulate the keeping or licensing of animals: The same section preserves local power to prohibit animals from running at large and to further control and regulate dogs, cats and other animals, subject only to the breed limit above. That is animal control, not a grant of power over the money terms of a tenancy. Text: 510 ILCS 5/24.

Trust Fund assisted multifamily units of 500 square feet or more, assisted after January 1, 2022: pets must be allowed, subject to the stated conditions; breed, size or weight restrictions are barred. A tenant of a multifamily rental unit of 500 square feet or more that was acquired, constructed or rehabilitated with any money from the Illinois Affordable Housing Trust Fund after January 1, 2022 and was designated for affordable housing for low and very low-income families must be allowed to keep at least two cats or one dog that weighs under 50 pounds, regardless of breed or height (310 ILCS 65/10(o)). Five conditions stack and three carve-outs cut back: the mandate does not apply to service animals or service animals in training, to a dog deemed dangerous or vicious under the Animal Control Act, to supportive living facilities, or to elderly housing, which the same subsection defines in three branches. What the pet policy in such a project may require is a closed six-item list: noise and sanitation standards, registration of the pet with the owner of the housing, restraint in common areas, timely removal of pet waste, vaccination and sterilization requirements, and enforcement of violations (310 ILCS 65/18(a)). The housing provider is not liable for injuries caused by a tenant's pet it permitted, except for willful and wanton misconduct, and nothing in the section limits the duty to accommodate a person with a disability (subsections (b) and (c)). The state housing authority's Trust Fund program rules carry no pet or animal section, so the mandate stands on the statute alone. Text: 310 ILCS 65/10 · (o). Text: 310 ILCS 65/18 and 310 ILCS 65/3 · 18(a)-(c); 3(s).

Mobile home park lots where the resident owns the home (from January 1, 2023): pet rent and fees — non-refundable pet fee barred. A park owner may not charge or impose a pet fee on a resident who owns the home, unless a service related to the pet is offered by the park owner and accepted by the resident (765 ILCS 745/9, in force since January 1, 2023). A tenant of a home owned by the park owner may be charged a pet fee as agreed in the lease. The bar is a prohibition rather than a ceiling: Illinois sets no park pet figure of any kind, and the section says nothing about a pet deposit or monthly pet rent. The manufactured-home page carries the park's other rules. Text: 765 ILCS 745/9.