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

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

New York has no pet-deposit statute. A refundable pet deposit is money advanced as security for performance, so it is an ordinary security deposit: it sits inside the one-month ceiling rather than on top of it, and a landlord who has already taken a full month's rent as a deposit has no room left for a separate pet deposit. The whole amount must come back when the tenant leaves, less the reasonable and itemized costs the statute lists. Any agreement by a tenant waiving or modifying these rights is absolutely void (General Obligations Law section 7-108, subdivision 3, and section 7-107, subdivision 10 for rent-stabilized units), so a lease clause that labels a pet charge as something outside the cap does not work. The deposit title names no animal of any kind and so carries no assistance-animal exception; that exclusion lives in the Civil Rights Law and is stated below.

Refundability: Mandatory. The entire amount of the deposit or advance must be refunded when the tenant vacates, except for an amount lawfully retained for the reasonable and itemized costs of unpaid rent, damage caused by the tenant beyond normal wear and tear, unpaid utility charges payable directly to the landlord, and moving and storage of the tenant's belongings (General Obligations Law section 7-108, subdivision 1-a, paragraph (b), and section 7-107, subdivision 3 for rent-stabilized units). There is no pet exception to that sentence.

The general deposit cap it sits against: One month's rent, with every deposit and advance counted together (General Obligations Law section 7-108, subdivision 1-a, paragraph (a)). Rent-stabilized and Emergency Tenant Protection Act units run on section 7-107 instead, which has carried the same one-month ceiling since November 15, 2025 for leases and renewals entered into on or after that date. The security-deposits page carries the general cap with its return deadline and itemization rule.

Where the rule switches off or on: The one-month ceiling does not reach six named classes of dwelling unit: units subject to the city rent and rehabilitation law or the emergency housing rent control law, continuing care retirement communities licensed under article 46 or 46-A of the Public Health Law, assisted living providers licensed under article 46-B of that law, adult care facilities licensed under article 7 of the Social Services Law, senior residential communities that have submitted an offering plan to the attorney general, and not-for-profit independent retirement communities that offer personal emergency response, housekeeping, transportation and meals to their residents. Two further carve-outs sit inside the cap sentence itself: seasonal use dwelling units and owner-occupied cooperative apartments.

No for a non-refundable pet fee, which a general or specific rule bars. Permitted and uncapped outside rent-regulated housing.

A landlord may not demand a non-refundable pet fee at the front of a New York tenancy, and may not make a pet deposit non-refundable. Monthly pet rent is a different matter: nothing in New York law addresses it, and outside rent-regulated housing a landlord may charge it without a ceiling. The state sets no reasonableness test for a pet charge; the only reasonableness standard in the money sections attaches to what a landlord may keep from a deposit and to the landlord's burden of proof on keeping it. A tenant whose deposit rights are violated may recover actual damages, and punitive damages of up to twice the deposit where the violation was willful (General Obligations Law section 7-108, subdivision 1-a, paragraph (g)), and the attorney general may enforce the title (section 7-109).

Monthly pet rent: Permitted and uncapped outside rent-regulated housing. No New York statute addresses a recurring monthly pet charge, and the front-of-tenancy bar reaches only money demanded before or at the beginning of the tenancy, so a monthly charge during the tenancy falls outside it. The same section caps only late fees, at fifty dollars or five percent of the monthly rent, whichever is less, and only after five days (Real Property Law section 238-a, subdivision 2). In rent-stabilized and rent-controlled units the legal regulated rent is fixed by the rent laws and a separate pet charge is not one of the permitted increases; that is a rent-regulation question rather than a pet question.

A one-time pet fee: Barred. A one-time non-refundable pet fee, pet cleaning fee or pet administration fee demanded at signing or move-in is a payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy, and no New York statute or regulation provides for a pet fee, so the exception that opens the section does not save it. A refundable pet deposit survives the same sentence because the deposit statutes do provide for a security deposit.

