Landlord Atlas

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

Verified September 21, 2026 All North Dakota topics →

North Dakota lets a landlord take a separate pet security deposit of the greater of $2,500 or two months' rent, and it sits on top of the ordinary one-month security cap rather than inside it — the largest express pet-deposit allowance in the country.

Cited to N.D.C.C. § 47-16-07.1 (1), (2), (3)(a)–(c), (4), (6) and 21 more cited sources · Verified September 21, 2026

On a nine-hundred-dollar unit that means $2,500, not $1,800. It is a security deposit, so it goes into an interest-bearing account, must come back with an itemization within thirty days, and carries treble damages if any of it is held back without reasonable justification. It may not be charged at all for a service animal or a companion animal a tenant with a disability needs as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws, and that carve-out turns on need rather than on training, so it is not limited to trained dogs. The bar is a deposit bar only: no state statute reaches pet rent or a one-time pet fee for an assistance animal, and neither is capped for an ordinary pet either, although money taken up front and held against damage counts as security whatever the lease calls it. A landlord may ask for reliable documentation where the building has a no-pets policy and the tenant claims a disability, unless the disability or the need is obvious or already known; the documentation must show the disability and the link to the need, and may come from a physician or medical professional who does not operate in the state solely to write such certifications. Nothing requires the landlord to answer, in writing or at all. Lying about a disability or handing over a fake letter is an infraction, and on a guilty plea or conviction the landlord may evict and take a damage fee of up to $1,000. In a month-to-month tenancy a landlord may add or change a pet rule on thirty days' written notice, and no statute touches breed, size or weight.

North Dakota pets & assistance animals at a glance

Which law governs Almost everything on this page sits in one chapter: chapter 47-16 of the Century Code, the leasing chapter. Section 47-16-07.1 carries the general security cap, the express pet security deposit, the assistance-animal carve-out and the return and itemization machinery; section 47-16-07 carries the month-to-month term-change rule that reaches a pet clause; section 47-16-07.5 is the assistance-animal documentation statute, unusual in sitting in the landlord-tenant chapter rather than the civil-rights title; and section 47-16-07.6 is the tenant offense. A second offense sits in chapter 25-13, the blind and disabled persons' chapter, whose public-accommodation right and dog-only definition are otherwise not housing law. The state accommodation duty is the Housing Discrimination Act, chapter 14-02.5, administered by the department of labor and human rights, whose exemptions are in section 14-02.5-09. Local authority comes from the city and county powers in sections 40-05-02 and 11-11-14 and from the home-rule chapter, and the only preemption in the leasing chapter is about rent control.
Where in the state the answers differ The money rules, the documentation statute and the offenses are statewide and unconditioned, and the deposit section says in terms that it applies to the state and to political subdivisions that lease property and require security. The one duty that varies by owner is the state accommodation duty: it does not reach an owner renting a single-family house who owns no more than three such houses at a time, without a broker and without a prohibited advertisement, and only for one rental in any twenty-four-month period where the owner was not the most recent resident, and anyone who owns a dwelling occupied by five or more families is outside that exemption altogether; nor does it reach the rooms or units in a building of not more than four families living independently where the owner occupies one of them (section 14-02.5-09). So in an owner-occupied fourplex the state accommodation duty drops away while the documentation statute, its penalties and the deposit carve-out all still apply.
Which landlords are covered Every lessor. The deposit section, the documentation section and the offense section carry no exemption of any kind — no unit threshold, no owner-occupied carve-out, no small-landlord exclusion — and the deposit section adds that it applies to the state and to political subdivisions of the state that lease real property or dwellings and require money as security (section 47-16-07.1). The one narrower duty is the state accommodation duty in the Housing Discrimination Act, whose owner exemptions are set out above. North Dakota sets no separate pet rule for any housing class: there is no publicly financed housing mandate and no manufactured-home park pet provision anywhere in the code.
Pet deposit

Yes, up to a ceiling the statute sets for a pet deposit as such. A pet security deposit may not exceed the greater of two thousand five hundred dollars or an amount equivalent to two months' rent (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 2). It is the greater of the two, so on a nine-hundred-dollar unit the lawful figure is $2,500, not $1,800; the rent-linked figure only becomes the larger one above $1,250 a month. It may be taken on top of the general deposit cap.

