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

Not every landlord — an owner-occupied or unit-count exemption takes some landlords outside at least one of these rules.

The money and lease rules bind every residential landlord: chapter 710-A reaches any lease or tenancy at will agreement for a dwelling intended for human habitation and carries no owner-occupied or unit-count exemption. The assistance-animal rules bind a smaller set. Two exclusions, in the same shape in both tracks, take out the rental of one unit of an owner-occupied two-family dwelling and the rental of not more than four rooms of an owner-occupied one-family dwelling (section 4581, subsection 4, of Title 5, and section 1312, subsection 6, of Title 17); a religious corporation letting to its membership for a non-commercial purpose is also outside the Human Rights Act. Those small landlords remain bound by the bar on advertising a discriminatory limitation, and by the deposit chapter, which has no exemption at all. Where the service-dog right applies it reaches public housing projects and all forms of publicly assisted housing, single and multifamily rental and sale units, lodging places, condominiums and cooperative apartments.

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

Maine has no pet-deposit statute; the words pet, animal, breed, dog and cat appear nowhere in the security-deposit chapter. What decides the question is the definition: a security deposit is 'any advance or deposit, regardless of its denomination, of money, the primary function of which is to secure the performance of a lease or tenancy at will agreement' (section 6031, subsection 2, of Title 14). A refundable pet deposit is money whose primary function is security, so it is a security deposit whatever the lease calls it, it counts inside the two-month ceiling rather than sitting on top of it, and it carries the whole chapter: no retention for normal wear and tear, return or a written itemized statement within the stated period of no more than 30 days (21 days for a tenancy at will), and the remedy for wrongful withholding with attorney's fees. The function test, not the label, decides: calling the money a non-refundable pet fee does not take it out of the chapter if it really secures performance. For an assistance animal no deposit may be required at all, which is answered below.

Refundability: A pet deposit is refundable on the same terms as any other security deposit. It may not be retained for normal wear and tear, and it must be returned, or a written itemized statement of what is kept and why must be sent, within the period the lease states, which may not exceed 30 days, or within 21 days for a tenancy at will (section 6033 of Title 14).

The general deposit cap it sits against: A lease or tenancy at will agreement for a dwelling intended for human habitation may not require a security deposit equivalent to more than the rent for 2 months (section 6032 of Title 14). The deposits page carries the cap itself, its return deadlines and its remedies.

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

Maine caps nothing here, and the only limit that reaches pet money is one of timing: since January 1, 2025 no payment beyond the first month's rent, the deposit and properly disclosed mandatory recurring fees may be required at the start of a tenancy (section 6022-A of Title 14). There is no pet-rent statute, no pet-fee statute, no general bar on non-refundable fees for one to run through, and no reasonableness standard. The boundary that matters is the deposit definition: money whose primary function is to secure performance is a security deposit regardless of its denomination, so a landlord cannot escape the two-month ceiling by relabeling refundable money a non-refundable pet fee, while money that genuinely buys permission to keep an animal falls outside the deposit chapter, and only that start-of-tenancy limit reaches it. For an assistance animal, use of the animal may not be conditioned on the payment of a fee or security deposit, and for a service dog no extra compensation may be required at all.

Monthly pet rent: No Maine statute mentions pet rent. A monthly charge for keeping an animal is uncapped and unregulated, and there is no reasonableness standard. For a service dog it is barred, because a person with a service dog may not be required to pay extra compensation to keep the animal, and that phrase reaches a recurring charge on its face (section 1312, subsection 5, of Title 17).

A one-time pet fee: No statute addresses a one-time pet fee either. Maine's application-fee bar does not reach a tenant's pet money: a landlord may not charge an applicant a fee to submit an application or to review or approve one, and may recover the actual cost of only one of a background check, a credit check or another screening process, once per applicant in any 12-month period, with a copy of the results owed to the applicant (section 6030-H of Title 14). The only place the word nonrefundable appears in the deposit chapter is the surety-bond machinery, where the bond premium is nonrefundable except as provided and the word must appear conspicuously on the document (section 6039). Since January 1, 2025, though, a landlord may not require any initial payment at the start of a tenancy beyond the first month's rent, the security deposit and properly disclosed mandatory recurring fees (section 6022-A of Title 14), so a one-time pet fee cannot be required at signing.

