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

No — a separate pet deposit may not be taken.

A Massachusetts landlord may not take a pet deposit from anyone. The list of charges allowed at or before the start of a tenancy is closed — first month, last month, a security deposit of one month, and the cost of a key and lock — and a pet deposit is not on it, so the protection is universal rather than something a tenant has to claim as a disability accommodation. This is stricter than the widely repeated line that a landlord may charge a pet deposit but not for an assistance animal. One housing class works differently: in state-aided elderly and disabled public housing a tenant approved to keep a pet must post a pet security deposit of $160 or one month's rent, whichever is less, stated as its own row below. How that sits with the one-deposit rule in section 15B is not addressed by either instrument.

Refundability: The question does not arise, because no pet deposit may be taken. The one lawful security deposit must be held in a separate interest-bearing Massachusetts bank account, earns five percent a year or the bank rate, remains the tenant's property, and must be returned within thirty days after the tenancy ends with a sworn, itemized list of damages and written evidence of their cost (section 15B, subsections 3 and 4).

The general deposit cap it sits against: At or before the start of a tenancy a landlord may require no more than four things: rent for the first full month, rent for the last full month at the same rate, a security deposit equal to the first month's rent, and the purchase and installation cost of a key and lock (section 15B, subsection 1, paragraph (b), as amended effective August 1, 2025). After the tenancy begins the landlord may not demand rent in advance beyond the current month or a security deposit above that amount (paragraph (d)). The deposits page carries the rest of the scheme.

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

The Massachusetts split is unusual and worth stating plainly: no up-front pet money from anyone, and monthly pet rent as high as the lease says. Nothing may be collected at or before move-in beyond first month, last month, a one-month security deposit and the key and lock cost; a monthly pet rent is additional rent and lawful. In a manufactured housing community the rule is different again — a pet fee is an unfair or deceptive practice unless it is reasonably related to the actual cost of providing a pet service or facility in the community, and none at all may be charged for a guide dog or other service animal assisting a disabled resident or for a pet kept exclusively inside the home (940 CMR 10.03(2)(g)).

Monthly pet rent: Monthly pet rent is lawful and uncapped. The Appeals Court held in 2021 that monthly animal rent charged for the right to keep dogs is additional rent that the tenant agreed to pay, not a deposit intended to secure performance, and that the post-commencement rule in section 15B, subsection 1, paragraph (d), does not carry over the closed move-in list. The court added that arguments for outlawing the practice are properly directed to the Legislature. A Housing Court decision that had read section 15B the other way was rejected, so material still repeating it is wrong.

A one-time pet fee: A one-time pet fee charged at or before the start of the tenancy is unlawful, because it is not one of the four things the closed list allows. Massachusetts has no free-standing non-refundable-fee statute; section 15B is the whole bar. The one non-refundable charge the statute contemplates is not pet-related and does not exist yet: since August 1, 2025 the housing agency may write rules allowing a fee in lieu of a security deposit, capped at one month's rent, optional for both sides and disclosed in the lease as non-refundable, but no such rules have been made, so no landlord may offer one today.

How far the non-refundable-fee rule reaches: The bar is the closed list in section 15B, subsection 1, paragraph (b): no lessor or agent may require a tenant or prospective tenant to pay any amount in excess of the four listed charges at or before the start of the tenancy. It reaches every move-in charge whatever it is called, including a non-refundable pet fee, and paragraph (d) stops the landlord demanding more once the tenancy has begun. It does not reach a recurring monthly charge.

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

No Massachusetts statute requires a lease to state a pet policy, 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. Pet terms are pure contract: the lease in the 2021 Appeals Court case carried an animal addendum with a monthly animal rent, and the court enforced it. Two housing classes have real pet paperwork. In state-aided elderly and disabled public housing the local housing authority must have a pet policy, must attach a pet-ownership application to every lease, and must have the tenant sign a pet rider before the animal moves in, with an appeal to the state housing agency and a binding pet grievance panel behind it (760 CMR 6.07). In a manufactured housing community the operator may reasonably restrict pets that go outside the home but may not regulate pets that live solely inside it, except to require that they not disturb the peace and quiet of other residents (940 CMR 10.04(10)), and a rule change must go to the Attorney General and the state housing secretary sixty days before it takes effect.