North Dakota expressly authorizes a separate pet security deposit and it is the largest express pet figure in the country: the greater of $2,500 or two months' rent, and it sits on top of the general one-month cap rather than inside it. It may not be charged for an animal that is a service animal or companion animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws. It is security, so it earns interest, must be returned with a thirty-day itemization and carries treble damages if any of it is withheld without reasonable justification. Because the general cap catches security however it is denominated, money collected up front and held against damage is inside these rules whatever the lease calls it. The state Supreme Court held in 2026 that missing the thirty-day itemization does not by itself forfeit the deposit or bar a damages action, because the legislature attached no remedy to that duty; treble damages remain the remedy for withholding without reasonable justification.

Refundability: The pet deposit is security, so the whole security machinery applies to it. It goes into a federally insured interest-bearing savings or checking account for the tenant's benefit and must be paid to the tenant when the lease ends, subject to the deductions allowed; it may be applied to damage the lessor has suffered from deterioration or injury to the property by the tenant's pet or through the negligence of the tenant or a guest, to unpaid rent, and to the cost of cleaning or repairs that were the tenant's responsibility, reasonable wear and tear excepted. An itemization with the amount due must be delivered or mailed with a written notice within thirty days after the lease ends and possession is delivered, and no interest is owed where the occupancy was under nine months. A lessor is liable for treble damages for any security deposit money withheld without reasonable justification (section 47-16-07.1, subsections 1, 3 and 4).

The general deposit cap it sits against: A lessor may not demand or receive security, however denominated, worth more than one month's rent (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 1). The security-deposits page carries the general cap and its return rules.

Where the rule switches off or on: Two exceptions raise the general one-month cap to two months, and neither is about pets and neither stacks with the pet figure: a lessor may accept up to two months' rent as security from a person convicted of a felony offense as an incentive to rent to that person, and may demand up to two months from a person against whom judgment has been entered for violating the terms of a previous rental agreement (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 1, paragraphs a and b). A reader who adds those to the pet deposit gets the law wrong.
Pet rent and pet fees

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

Nothing in North Dakota law caps pet rent or a one-time pet fee, requires either to be reasonable, or requires a landlord to disclose them. The only handle is the deposit definition: because the cap reaches security however denominated, a charge taken at move-in and held against damage is a security deposit whatever the lease calls it, and is inside the pet-deposit ceiling, the interest-bearing account, the thirty-day itemization and the treble-damages remedy. The assistance-animal carve-out is written into the deposit subsection alone, so state law bars no pet rent and no pet fee for an assistance animal; that question runs through the accommodation duty and the federal rules, which a federal court sitting in this state has applied to exactly such a policy.

Monthly pet rent: No statute caps, authorizes or conditions monthly pet rent. A genuinely earned, non-returnable monthly charge is outside the security rules and unregulated. Money collected up front and held against damage is security however it is denominated and falls back inside the pet-deposit ceiling and the return machinery.

A one-time pet fee: No statute addresses a one-time pet fee, and North Dakota has no general bar on non-refundable fees for one to run into: the words nonrefundable, non-refundable and refundable appear nowhere in the whole leasing chapter. The chapter's only fee rule is that a landlord may not charge a tenant a fee to accept cash, a check or a money order for rent or any other payment required under the lease (section 47-16-20.1, in force since August 1, 2025), which reaches how a pet charge is paid and never how much it is.
Pet policy in the lease, and changing it mid-tenancy

No — but a written-rules or mid-term-change provision would govern a pet rule the landlord adopts.

No North Dakota statute requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed, and the state has no lease-contents statute at all — the only document a landlord must hand over is a statement describing the condition of the facilities at the time the rental agreement is made, which is prima facie proof of that condition and says nothing about animals (section 47-16-07.2). No statute supplies a default when the lease is silent, limits the number or species of animals, or makes any class of housing accept pets. The documentation statute is drafted around a tenant of a rental dwelling that is subject to a no pets policy, which assumes a landlord may impose one, but that assumption is not itself a rule. What does govern is the month-to-month term-change section set out above.

Changing the rule mid-tenancy: In a lease from month to month the landlord may change the terms of the lease, to take effect at the expiration of the month, on at least thirty days' written notice; once served, the notice creates and establishes as part of the lease the terms, rent and conditions it states, if the tenant holds over after the month ends (section 47-16-07). That reaches a pet clause: a month-to-month landlord may impose, change or withdraw a pet policy, or add pet money, that way. There is no equivalent rule for a fixed-term lease during its term.
Breed, size and weight restrictions

Yes.