How far the non-refundable-fee rule reaches: Real Property Law section 238-a, subdivision 1, paragraph (a) is a closed list: except where a statute or regulation provides for a payment, no landlord, lessor, sub-lessor or grantor may demand any payment, fee or charge for processing, reviewing or accepting an application, or any other payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy. The one thing that may be demanded is a background and credit check at the actual cost or twenty dollars, whichever is less (paragraph (b)). Entrance fees charged by five named senior and care categories are excepted from the subdivision. A lease provision waiving or limiting the section is void as against public policy (subdivision 3). Independently, the entire amount of any deposit or advance must be refundable (General Obligations Law section 7-108, subdivision 1-a, paragraph (b)), so a charge styled a non-refundable pet deposit fails on two sentences rather than one.

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

No New York statute requires a lease to state a pet policy, supplies a default when the lease says nothing about pets, limits how many pets a tenant may keep, or governs a landlord's change to a pet rule in the middle of a term. A no-pets clause is an ordinary lease covenant. Two mandates exist and both bind public housing rather than the private market: a tenant in a housing project who is legally blind, severely physically handicapped or mute may not be denied occupancy or evicted on the sole ground of owning a dog or cat (Public Housing Law section 223-a), and a deaf or hard-of-hearing tenant may not be denied occupancy or evicted for owning a hearing dog (section 223-b). Both are stated as their own rows below. The three-month waiver rule a New York tenant may have heard of is New York City's, not the state's.

Yes.

New York law says nothing about a landlord's breed, size or weight rule for pets, in any housing class. The word breed appears nowhere in the Real Property Law, the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, the Multiple Dwelling Law, the Multiple Residence Law, the General Obligations Law, the Public Housing Law, the Private Housing Finance Law or the Municipal Home Rule Law, and no statute preempts a local breed ordinance in housing. The dangerous-dog provisions in the Agriculture and Markets Law are animal control rather than a housing rule. Because there is no breed rule in housing, there is no assistance-animal carve-out from one either. The only breed rule New York has binds insurers, and is stated below.

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. The operative rules are statutory. State law incorporates a federal statute or codified regulation by reference.

It is an unlawful discriminatory practice for a housing provider to refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services when they may be necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, including the use of an animal as a reasonable accommodation to alleviate symptoms or effects of a disability (Executive Law section 296, subdivision 18, paragraph 2). The same words bind publicly assisted housing accommodations (subdivision 2-a, paragraph (d), subparagraph 2), and both clauses have read that way since August 11, 2020. New York sets no documentation standard, no deadline for the landlord's answer and no presumption; whether a particular accommodation must be made is worked out case by case, and the Appellate Division has held that the statute asks only whether the accommodation may be necessary, rejecting a stricter test applied in another department. A second statute runs alongside: a person with a disability accompanied by a guide, hearing or service dog may not be denied admittance to or the equal use and enjoyment of any public facility, a term that expressly includes all forms of public and private housing, and the dog's custody is guaranteed while the person exercises those rights (Civil Rights Law sections 47 and 47-b); the same rights extend to a person training such a dog. Section 300 of the Executive Law directs that the Human Rights Law be construed liberally and its exemptions narrowly, regardless of how comparably worded federal civil rights laws have been construed.

Who it binds: Every landlord. The animal-accommodation duty sits in subdivision 18 of section 296 of the Executive Law, which reaches the owner, lessee, sub-lessee, assignee or managing agent of, or other person having the right of ownership of or possession of or the right to rent or lease housing accommodations, and carries no exemption of its own. The owner-occupied two-family and room-rental exemptions live in subdivision 5, paragraph (a), subparagraph 4, and by their own words switch off subparagraphs 1 through 3 of that paragraph only; none of the other nine exemption clauses in the section touches subdivision 18 or the parallel clause for publicly assisted housing. Section 300 of the Executive Law directs that exemptions from the article be construed narrowly. So an owner-occupied two-family house and a room rental in the owner's own home are both bound. The separate charge bar in the Civil Rights Law reaches all forms of public and private housing accommodations, permanent or temporary (section 47, subdivision 2).

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

New York sets no documentation rule at all. No statute says what a landlord may ask for, who may write a letter, how long a treating relationship must have run, whether an online certificate counts for anything, whether a landlord may require a particular form or proof of vaccination, or how quickly a landlord must answer a request. No statute places a duty on the professional who writes the documentation, and none makes that professional liable for writing one. What a landlord may ask in a given case is worked out under the accommodation duty itself, with the tenant carrying the burden of showing a disability and a disability-related need for the animal. A bill that would add a documentation requirement is before the Senate and is stated under legislation below.

