Landlord Atlas

Boston, Massachusetts: pet and assistance-animal laws

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

Boston gives an elderly or handicapped tenant the right to keep common household pets, and a lease clause saying otherwise does not override it.

Cited to City of Boston Code § 10-2.9A (Ord. 1988 c. 13 §§ 1, 2) (A), (B) and 6 more cited sources · Verified September 21, 2026

The right is in section 10-2.9A of the city code, it reaches mobile homes, mobile home parks and any structure of three or more dwellings apart from hotels and an owner-occupied triple-decker, and the owner may still set reasonable rules on the number of pets, pet care, licensing, inoculation and leashing and may require a pet's removal if it becomes a nuisance or a threat to health or safety. Depriving a tenant of the right is punishable by a fine of up to $500 or 90 days in jail, rising to $3,000 or a year for a later offense, but there is no civil damages remedy. Boston sets no pet deposit, pet rent or pet fee rule of its own; Massachusetts law leaves no lawful pet deposit or non-refundable pet fee anywhere in the state, and the city applies a separate policy to pet rent in units it monitors as income-restricted. Two dates and one doubt hang over the section: it expires on December 31, 2026 unless the Council extends it again, as it has at least nine times, and the state Rent Control Prohibition Act bars a city from maintaining rent-control regulation of occupancy, though that Act excludes mobile homes and publicly assisted housing from its reach.

Boston pet law at a glance

What the local law is called Rights of Elderly and Handicapped Tenants to Have Pets
Status In force — until December 31, 2026
Who it binds Owners of housing under the Rent Equity Board's jurisdiction, for an elderly or handicapped tenant.
Pet deposit The state page answers
Pet rent The state page answers
Non-refundable pet fee The state page answers
Breed rule No local rule on breed
In the lease Pets must be allowed for the tenants the instrument names
In the published code Yes — cited to the published compilation

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Boston, Massachusetts: pet and assistance-animal laws (verified September 21, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/pets/massachusetts/boston/" — 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.

Whether it is in force

Section 10-2.20 says the whole of section 10-2, the pet right included, remains in effect only until December 31, 2026, or until the Mayor and the City Council determine sooner that the rental housing emergency is over, and the Council has moved that expiry date at least nine times since 1999, most recently by Ordinance 2025 chapter 12 section 2.

Where a change in this status would appear: City of Boston Code § 10-2.20 (Effective Date and Duration) — the expiry date and its credit line.

What would change it

A tenth extension by ordinance before December 31, 2026. If the Council extends the expiry date again, the pet right continues unchanged; if it does not, section 10-2 lapses by its own terms at the end of 2026 and the pet right lapses with it. The credit line under section 10-2.20 is where an extension shows up. Two further things bear on how much the right does in practice: whether the Rent Equity Board, whose jurisdiction the section refers to, is presently constituted, and whether any Massachusetts court applies the state Rent Control Prohibition Act to this section.

The instrument

City of Boston Code section 10-2.9A, Rights of Elderly and Handicapped Tenants to Have Pets, enacted by Ordinance 1988 chapter 13 sections 1 and 2 and carried in the current 2026 S-2 edition of the code. It is a subsection of section 10-2, the Rental Housing Equity Ordinance, and it takes that section's penalty at 10-2.17 and that section's expiry date at 10-2.20. The code prints the chapter-and-year citation of the 1988 ordinance only; no day-level adoption date is published. A second Boston instrument, a Mayor's Office of Housing policy on pet rent in city-monitored income-restricted units, is a policy rather than law and is described in the notes.

Who it binds

The right runs to an elderly or handicapped tenant, the ordinance's own terms, and binds the owner of a controlled or decontrolled housing accommodation subject to the Rent Equity Board's jurisdiction. Subsection (B) then reaches past the chapter's usual exemptions: every housing accommodation in a mobile home, in a mobile home park and in a structure of three or more dwellings is covered, except motels, hotels and inns and except a three-unit structure in which all the legal and beneficial owners live as their principal residence. The ordinance does not define elderly or handicapped, and neither does the chapter's definitions section.

Pet deposit

Boston sets no pet deposit rule; the ordinance is about keeping a pet, not about money. The Massachusetts answer governs, and it is strict: the state's closed list of what a landlord may collect at the start of a tenancy leaves no lawful pet deposit anywhere in the Commonwealth.

Pet rent

The ordinance says nothing about monthly pet rent, and the state page carries the answer: the Massachusetts bar is on charges collected at the start of a tenancy, not on rent charged monthly. The city has a separate written policy for units whose rents it monitors as income-restricted, under which pet rent and ordinary rent together may not exceed the unit's maximum allowable rent; that policy is a condition of the housing agreements the city monitors rather than a law, and the document could not be opened to read, so no figure from it is stated here.

Non-refundable pet fee

Boston bars nothing of its own. A non-refundable pet fee at move-in is unlawful across Massachusetts because the state's list of permitted start-of-tenancy charges does not include one. The city housing office's written view that pet fees are impermissible restates that state rule for the units it monitors; it is not a separate city bar.

Breed, size and weight

The ordinance reaches pets and says nothing about breed, size or weight. It does let an owner set reasonable requirements on the number of common household pets in a unit and on standards of pet care, licensing, inoculation and leashing, similar to those the state's animal-welfare society developed. No Massachusetts city or town may regulate dogs in a manner specific to breed in any event, under state law.