Yes.

Massachusetts law does not limit a private landlord's breed, size or weight rule, and the fair-housing statute contains no breed carve-out for an assistance animal; an animal that a landlord must allow as a reasonable accommodation is decided case by case under chapter 151B, section 4, subsection 7A. The state does have a breed rule, but it binds municipalities rather than landlords: no city or town may regulate dogs in a manner that is specific to breed, and no dog may be deemed dangerous based on its breed (chapter 140, section 157, subsections (a) and (c), in force since August 2, 2012). A city ordinance naming a breed is void, while the same words in a lease are not. Massachusetts has no insurance breed statute in force; one is pending and is described under legislation.

Size and weight: Size and weight are equally unaddressed. No statute or regulation limits what a landlord may require about an animal's breed, size or weight in any housing class, and the words used in other states — mixture of breeds, breed of any dog, specific breed — return nothing anywhere in the General Laws.

Only through the state fair-housing act's reasonable-accommodation duty, the sole state instrument reaching assistance animals in housing; no state text sets a documentation standard. Both a statute and an administrative rule under it speak to it. State law incorporates a federal statute or codified regulation by reference.

The state rule is the fair-housing duty and nothing more. Discrimination on the basis of handicap includes a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services when the accommodation may be necessary to afford a person with a handicap an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, and it includes discriminating against or refusing to rent to a person because of that person's need for an accommodation (chapter 151B, section 4, subsection 7A, clauses (2) and (3)); the duty is subject to an undue-hardship limit. Whether keeping an animal is such an accommodation, and whether a landlord must waive pet rent for one, is decided request by request — no Massachusetts statute, regulation or appellate decision answers it. The Commission Against Discrimination's housing rules restate the duty in the same general terms, saying rules, policies, practices or service delivery must be changed so that people with disabilities can reasonably live in and enjoy the premises, including public and common areas, and its three worked examples are all physical changes to a building rather than animals (804 CMR 2.03). Two regulations do name animals, each inside one housing class: a specially trained service animal is not a pet for which permission is required in state-aided elderly and disabled housing, though it counts toward the number of pets (760 CMR 6.03), and no pet fee may be charged for a guide dog or other service animal assisting a disabled resident in a manufactured housing community (940 CMR 10.03(2)(g)). A separate damages action, not a housing right, lets a person who uses an assistance animal, or the animal's owner, sue someone who steals or attacks it (chapter 272, section 85B).

Who it binds: Not every landlord. The accommodation duty in chapter 151B, section 4, subsection 7A, operates only for the purposes of subsections 6 and 7. Subsection 6 reaches publicly assisted housing, a multiple dwelling — a dwelling rented to be occupied as the home of three or more families living independently of each other — and contiguously located housing, meaning ten or more accommodations on contiguous land or ten or more lots of a subdivided tract (section 1, paragraphs (10) to (12)). Subsection 7 reaches all other housing made generally available to the public by advertising, a sign, a listing with a broker or any other public offering, but it expressly does not apply to the leasing of a single apartment or flat in a two-family dwelling whose other unit the owner occupies as his residence (section 1, paragraph (13), and section 4, subsection 7). An owner-occupied two-family is outside both, because two families is not a multiple dwelling, so it owes no state accommodation duty at all; a one- or two-family home never offered to the public is outside the statute altogether. The charge rules in section 15B bind every landlord regardless, and a manufactured housing community operator is bound by both the charge rules and the Attorney General's community rules.

The rule's currency: 804 CMR 2.00, Discrimination in Housing (Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, made under chapter 151B, section 3), dated 07/09/2004; 760 CMR 6.00, Occupancy Standards and Tenant Participation for State-Aided Housing (Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities), dated 06/07/2024; and 940 CMR 10.00, Manufactured Housing Community Regulations (Office of the Attorney General), dated 08/23/1996. Each date is the currency line the state prints on the regulation's own page at mass.gov, where all three were read as the state's own documents.