Under state law, yes — the state bar reaches only a trained service, guide, hearing or assistance dog, or a certified animal; the federal rules still govern an emotional support animal; the bar is an express no-extra-charge clause, in a statute.

A landlord may not impose or maintain any direct or indirect additional charge for the admittance of a guide dog, hearing dog or service dog accompanying a person with a disability (Civil Rights Law section 47-b, subdivision 2), and the bar reaches private housing because a public facility is defined to include all forms of public and private housing accommodations. So no pet deposit, no pet fee and no pet rent may be charged for one of those three trained dogs, and the words reach an indirect charge as well as a direct one. An animal kept for emotional support is outside all three definitions, so New York has no statutory charge bar for one; whether a charge must be waived for such an animal is decided case by case under the accommodation duty in Executive Law section 296, subdivision 18, paragraph 2. In 2026 the Appellate Division confirmed a fifteen thousand dollar civil fine against a landlord who required a pet deposit and a monthly pet fee for a trained service dog after receiving the tenant's physician's letters. The pet-money sections themselves carry no animal exception; a reader who opens only the deposit statute will find nothing about animals at all.

The definition it hangs on: A guide dog or hearing dog is "a dog that is under the control ... of the person using or training it and has been or is being trained to guide or otherwise to aid a person with a disability", and a service dog is "any dog under the control ... of the person using or training it, and that has been or is being individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability" (Civil Rights Law section 47-b, subdivisions 4 and 7). All three are trained dogs; an animal kept for emotional support is outside every one of them.

Remedy: Any person or legal entity, public or private, that violates article 4-B is guilty of a violation, and a second breach of section 47 or of section 47-b, subdivision 1 or 2, within a two-year period is punishable by a fine of one thousand dollars (Civil Rights Law section 47-c). A refusal to accommodate under the Human Rights Law is answered by the Division of Human Rights or by a court: compensatory damages, punitive damages of up to ten thousand dollars in a housing case, and civil fines and penalties of up to fifty thousand dollars, or up to one hundred thousand dollars where the conduct was willful, wanton or malicious (Executive Law section 297, subdivision 4, paragraph (c)), with a private action available under subdivision 9.

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

New York has no offense and no civil penalty for misrepresenting an animal as a service or support animal, in housing or anywhere else, and no sanction on a professional who writes documentation without a basis. Article 242 of the Penal Law punishes a person who harms, interferes with, harasses or intimidates a service animal or its handler; it says nothing about a person who falsely claims one. Nothing in the Agriculture and Markets Law, the Education Law or the Public Health Law creates such an offense either, and New York has not enacted the public-accommodations version other states have. A reader who has heard that New York fines people for faking a service animal is thinking of another state. A bill that would make fraudulently obtaining documentation for a housing accommodation a misdemeanor is stated under legislation below.

The landlord-side offense: New York penalizes the landlord side instead. A violation of any provision of Civil Rights Law article 4-B is a violation, and a second breach of section 47 or of section 47-b, subdivision 1 or 2, within two years carries a one thousand dollar fine (section 47-c). Withholding an accommodation under the Human Rights Law exposes a landlord to compensatory damages, punitive damages of up to ten thousand dollars in a housing case, and civil fines of up to fifty thousand dollars, or one hundred thousand dollars for willful, wanton or malicious conduct (Executive Law section 297, subdivision 4, paragraph (c)).

State law says nothing either way about local pet rules in housing.

No New York statute authorizes or preempts local rules on pets in housing. The landlord-tenant statutes carry no preemption clause on pet deposits, pet rent or pet policies, and the Human Rights Law's housing part has no local-government clause. New York City's pet rule therefore rests on the general home-rule police power, which lets a local government legislate for the government, protection, order, conduct, safety, health and well-being of persons or property within it (Municipal Home Rule Law section 10, subdivision 1). That is a general power rather than a pet authorization, which is why New York sits on the silent side of this question. New York City: where a tenant in a multiple dwelling openly and notoriously keeps a household pet for three months or more after taking possession and the owner, knowing it, does not sue within that period, the no-pets clause in the lease is treated as waived, the waiver falls away where the pet damages the premises, creates a nuisance or substantially interferes with other tenants, the city housing authority is outside the rule, and buildings with fewer than three families are outside it too. The city page carries its terms.