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

No Maine statute requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed, none supplies an answer when the lease is silent, none limits how many animals a tenant may keep, and none governs a mid-tenancy change to a pet rule. What Maine does supply is a set of powers that run in the landlord's favor, all in section 6025-A of Title 14: the landlord may require information about any animal in the unit, may require contacts authorized to collect it, and may require emergency access as a condition of tenancy where the animal's welfare is at risk. If the landlord decides a tenant with an animal has left or cannot care for it through death or disability, the landlord may call an authorized person, a humane agent, an animal control officer or a shelter to take the animal, and is protected from a civil action by the tenant over the animal only if, within 5 days, a first-class letter goes to the tenant's last known address naming the person who took custody, with a phone number and address. A separate route lets a landlord petition for protection of the rental property against, among others, the owner of a dangerous pet on the premises, with a temporary order where the property is in immediate and present danger of substantial damage; that remedy belongs to the lease-termination page. Maine has no pet mandate for publicly financed or income-restricted housing.

Changing the rule mid-tenancy: Maine is not a uniform-act state and has no written-rules or mid-term-change section that would govern a pet rule adopted after signing; a change to the pet terms is a change to the agreement and stands or falls on the agreement itself. The one statutory provision that reaches a landlord's animal terms is section 6025-A of Title 14, which lets a landlord require information about any animal in the unit, require the name and contact details of one or more people the tenant authorizes to come and collect the animal, and require, as a condition of tenancy, that the tenant allow entry in an emergency when the animal's welfare is at risk. That is a term set when the tenancy is made, not a power to change the rules later.

Yes.

No Maine statute restricts a landlord's breed, size or weight policy, and none requires any class of housing to accept animals regardless of breed. The word breed appears nowhere in the two rental chapters, nowhere in the Human Rights Act, nowhere in the mobile home park chapter and nowhere in the Human Rights Commission's housing regulations. Maine needs no assistance-animal breed carve-out because its charge bar and its refusal bar are written without reference to species or training in the housing track. One adjacent fact is worth knowing and is not a housing rule: municipalities may adopt or keep more stringent animal-control ordinances, but they may not adopt breed-specific ordinances, laws or regulations, and a less restrictive local rule is invalid (section 3950 of Title 7). Maine also has no statute barring an insurer from underwriting on dog breed.

Yes — a state statute or rule sets what a landlord may request or what a certifier must meet for an assistance animal in housing. Both a statute and an administrative rule under it speak to it.

It is unlawful housing discrimination for an owner, lessor, sublessor, managing agent or other person with the right to sell, rent, lease or manage a housing accommodation, or their agents, to refuse to permit the use of an assistance animal, or otherwise to discriminate against an individual with a physical or mental disability who uses one, unless it is shown by defense that the animal poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others, that its use would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others, or that its use would substantially interfere with the reasonable enjoyment of the housing accommodation by others. Use of an assistance animal may not be conditioned on the payment of a fee or security deposit, although the individual is liable for any damage the animal does to the premises or facilities (section 4582-A, subsection 3, of Title 5). The same section separately makes it unlawful to refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where that is necessary to give a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy the housing, and to refuse to permit reasonable modifications. In 2026 the Law Court held that the refusal limb reaches a prospective assistance animal, so a landlord's flat statement that dogs are not allowed, made without any qualification for service dogs, is itself the violation. The Commission's housing rule states the same refusal bar and the same charge bar in older words. Alongside the Act, a person who is blind or visually impaired or otherwise physically or mentally disabled and who has a service animal is entitled to full and equal access to housing accommodations, may not be required to pay extra compensation to keep the animal, and is liable for damage it does to the premises (section 1312, subsection 5, of Title 17).

Who it binds: Not every landlord. The Human Rights Act does not apply to the rental of one unit of an owner-occupied two-family dwelling, or to the rental of not more than four rooms of an owner-occupied one-family dwelling, and the exceptions that are carved back for those landlords are only the bar on discriminatory advertising and the rules for brokers, salespersons and lenders; the assistance-animal section is not carved back, so its duty and its charge bar do not reach them. A dwelling owned, controlled or operated for other than a commercial purpose by a religious corporation letting to its own membership is also outside the Act, unless membership is restricted by race, color or national origin. The service-dog right in Title 17 carries the same two owner-occupied exclusions. The deposit chapter and the landlord immunity in section 6030-G of Title 14 carry no exemption at all and bind every landlord.

The rule's currency: 94-348 CMR chapter 8, the Maine Human Rights Commission's Housing Regulations, section 8.06(E), published as part of the Code of Maine Rules on the Secretary of State's rulemaking site. The rule states its own history: adopted under section 4566, subsection 7, of Title 5, effective July 17, 1999, amended July 20, 2005, March 21, 2007, September 15, 2007, April 14, 2008, November 19, 2008 (filing 2008-537, which is the amendment that last touched the animal definition and the animal section) and August 7, 2013 (filing 2013-196), with a July 17, 2025 line that is a document-format conversion and accessibility check rather than an amendment.