No North Dakota statute limits, authorizes or preempts a breed, size or weight rule in a tenancy. The word breed appears nowhere in the leasing chapter, the blind and disabled persons' chapter, the human rights chapter or the Housing Discrimination Act, and across the whole code it sits only in the game and fish, livestock, commercial dog and cat breeder, veterinary and a few miscellaneous sections. North Dakota also has no statute preempting a municipal breed ordinance, and cities are expressly empowered to regulate the keeping of dogs, so a North Dakota city may adopt one. The assistance-animal carve-out in the deposit section is not a breed rule: it excludes a service or companion animal from the pet deposit and says nothing about breed, weight or size.
Assistance animals: the state instrument and who it binds

Yes — a state statute or rule sets what a landlord may request or what a certifier must meet for an assistance animal in housing. The operative rules are statutory. State law incorporates a federal statute or codified regulation by reference.

A landlord may require reliable supporting documentation from a tenant of a rental dwelling that is subject to a no pets policy, if the tenant asserts a disability requiring a service animal or assistance animal be allowed as an accommodation on the rented premises under any provision of law. The documentation may be provided by a physician or medical professional who does not operate in this state solely to provide certification for service or assistance animals, and it must confirm the tenant's disability and the relationship between the disability and the need for the requested accommodation. A landlord may not require documentation where the tenant's disability or disability-related need is readily apparent or already known to the landlord (section 47-16-07.5). That is the whole of the process: North Dakota gives the landlord a right to ask and the tenant a penalty for lying, and prescribes no deadline for an answer, no consequence for refusing to decide and no stated result if the landlord rejects the documentation. Beside it sits the state accommodation duty, under which discrimination includes a refusal to make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services if the accommodation may be necessary to afford the individual equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling (section 14-02.5-06). The department's power to make substantive rules is capped by statute at obligations, rights and remedies the same as those in the federal fair housing regulations, which is why no state rule adds anything here.

Who it binds: The documentation statute, the offense that goes with it and the deposit carve-out bind every lessor: none of the three sections carries an exemption clause, a threshold or an owner-occupied carve-out, and the deposit section says expressly that it applies to the state and to political subdivisions that lease property and require security (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 6). The state accommodation duty is narrower. It does not reach an owner renting a single-family house who owns not more than three such houses at a time, without a broker and without a prohibited advertisement, and then only for one rental in a twenty-four-month period where the owner was not the most recent resident; anyone owning a dwelling occupied by five or more families is outside that exemption. It also does not reach the rooms or units in a building of not more than four families living independently where the owner occupies one of them (section 14-02.5-09). The public-accommodation right in the blind and disabled persons' chapter is a different thing again and is not a housing provision.
What counts as an assistance animal North Dakota's housing provisions use the terms and define neither. The documentation section uses service animal and assistance animal side by side and defines both nowhere; assistance animal appears in only two sections of the whole code, that one and the offense section. The deposit carve-out uses service animal and companion animal, and companion animal is undefined in the leasing chapter — its only other use in the code is as a breeder-licensing term. What controls the carve-out is not a definition but a qualifier: the animal must be required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws, which is a necessity test and not a training test. There is a dog-only definition in the blind and disabled persons' chapter — service animal means any dog trained to do work, perform tasks or provide assistance for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a dog trained to pull a wheelchair, lend balance support, retrieve dropped objects or provide assistance in a medical crisis — but it opens with the words for purposes of this chapter, and nothing in the leasing chapter adopts it, so the housing right is neither dog-only nor training-limited (section 25-13-01.1). Emotional support animal appears nowhere in North Dakota law in an animal sense, and support animal appears only as law enforcement support animal in the criminal title. Disability for the accommodation duty means a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits at least one major life activity, a record of the impairment, or being regarded as having it (section 14-02.5-01).
Documentation a landlord may request, and what a certifier must meet

Not an enumerated list. The landlord may require reliable supporting documentation, and the documentation must confirm two things and only two: the tenant's disability, and the relationship between that disability and the need for the requested accommodation (section 47-16-07.5). The landlord may not require documentation at all where the disability or the disability-related need is readily apparent or already known.