Public housing projects: a dog or cat for three named tenant classes (publicly financed or income-restricted housing): pets must be allowed, subject to the stated conditions. No person who has been adjudged legally blind, or who is a severely physically handicapped person, or who is mute, may be denied occupancy in a dwelling in any project or evicted from one on the sole ground that the person owns a dog or cat that will or does live there (Public Housing Law section 223-a). If a health hazard results after occupancy on account of the animal, the public health officer with jurisdiction may take appropriate corrective measures. This is a pet right rather than an assistance-animal right: the animal need do nothing for the tenant and no training is required. A project is defined as a work or improvement, with the land, buildings and dwelling units, acquired, owned, constructed, managed or operated to provide dwelling accommodations for persons of low income (section 3, subdivision 14). Text: N.Y. Pub. Hous. Law § 223-a. Text: N.Y. Pub. Hous. Law § 3 · (14).

Public housing projects: a hearing dog for a deaf or hard-of-hearing tenant (publicly financed or income-restricted housing): pets must be allowed, subject to the stated conditions. No person who is deaf or hard of hearing may be denied occupancy in a dwelling in any project or evicted from one on the sole ground that the person owns a hearing dog, with the same public-health-officer proviso where a health hazard results after occupancy (Public Housing Law section 223-b). The hearing dog is the trained animal the Civil Rights Law defines at section 47-b, subdivision 4, so this row, unlike the one above it, reaches only a trained dog. The section was last amended by chapter 221 of the laws of 2018, which replaced the older wording for deafness across eleven laws. Text: N.Y. Pub. Hous. Law § 223-b. Text: N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 47-b · (4).

Six classes of dwelling unit outside the one-month deposit cap (another housing class): pet deposit — no statute, no cap. The one-month deposit ceiling opens with the words except in dwelling units subject to, and then names six classes: units under the city rent and rehabilitation law or the emergency housing rent control law, continuing care retirement communities licensed under article 46 or 46-A of the Public Health Law, assisted living providers licensed under article 46-B, adult care facilities licensed under article 7 of the Social Services Law, senior residential communities that have submitted an offering plan to the attorney general, and not-for-profit independent retirement communities offering personal emergency response, housekeeping, transportation and meals (General Obligations Law section 7-108, subdivision 1-a). In those six classes no statutory ceiling reaches a pet deposit at all, so the familiar statement that a New York landlord cannot take a pet deposit on top of a full month's security deposit is not true inside them. The five senior and care categories are also outside the front-of-tenancy fee bar to the extent of the entrance fees they charge (Real Property Law section 238-a, subdivision 1, paragraph (a)). Text: N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-108 · (1-a). Text: N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 238-a · (1)(a).

Matter of New York State Division of Human Rights v. Winnie, 2026 NY Slip Op 03041 (New York Appellate Division, Third Department; residential setting; bears on charges for an assistance animal): A landlord who, after receiving the tenant's physician's letters, required the payment of a pet deposit and a monthly pet fee for a trained service dog violated the animal-accommodation duty in Executive Law section 296, subdivision 18, paragraph 2. The court confirmed the Division's compensatory and punitive damages and a fifteen thousand dollar civil fine and penalty, and noted that the statute was amended in 2020 to name the use of an animal as a reasonable accommodation.

Hollandale Apts. & Health Club, LLC v. Bonesteel, 2019 NY Slip Op 03718 (New York Appellate Division, Third Department; residential setting; bears on the assistance-animal rule): On a no-dogs policy and a therapist's letter for a dog kept for emotional support, the court held that the Human Rights Law asks only whether an accommodation may be necessary, and rejected the stricter standard, applied in the Second Department, that the animal be actually necessary for the tenant to enjoy the apartment; it pointed to the liberal-construction command in Executive Law section 300. The tenant established a disability and the need for the dog. The departments remain split on that standard.