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

Massachusetts sets no documentation standard at all. Nothing in the fair-housing statute, in the housing regulations or anywhere else says what a landlord may ask for, who may write a letter, how recent it must be, whether an online certificate counts, whether a landlord may require a form or proof of vaccination, or how quickly a landlord must answer a request. No Massachusetts clinician owes a duty or faces discipline in connection with such a letter. What is left is the ordinary accommodation practice under chapter 151B — a request, and a landlord who must consider it — decided case by case by the Commission Against Discrimination and the courts. A bill filed in the current legislative term would create a commission to study access to emotional support animals in housing, which is itself a statement that the state has no standard to apply. In state-aided elderly and disabled public housing a tenant appealing a refused pet application must supply a veterinarian's statement, spaying or neutering and inoculation certificates and a municipal dog license where one is required, but that paperwork is for a pet, not for an assistance animal, which needs no permission in the first place.

Under state law, yes — no state text bars a charge for an assistance animal; the federal rules alone govern it.

No Massachusetts statute bars an extra charge for an assistance animal in housing, and for most tenants the question never arises, because no landlord may take a pet deposit or an up-front pet fee from anybody. What is left open is monthly pet rent, which is lawful as additional rent; whether a landlord must waive it for an animal a tenant needs is a reasonable-accommodation question under chapter 151B, section 4, subsection 7A, clause (2), decided case by case, and no Massachusetts appellate decision has decided it. Two housing classes do carry a charge bar, and both are limited to trained animals: in a manufactured housing community no pet fee may be charged for a guide dog or other service animal assisting a disabled resident, and in state-aided elderly and disabled public housing a specially trained service animal is not a pet, so it needs no application, no pet rider and no pet security deposit. Both are stated as separate rows below.

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

Massachusetts has no offense, civil penalty, forfeiture, eviction ground or licensing sanction for misrepresenting an animal as a service or assistance animal, and none for a professional who writes a false letter. The state is still considering whether to create one: bills filed in the current legislative term would set up a commission to study the intentional misrepresentation of a service animal. What a reader may find instead are two provisions that do something else — the public-accommodation offense against a person who denies access to someone with a dog guide, and a fine of $100, $500 or $1,000 for a business that rents out dogs (chapter 272, sections 98A and 80I). Neither reaches a tenant, a landlord or a rental home.

The landlord-side offense: The one animal offense in Massachusetts law runs against the person who denies access, not the person who claims an animal, and it is limited to public places: whoever deprives a blind, deaf or otherwise physically handicapped person accompanied by a dog guide of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of public conveyances, public amusements and places of public accommodation is punished by a fine of up to $300 and is liable to the person aggrieved for damages of not less than $100 (chapter 272, section 98A). It does not reach housing.

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

Massachusetts preempts one pet subject outright and devolves nothing. Since August 2, 2012 no city or town may regulate dogs in a manner specific to breed, and no dog may be deemed dangerous because of its breed (chapter 140, section 157); a municipal breed ordinance is void, though a private landlord's breed rule in a lease is untouched by it. Separately, the Rent Control Prohibition Act, chapter 40P, bars any city or town from rent control of any kind, which it defines to include the regulation of occupancy and services within a scheme that requires below-market rents; that reaches a local pet rule only as part of such a scheme, not a stand-alone pet ordinance, and whether it would reach a local cap on monthly pet rent has not been decided. No state statute grants a municipality power to set pet deposits, pet fees or pet policies for rental housing; the security-deposit section says nothing about local law, and the fair-housing statute has no clause preserving or devolving local ordinances; it is enforced by the Commission Against Discrimination and the courts. What a city can do it does under its home-rule powers: Boston's code carries a pet-access right for elderly and handicapped tenants (section 10-2.9A, in force until December 31, 2026 unless extended again), which is a city ordinance with its own penalty and is set out on the Boston page. Separately, Boston's housing department has a published position on pet charges that is a policy rather than an ordinance: it treats pet fees as impermissible and requires that, where monthly pet rent is charged for a unit whose rent the city monitors under an affordability agreement, the combined rent stay within the maximum allowable rent. That policy binds those units through their agreements, not through city law.

