Landlord Atlas

Montgomery County, Maryland: pet and assistance-animal laws

Verified September 21, 2026 Maryland pet and assistance-animal law →

Montgomery County caps what a landlord may charge for a pet in a rent-regulated unit, and separately gives elderly and disabled tenants a right to keep a household pet.

Cited to Montgomery County Code § 29-35 (Keeping of household pets by elderly or disabled tenants) (a)(1)–(2), (b), (c), (d)(1)–(3); 1987 L.M.C., ch. 5, § 1; 2000 L.M.C., ch. 32, § 1 and 10 more cited sources · Verified September 21, 2026

On a regulated unit the landlord may charge a monthly pet fee and hold a refundable pet deposit in escrow, and nothing else connected with the pet: the regulation sets those at $25 per pet per month and $300, and the county raises both every year by the consumer price index, so for the year running from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027 the maximums are $26.23 per pet per month and $314.88. The deposit comes back in full within 45 days of the end of the tenancy unless the pet caused damage, and a landlord who keeps any of it must send an itemized statement with proof of the cost. A charge for an optional service the tenant chooses, such as dog park access, is not capped. A regulated unit is one that is not exempt, and the exemptions are wide, including buildings less than 23 years old and landlords who own two or fewer units in the county; the caps also do not reach Gaithersburg, Rockville, Takoma Park, Barnesville or Laytonsville. The pet right is separate and binds every landlord in the county: a tenant who is at least 60 or who has a disability may keep a household pet unless the written lease given when occupancy began specifically prohibited it, though the landlord may set reasonable rules on type, size and number and may require removal if a written warning goes uncorrected for seven days.

Montgomery County pet law at a glance

What the local law is called Pet charge limits on regulated units, and the elderly and disabled pet right
Status In force
Who it binds Landlords of regulated rental units, for the charge caps; the tenants section 29-35 names, for the pet right.
Pet deposit Capped
Pet rent Capped
Non-refundable pet fee Barred
Breed rule No local rule on breed
In the lease A no-pets clause is waived in the circumstances the instrument states
In the published code Yes — cited to the published compilation

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Montgomery County, Maryland: pet and assistance-animal laws (verified September 21, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/pets/maryland/montgomery-county/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified and what the topic covers). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

What would change it

The figures move every year. The regulation tells the department to raise the maximum monthly pet fee and the maximum pet deposit annually by the consumer price index for urban consumers, and the department republishes the fee schedule each spring for the year beginning July 1. The amounts on this page hold until June 30, 2027; the next schedule is due around March 2027. Also worth watching is which units are exempt, since an exemption ends when the conditions for it stop being true.

Where a change in this status would appear: Rent stabilization fees for regulated units (Department of Housing and Community Affairs) — the pet fee row of the annual fee schedule.

The instrument

Two county instruments. Section 29-35 of the county code, Keeping of household pets by elderly or disabled tenants, enacted in 1987 and renumbered, amended and retitled in 2000, sits in the landlord-tenant chapter and binds every landlord in the county. County regulation 29.61.01.01, Applicable Fees, made under section 29-61 of the code by Executive Regulation 2-24 and effective July 23, 2024, caps what a landlord may charge for a pet in a regulated rental unit; the authorizing section came from Bill 15-23, signed July 24, 2023 and effective October 23, 2023, whose own transition clause held the requirements back until the regulations took effect. Both are printed in the county's published code in the edition whose currency line reads: legislation effective through August 1, 2026, county regulations effective as of July 14, 2026.

Who it binds

Two populations, reached by different sections. The pet charge caps bind every landlord of a regulated rental unit, which the code defines as a rental unit not exempt under section 29-60; the exemptions include a newly built unit offered for rent for less than 23 years, a substantially renovated building, an accessory dwelling unit, an owner-occupied two-unit building, an owner-occupied group house, a unit under a government agreement restricting occupancy to low and moderate income tenants, a school dormitory, a licensed assisted living facility or nursing home, a transient lodging facility, a religious facility, a shelter unit run by a charity and a unit owned by a natural person who owns two or fewer rental units in the county. An exemption ends when the conditions for it stop being true. The caps do not reach units in Gaithersburg, Rockville, Takoma Park, Barnesville or Laytonsville, which are outside county rent stabilization. The pet right for an elderly tenant, meaning at least 60 years old, or a disabled tenant binds every landlord in the county and does not depend on the unit being regulated.