What the lease must, or may not, say

Notwithstanding any lease or rental agreement to the contrary, an owner may not prohibit or prevent an elderly or handicapped tenant from owning common household pets or having them live in the tenant's unit, and may not restrict or discriminate against such a tenant in admission or continued occupancy because of the pets. A no-pets clause is overridden whenever it was signed, which is the mechanism: there is no waiting period to run and nothing for the tenant to do first. The owner keeps two things: the power to set reasonable requirements on the number of pets, pet care, licensing, inoculation and leashing, and the right to require a pet's removal if its conduct or condition is a nuisance or a threat to the health or safety of other occupants or of people in the surrounding community. No cure period is stated before removal.

Assistance animals

The ordinance carves nothing out and needs no carve-out: it imposes no charge and no limit. Its shape is unusual and should not be mistaken for an assistance-animal rule, because it gives a protected group a right to keep an ordinary household pet rather than giving anyone a right to an animal that does work or provides support. Chapter X of the city code carries no service-animal, assistance-animal, emotional-support or reasonable-accommodation provision at all. What a landlord must allow and may ask for an assistance animal is answered by the Massachusetts page, where the state fair-housing law is the instrument, and by the federal rules.

Who enforces it and how

Section 10-2.17 makes it unlawful to knowingly engage in conduct tending to deprive a tenant of, or prevent a tenant from exercising, any right conferred by section 10-2, and the pet right is such a right. Willfully violating any provision of the section is punishable by a fine of up to $500 or up to 90 days in jail or both, and for a second or later offense by a fine of up to $3,000 or up to a year or both. The District Court Department and the Boston Division of the Housing Court Department have concurrent jurisdiction. There is no civil damages remedy for a pet-right violation: the civil remedies section reaches only rent charged above the maximum lawful rent, and section 10-2.9A creates no private right of action. The city housing office's pet rent policy carries no penalty; it works through the housing agreements and restrictions recorded on the units the city monitors.

How this fits with Massachusetts law

Two state instruments sit over the Boston ordinance. The first is the breed rule: no Massachusetts city or town may regulate dogs in a manner specific to breed, under General Laws chapter 140 section 157, so a Boston breed rule could not exist; the city has none. The second bites directly. The Rent Control Prohibition Act, General Laws chapter 40P, bars a city from enacting, maintaining or enforcing rent control of any kind, defines rent control to include any regulation that is part of a rent-control scheme, expressly including the regulation of occupancy and services, and preempts any inconsistent or conflicting local law. Section 10-2.9A is a regulation of occupancy that sits inside the Rental Housing Equity Ordinance and by its own words applies to accommodations subject to the Rent Equity Board's jurisdiction, so the tension is on the face of both texts. Two things are not in doubt: the Act's definition of rent control excludes mobile homes and publicly owned, publicly subsidized and federally assisted housing, and the pet right expressly reaches mobile homes and mobile home parks, so that limb of it stands whatever happens to the rest. No Massachusetts court has applied chapter 40P to this section. On money, the state page answers: the closed list of start-of-tenancy charges in chapter 186 section 15B leaves no room for a pet deposit or a non-refundable pet fee, and monthly pet rent is not addressed.

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 X of the City of Boston Code was rendered whole from the publisher's own service, 98 sections out of 98, and every section was searched for the animal terms; sections 10-2, 10-2.1, 10-2.2, 10-2.9A, 10-2.13B, 10-2.16, 10-2.17, 10-2.20 and 10-2.22 were read in full, with the credit line under each one. The edition read is 2026 S-2, whose currency line says the code is current through Ordinance 2025 C. 14, passed November 5, 2025. Massachusetts General Laws chapter 40P sections 3, 4 and 5 were read in full on the Legislature's own site on September 21, 2026, and chapter 186 section 15B and chapter 140 section 157 were read for the state answers. The City Council's legislation records were opened for a thousand matters filed since January 1, 2025 and publish no enactment number or date, so the most recent extension of the expiry date is cited from the code's own credit line. The Mayor's Office of Housing pet rent policy could not be opened on any route on September 21, 2026; its content is stated below as unread and is not published as a figure.

What was read to state each absence on this page: Chapter X of the City of Boston Code, 98 sections out of 98, was rendered whole from the publisher's own service and the terms run over it were pet, pets, animal, dog, guide dog, hearing dog, service dog, service animal, assistance animal, support animal, emotional support, companion animal, reasonable accommodation, breed, weight, size, deposit, fee, nonrefundable, registration and certificate. Every occurrence of pet or pets in the whole chapter falls in one section, 10-2.9A. Animal occurs twice, both inside that section, in the cross-references to the state animal-welfare society and to the state animal-control laws. Dog, breed, service animal, assistance animal, emotional support and reasonable accommodation do not occur anywhere in the chapter. Deposit occurs once, in section 10-2.2, and refers to money deposited with the Collector-Treasurer rather than to a tenancy deposit. Sections 10-2.1, 10-2.2, 10-2.16, 10-2.17 and 10-2.20 were read in full for the definitions, the enforcing body, the remedies and the expiry date; the definitions section supplies no meaning for elderly or for handicapped.

This page records Boston's own law on pets and assistance animals in rentals. The statewide position — A Massachusetts landlord may not take a pet deposit or an up-front pet fee from any tenant, but may charge a monthly pet rent in any amount — lives on the Massachusetts pets and assistance-animals page with its own citations and verification date.