Breed-specific local animal-control rules barred: No city or town may regulate dogs in a manner that is specific to breed, and no dog may be deemed dangerous based upon its breed (chapter 140, section 157, subsections (a) and (c), added by the 2012 animal control act approved August 2, 2012). A municipal breed ordinance still on a city's books is void. The bar binds local government; it says nothing about a lease term. Text: G.L. c. 140, § 157 · (a)(ii), (c).

Local rent control barred: No city or town may enact, maintain or enforce rent control of any kind (chapter 40P, section 4). Rent control means any regulation that in any way requires below-market rents for residential properties, and any regulation that is part of such a scheme, including the regulation of occupancy, services, evictions, condominium conversion and the removal of properties from the scheme; publicly owned, publicly subsidized and federally assisted housing and mobile homes are outside the definition (section 3). A pet rule is caught only as part of a scheme that requires below-market rents, so a stand-alone local pet ordinance that sets no rent is not rent control under this definition; whether a local cap on monthly pet rent would count as a regulation requiring below-market rents has not been decided. Text: G.L. c. 40P, §§ 3–5 · § 3 (definition of rent control), § 4, § 5.

State-aided elderly and disabled public housing (publicly financed or income-restricted housing): pet deposit — capped; a prescribed term or form must carry the pet terms; an extra charge for an assistance animal — barred for a trained service animal only. Every local housing authority must have a pet policy for its elderly and disabled housing and must attach a pet-ownership application to every lease of a unit in it; a tenant who wants to keep a pet must ask the authority first, sign a pet rider on approval, and post a security deposit of $160 or one month's rent, whichever is less, before the animal moves in (760 CMR 6.07). A refusal may be appealed to the state housing agency within fourteen days, on a record that includes a color photo and description of the animal, a veterinarian's statement of its health, weight and age, spaying or neutering and inoculation certificates, a municipal dog license where one is required, and two people prepared to take the animal in an emergency. A pet committee and a pet grievance panel sit behind the policy, the panel's decisions bind, and a tenant who materially fails to comply may be evicted without a prior grievance hearing. Caged birds that are not unreasonably noisy and fish in tanks are not pets needing permission, and neither is a specially trained service animal — though a service animal still counts when the number of pets is worked out (760 CMR 6.03). The rule covers the elderly and disabled housing the state aids; the occupancy rules as a whole reach state-aided family housing too. Text: 760 CMR 6.00 · 6.02(1), 6.03, 6.06(5)(i), 6.06(5)(j), 6.07(1)–(5).

Manufactured housing community lots: pet rent and fees — capped; an extra charge for an assistance animal — barred for a trained service animal only. In a manufactured housing community it is an unfair or deceptive practice for the operator to charge a pet fee unless the fee is reasonably related to the actual cost of providing a pet service or facility in the community; no fee at all may be charged for a guide dog or other service animal assisting a disabled resident, or for a pet kept exclusively within the home (940 CMR 10.03(2)(g)). The ceiling is a cost standard rather than a figure. The operator may reasonably restrict pets that go outside the home but may not regulate pets that live solely inside it, beyond requiring that they not disturb the peace and quiet of other residents (940 CMR 10.04(10)). Taking a deposit or any other amount in violation of the security-deposit section is itself an unfair or deceptive practice here (940 CMR 10.03(1)(g)), and community rules must go to the Attorney General and the state housing secretary sixty days before they take effect. The statute behind these rules says nothing about pets; the whole rule is the Attorney General's, enforced under the consumer protection act. Text: 940 CMR 10.00 · 10.03(1)(b), 10.03(1)(g), 10.03(2)(g), 10.04(10).