Which leases it reaches

The pet right turns on the moment occupancy begins: a landlord may keep pets out only by a written lease given at that time that specifically prohibits them, so a landlord who did not prohibit pets at the start cannot impose a ban later. The charge caps have no lease-date trigger, but they come with timing rules of their own: a fee may not be brought in during a lease term unless it is for an optional service the tenant chose, and a regulated fee may be raised only once in a 12-month period and only on 90 days' written notice.

Pet deposit

$300 in the regulation, raised each year by the consumer price index and published at $314.88 for the year from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, under county regulation 29.61.01.01(a)(3)(A). It applies to regulated rental units only. On a regulated rental unit a landlord may require a pet deposit of no more than the published maximum, $314.88 for the year beginning July 1, 2026, and must hold it in escrow during each rental term. It is refundable and must come back in full within 45 days after the tenancy ends unless the landlord incurred costs from damage in the unit related to the pet. If any of it is withheld, the landlord must mail the tenant a written list of the damages claimed with an itemized statement and proof of the cost incurred, to the last known address, within the same 45 days, and the tenant may choose to put any balance toward the deposit for the next lease term. On a unit that is exempt the county sets nothing and the Maryland rules answer.

Pet rent

$25 per pet per month in the regulation, raised each year by the consumer price index and published at $26.23 per pet per month for the year from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, under county regulation 29.61.01.01(a)(3)(A). It applies to regulated rental units only. On a regulated rental unit a landlord may charge a monthly pet fee of no more than the published maximum, $26.23 per pet per month for the year beginning July 1, 2026. It may not be brought in mid-term, and it may be raised only once in a 12-month period and only on 90 days' written notice. There is a line worth knowing: a charge for an optional service the tenant chooses, such as dog park access or a pet spa, is not a regulated fee and the county does not cap it, though a service required for unit access, maintenance or lease compliance can never be treated as optional. On an exempt unit Maryland law answers, and Maryland sets no ceiling on pet rent.

Non-refundable pet fee

On a regulated rental unit a landlord must not assess or collect any fee, charge or deposit connected with the tenant having a pet in the unit apart from the capped monthly fee and the capped refundable deposit. A non-refundable pet fee is therefore unlawful on such a unit. On an exempt unit the county says nothing and the Maryland rules answer.

Breed, size and weight

Montgomery County has no breed, size or weight rule for rental housing, and neither does Maryland. The county code runs the other way in one place: under the elderly and disabled pet right a landlord may make reasonable rules governing the type, size and number of pets allowed, the disposal of pet waste and aspects of pet conduct and control that protect the health, comfort and safety of other tenants and the landlord's property. That is a power given to the landlord rather than a limit placed on one.

What the lease must, or may not, say

A landlord must not prevent or try to prevent an elderly or disabled tenant from keeping a household pet unless the landlord gave the tenant, at the time occupancy began, a written lease that specifically prohibits keeping a household pet. Elderly means at least 60 years old; disabled means a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a record of such an impairment or being regarded as having one. The tenant is liable for damage the pet does to the premises. Even where pets were not prohibited at the start, a landlord may require a pet to be removed after giving the tenant written warning of a violation of the landlord's reasonable pet rules, if the tenant does not correct the violation within seven days. The County Executive may issue a regulation saying what counts as reasonable rules and has not done so, so the question is judged case by case.

Assistance animals

The county adds no assistance-animal rule of its own; its human rights chapter carries a reasonable-accommodation duty and no animal provision at all. What that means in practice is that a service animal is not a pet, so the county's pet fee and pet deposit maxima have nothing to attach to, and Maryland's charge bar answers instead. That state bar is limited to service animals, and the state definition excludes an animal that provides only emotional support, well-being, comfort or companionship. An emotional support animal's treatment is therefore a question for the federal rules and the Maryland page rather than a county one.

Who enforces it and how

The pet right is enforced through the landlord-tenant chapter's ordinary machinery rather than by a penalty of its own: a provision in a rental agreement that conflicts with the chapter is unenforceable, every lease is treated as containing no waiver of a right the chapter gives, and a tenant may complain to the county, which investigates, tries conciliation and can bring the matter before the Commission on Landlord-Tenant Affairs, whose orders carry penalties for non-compliance. Units occupied by the landlord or by a relative as the section defines the term, and limited equity cooperatives, sit outside the whole chapter. The charge caps are enforced by the county's Office of Rent Stabilization, which issues notices of violation, citations and fines, and complaints go through the county's information line. The separate enforcement regulation that carries the penalty detail for a fee violation was not read, so nothing is stated about its ladder.