A licensed or qualified professional may certify. An online certificate is not, by itself, sufficient. The text states what documentation is sufficient rather than who may certify.

Who may certify: A physician or medical professional who does not operate in this state solely to provide certification for service or assistance animals (section 47-16-07.5). North Dakota names no license classes, does not require the professional to be licensed in the state, and sets no other qualification. The eleven words about operating solely to provide certification were added in 2017 and do the whole work of excluding a letter mill: they take the writer out of the class of persons whose documentation counts as reliable.

North Dakota's rule is short and it does two things. It lets a landlord ask for reliable supporting documentation where the tenancy is subject to a no pets policy and the tenant asserts a disability requiring an animal, and it says what the documentation must show — the disability, and the link between the disability and the need for the animal. It qualifies the writer by exclusion rather than by license class: a physician or medical professional will do, unless that person operates in the state solely to provide certification for service or assistance animals, which takes a certificate mill out of the class. The landlord may not ask at all where the disability or the need is obvious or already known. Everything else is unwritten. There is no minimum treatment period, no annual re-evaluation, no prescribed or forbidden form, no bar on asking for medical records, no rule about proof of vaccination, no rule about the mode of the examination, and no deadline by which the landlord must answer — indeed no duty to answer at all. No duty is placed on the professional who writes the letter either: the occupations and professions title carries no assistance-animal provision, so there is no licensing-discipline route in this state.
Charges for an assistance animal

No, not a pet deposit — the state bar is a carve-out in the deposit statute that reaches an emotional support animal, and it does not reach pet rent or a one-time pet fee.

A landlord may not charge a pet security deposit for an animal that is a service animal or a companion animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws. The carve-out names companion animal as a separate term and hangs on a fair-housing necessity test, not on training, and the dog-only definition elsewhere in the code is confined to its own chapter, so the bar is not limited to trained dogs. The scope limit matters and should not be smoothed over: this is a deposit bar. No North Dakota text bars pet rent or a one-time pet fee for an assistance animal. What state law does is catch money taken up front and held against damage, because that is security however it is denominated; a recurring charge runs through the accommodation duty and the federal rules instead, and a federal court sitting in this state struck at a policy that imposed an application fee, a non-refundable deposit and a monthly charge on tenants with an untrained assistance animal while waiving them for a trained one.

The definition it hangs on: The grant is to charge a pet security deposit 'for keeping an animal that is not a service animal or companion animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws' (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 2). Companion animal is a second, separate term, and the qualifier governing both is a fair-housing necessity test rather than a training test.

Remedy: The leasing chapter attaches no remedy to the carve-out itself. A tenant charged a pet deposit for an animal the carve-out excludes has the ordinary deposit remedies — the money is security withheld, and a lessor is liable for treble damages for security withheld without reasonable justification (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 4) — and the accommodation route through the Housing Discrimination Act and the federal rules.
Damage caused by an assistance animal

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

The deposit may be applied to any damages the lessor has suffered by reason of deterioration or injury to the real property or dwelling by the tenant's pet, or through the negligence of the tenant or a guest (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 3). The carve-out removes the deposit, not the liability. In public accommodations the parallel rule is express: the individual accompanied by a service animal is liable for any damage the animal does to the premises or facility, and the same goes for a trainer with an animal in training (sections 25-13-02 and 25-13-02.1).
Misrepresenting an assistance animal

An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: an infraction, a ground for eviction, and a civil penalty, reaching the person claiming the animal. Penalty terms: a damage fee of not more than $1,000.

An individual is guilty of an infraction if, in an attempt to obtain a reasonable housing accommodation under the documentation section, the individual knowingly makes a false claim of having a disability that requires the use of a service animal or assistance animal, or knowingly provides fraudulent supporting documentation in connection with such a claim. If the individual pleads guilty or is convicted, the lessor may evict the tenant and is entitled to a damage fee of not more than one thousand dollars (section 47-16-07.6). A second offense in the blind and disabled persons' chapter makes it an infraction to knowingly claim falsely that a pet is a service animal, either to gain admission to a public place or to obtain a reasonable housing accommodation under the same documentation section, so a false claim made to a landlord can be charged under either (section 25-13-02.2). No prior warning is required. Both are drafted against the person claiming the animal; North Dakota places no penalty on the letter-writer.