No state text lists the questions a landlord may ask; what the state regulates is the documentation and its source.

A licensed or qualified professional must certify.

Who may certify: Maine fixes the certifier class inside the definition of the protected animal, and that is the whole of its documentation rule. Seven branches qualify, and the seventh is open-ended: a physician, a psychologist, a physician associate, a nurse practitioner, a licensed social worker, a licensed professional counselor, or any other licensed health professional with knowledge of the disability-related need for an assistance animal (section 4553, subsection 1-H, paragraph A, of Title 5). The list has been in this shape since 2019, when the professional-counselor and other-licensed-professional branches were added, and the physician associate title replaced physician assistant throughout the statutes in 2025. Nothing requires an unrestricted license, a license number, practice in Maine or any particular length of relationship with the patient, and an out-of-state professional is not excluded: the text says licensed, not licensed in this State. The Commission's own rule is narrower and out of date, stopping at licensed social worker.

Maine regulates who may certify and nothing else, and the page should be read that way rather than as a gap. The animal counts as an assistance animal in housing if one of seven kinds of licensed professional has determined it necessary to mitigate the effects of the disability, or if it is individually trained to do work or perform tasks. Beyond that the statute is silent: it sets no list of questions a landlord may ask, no trigger of the kind other states use where the need is not readily apparent, no in-person or telehealth rule, no minimum length of treatment relationship, no annual re-evaluation, no bar on internet certificates or registrations, no rule about a landlord's form, no bar on asking for medical records, no vaccination rule and no deadline or writing requirement for the landlord's answer. The only limits on a landlord are the three defenses in section 4582-A, subsection 3: a direct threat to health or safety, substantial physical damage to the property of others, or substantial interference with other residents' reasonable enjoyment of the housing. Maine also places no duty on the professional who signs and provides no route to licensing discipline for a false letter; the sanction for a false document is the civil violation stated below. A landlord reading only the Human Rights Commission's housing rule will get a narrower list of certifiers than the law gives, because the rule's animal text has not been amended since November 19, 2008.

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 and an administrative rule.

Maine bars the charge three times over. The Human Rights Act says that use of an assistance animal may not be conditioned on the payment of a fee or security deposit, and it hangs on the housing definition, which reaches an untrained animal of any species where a listed licensed professional has determined it necessary; the individual remains liable for any damage the animal does. The Human Rights Commission's housing rule states the same bar in the words the statute used before 2015. And a person with a service dog may not be required to pay extra compensation to keep the animal, a phrase broader in kind than fee or deposit because it reaches a recurring pet rent on its face. Two of the three bars carry the owner-occupied exclusions set out above; a landlord who lives in one half of a duplex, or who rents up to four rooms in his own house, is outside them. Nothing in the deposit chapter itself flags any of this, so a landlord who reads only the deposit rules will not find the exception.

The definition it hangs on: 'Assistance animal' means, for the purposes of subchapter 4 [housing]: A. An animal that has been determined necessary for an individual with a physical or mental disability to mitigate the effects of a physical or mental disability by a physician, psychologist, physician associate, nurse practitioner, licensed social worker, licensed professional counselor or other licensed health professional with knowledge of the disability-related need for an assistance animal; or B. An animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a physical or mental disability (section 4553, subsection 1-H, of Title 5). Branch A requires no training and names no species, so the charge bar reaches an animal that supplies emotional support where a listed professional has determined it necessary.

Remedy: The charge is a discriminatory housing practice under the Human Rights Act, with the Act's own ladder: an order to pay the victim civil penal damages of not more than $20,000 on a first order against the respondent, not more than $50,000 on a second and not more than $100,000 on a third or later order under the same subchapter, an order to pay actual and punitive damages in the case of discriminatory housing practices, and attorney's fees (sections 4613 and 4614 of Title 5). For a service dog there is a second and sharper route: interfering with a right under section 1312, which includes the bar on extra compensation, is a strict liability Class E crime, for which the maximum fine is $1,000 (sections 1314 of Title 17 and 1704 of Title 17-A).