How this fits with Maryland law

Maryland does not preempt; it authorizes. The state fair-housing subtitle expressly leaves local governments free to legislate on the subjects it covers so long as they do not authorize discrimination, the state gives a private right of action on a county discrimination code in Montgomery County by name, a charter county council has full power to enact local laws subject to the state constitution and the public general laws, and where the landlord-tenant subtitle speaks to local law at all it says a comparable local law supersedes it when the local rule is more stringent or broader. There is no state breed rule and no state preemption of a local one. Two state rules sit beside the county ones and are not the same. The first is a state statute that applies only in Montgomery County and is narrower than the county section: it reaches elderly tenants of 60 or more but not disabled tenants, and only landlords with more than three units. The second is the state deposit regime, which caps a security deposit at one month's rent per dwelling unit; the county's pet deposit ceiling sits inside that state cap rather than on top of it. Maryland sets no ceiling on pet rent and since October 1, 2025 requires a landlord to disclose a pet policy, so on a unit the county rules exempt, the state answer is the whole answer.

Notes and caveats

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.

Citations

How this record was verified: Chapter 29 of the Montgomery County Code, Landlord-Tenant Relations, was rendered whole from the publisher's own service, 91 sections out of 91, and section 29-35 was read in full with its credit line and editor's note; sections 29-4, 29-27, 29-56, 29-58, 29-60 and 29-61 and the Commission articles were read for scope, waiver and remedies. The edition read carries the selector value 2026 S-91 and the currency line saying the code contains legislation effective through August 1, 2026, with the county regulations effective as of July 14, 2026. The county regulation on applicable fees, 29.61.01.01, was read in full from the same service and again from the County Executive's own 28-page copy of Executive Regulation 2-24, and the county regulation chapter's own table of contents, 94 entries, was read to confirm there is no regulation under section 29-35. Sections 27-6, 27-8, 27-12 and 27-14 of the human rights chapter were read for any assistance-animal rule. The Council's legislative information system was read for all 755 bill records from 2010 onward and three bill files were opened in full, including Bill 15-23, whose record gives the signing date of July 24, 2023 and the effective date of October 23, 2023. The Department of Housing and Community Affairs' fee schedules for the years beginning July 1, 2025 and July 1, 2026 were read in full from the county's own copies, and the department's own laws-and-regulations page supplied the July 23, 2024 effective date of Executive Regulation 2-24, whose served copy leaves the effective-date line blank.

What was read to state each absence on this page: Chapter 29 of the county code, 91 sections out of 91, was rendered whole and the terms run over it were pet, pets, animal, dog, guide dog, service dog, service animal, assistance animal, support animal, emotional support, companion, reasonable accommodation, breed, weight, size, deposit, fee, nonrefundable, escrow, registration and certificate. Pet occurs 24 times and every occurrence is in section 29-35. Animal, dog, service animal, assistance animal, emotional support, companion and reasonable accommodation do not occur in the chapter at all. Breed occurs once, in the mobile home park sanitation section, in the phrase about breeding places for flies and mosquitoes, and is not a breed rule. Security deposit occurs ten times and every occurrence refers to the state deposit statute. Sections 27-6, 27-8, 27-12 and 27-14 of the human rights chapter carry no occurrence of animal. The county regulation chapter for landlord-tenant matters was listed in full, 94 entries, and the only pet provision in it is 29.61.01.01(a)(3); there is no regulation under section 29-35. All 755 bill records held by the Council from 2010 onward were listed and every title matching pet, animal, landlord-tenant, rent stabilization or discriminatory housing was opened or read: none amends section 29-35 or the pet charge caps.

This page records Montgomery County's own law on pets and assistance animals in rentals. The statewide position — A Maryland landlord may charge pet rent and pet fees in any amount, but a refundable pet deposit is part of the ordinary security deposit and has to fit inside the one-month-rent cap — lives on the Maryland pets and assistance-animals page with its own citations and verification date.