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

Liability is preserved in plain words in both tracks, and Maine's version is strict rather than qualified: the individual with a physical or mental disability 'is liable for any damage done to the premises or facilities by such an assistance animal' (section 4582-A, subsection 3, of Title 5), and a person with a service animal 'is liable for any damages done to the premises by the service animal' (section 1312, subsection 5, of Title 17). Neither sentence carves out ordinary wear and tear and neither makes the liability depend on how other residents with animals are treated. The deposit rules still apply to what may be kept from a deposit, and the deposits page carries those.

Landlord immunity: Maine gives the landlord a broad immunity and it sits in the landlord-tenant title rather than the Human Rights Act, so it protects every landlord without the owner-occupied exclusions. An owner, lessor, sublessor, managing agent or other person with the right to sell, rent, lease or manage a dwelling unit, or their agents, is not liable in a civil action for personal injury, death, property damage or other damages resulting from or arising out of an occurrence involving an assistance animal at the dwelling unit. It does not apply to gross negligence, recklessness or intentional misconduct by the landlord, or where the animal is owned by or in the care of the landlord or its agents (section 6030-G of Title 14). A separate, conditional immunity attaches to the abandoned-animal route in section 6025-A and depends on the 5-day mailed notice.

An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: a civil violation, reaching the person claiming the animal, the certifier who signs, and a vendor of false documents. Penalty terms: a fine of not more than $1,000 for each occurrence.

A person who knowingly misrepresents an animal as a service animal that does not meet the public-accommodations definition, or knowingly misrepresents an animal as an assistance animal that does not meet the housing definition, commits a civil violation, and a fine of not more than $1,000 for each occurrence may be adjudged (section 1314-A of Title 17). Because the second sentence runs on the housing definition, the offense reaches housing squarely, which is unusual: in many states the only such offense is written for public accommodations. The section names four ways it can be done, and they do not all point at the tenant: knowingly creating documents that falsely represent that an animal is a service or assistance animal; knowingly providing such documents to another person; knowingly fitting an animal that is not a service animal with a harness, collar, vest or sign of the type commonly used to indicate a service animal; and knowingly representing that an animal is a service animal when it has not completed training to perform disability-related tasks. So the person who writes or sells the false letter is exposed as well as the person who uses it. No prior warning is required, and the amount is per occurrence rather than per person.

The landlord-side offense: Maine also punishes the landlord, and this is the most citable fact on the page for a Maine reader. A person, firm or corporation, or their agent, may not deny or interfere with admittance to or enjoyment of the public facilities described in section 1312 of Title 17, or otherwise interfere with the rights of a person who is totally or partially blind or a person with other disabilities under that section. The housing right and the bar on extra compensation are rights under that section, so a covered landlord who refuses a service dog or demands extra money to keep one commits a Class E crime, and the statute makes it a strict liability crime. The maximum fine for a Class E crime is $1,000 (section 1704, subsection 5, of Title 17-A). This is a penalty for refusing the accommodation, not for misrepresenting an animal, and the two should not be confused.

Who enforces it: The misrepresentation is a civil violation, adjudged in court with a fine of up to $1,000 for each occurrence; there is no prosecution as a crime and no licensing-board route, because Maine places no assistance-animal duty on the professions. The discrimination side runs through the Maine Human Rights Commission and the courts under the Act's own remedies, and the service-dog refusal side is a strict liability Class E crime.

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

One clear preemption and silence everywhere else. Maine forbids municipal breed-specific ordinances statewide, in the animal-welfare title rather than the rental chapters, and otherwise runs a one-way ratchet on animal control: a municipality may be more stringent than the state, never less (section 3950 of Title 7). Nothing in Maine law authorizes a municipality to regulate pet deposits, pet rent or pet policies in rental housing, and nothing expressly forbids it either; the rental chapters carry no pet-related municipal clause at all, the security-deposit chapter carries no municipal text whatsoever, and the Human Rights Act's only preemption sentence is about food handling. The municipal provisions that do exist in the rental chapter are the habitability floor, which lets municipalities set more stringent housing standards, and the route for municipal intervention to provide basic necessities; both belong to the habitability page. No Maine municipality carries a pet ordinance in this collection, and the breed clause is the reason the usual big-city hook does not exist here. Maine municipalities do run animal-control licensing and fee ordinances, which are a different subject from a landlord's pet terms.

Breed-specific local animal-control rules barred: Each municipality may adopt or keep more stringent ordinances, laws or regulations on animal control, including fees to finance animal control services, 'except that municipalities may not adopt breed-specific ordinances, laws or regulations', and any less restrictive municipal rule is invalid and of no force and effect. A Maine city therefore cannot ban a breed, in rental housing or anywhere else. Text: 7 M.R.S. § 3950 · first paragraph.