Who enforces it: Both offenses are infractions, prosecuted in the ordinary courts. The landlord's eviction right and the damage fee are not free-standing remedies: both arise only if the individual pleads guilty or is convicted of the infraction. Neither section reaches the person who writes the letter, and no licensing board in the state carries an assistance-animal duty, so there is no discipline route against a certifier.
Can cities add their own rules

Yes, within the powers state law names in this row.

North Dakota grants local power over animals expressly and to both tiers, and the grants carry an important qualifier: they are animal-control powers over licensing, keeping, confinement and control, not powers over what a landlord may charge. A city may license dogs and regulate the keeping of dogs, with assistance-dog license fees waived; a county may regulate the confinement and control of dogs, cats and other household pets so long as it does not contradict the state board of animal health; and a home-rule city's charter and ordinances supersede conflicting state law in local matters. There is no statute preempting a municipal breed ordinance, so a North Dakota city may adopt one. The only preemption in the leasing chapter is about rent control and belongs to the rent-increase page; nothing in state law either grants or denies a municipality power to cap a pet deposit or to require private landlords to accept pets. No North Dakota city carries a pet-in-housing ordinance page on this site.

Localities may regulate the keeping or licensing of animals: A city may license dogs and regulate the keeping of dogs, including authorizing their disposition or destruction to protect the health, safety and general welfare of the public, provided that license fees are waived in the case of an assistance dog. Text: N.D.C.C. § 40-05-02 · (22).

Localities may regulate the keeping or licensing of animals, a second instrument: A county may regulate the confinement and control of dogs, cats and other household pets, provided the regulations do not conflict with rules adopted by the state board of animal health. Text: N.D.C.C. § 11-11-14 · (22).

Another express grant: A ratified home-rule charter is the organic law of the city and extends to all its local and city matters unless limited by law, and the charter and the ordinances made under it supersede within the city any state law in conflict with them, except as to city elections. Text: N.D.C.C. § 40-05.1-05.

Local rent control barred: A political subdivision may not enact, maintain or enforce an ordinance or resolution that would have the effect of controlling the amount of rent charged for leasing private residential or commercial property, without impairing its right to manage and control residential property in which it has a fee title interest. Text: N.D.C.C. § 47-16-02.1.
Housing classes with their own pet rule No manufactured-home park, publicly financed, public-housing or senior-housing rule departs from the answers above
Insurance and dog breeds No statute restricts an insurer's use of dog breed in underwriting
How state law refers to the federal rules North Dakota reaches federal law by phrase rather than by citation, which is unusual and matters. The pet-deposit carve-out turns on an animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws, an open reference that picks up both the federal act and the state Housing Discrimination Act without naming either (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 2). The documentation section applies where a tenant asserts a disability requiring an animal be allowed as an accommodation under any provision of law (section 47-16-07.5). And the department of labor and human rights may adopt substantive rules only if they impose obligations, rights and remedies the same as those provided in the federal fair housing regulations (section 14-02.5-13). The consequence is that if the federal standard for what counts as a reasonable accommodation for an untrained assistance animal moves, the state carve-out moves with it and no amendment is needed. No North Dakota statute or rule incorporates any federal agency notice or joint statement; the federal section of the 50-state page carries the federal instruments and their status.
Changes already signed into law No signed act is waiting to change these answers
Leading court decisions

Fair Housing of the Dakotas, Inc. v. Goldmark Property Management, Inc., 778 F. Supp. 2d 1028 (United States District Court for the District of North Dakota; 2011; residential setting; bears on charges for an assistance animal): A landlord's policy charged tenants with a disability who kept an assistance animal that was not specially trained an application fee, a non-refundable deposit and a monthly charge, while waiving the same money for a trained animal. The court held that the federal fair housing act encompasses all types of assistance animals regardless of training, so the policy engaged the act. Summary judgment went to the landlord on disparate treatment for want of proof of discriminatory intent, and was denied on disparate impact and on failure to accommodate.

Lucas v. Riverside Park Condominiums Unit Owners Association, 2009 ND 217, 776 N.W.2d 801 (Supreme Court of North Dakota; a general statement of law; bears on the assistance-animal rule): Applying the federal accommodation standard together with the state Housing Discrimination Act's accommodation clause to a request to keep an assistive therapeutic companion dog, the court affirmed summary dismissal of three requests because the owner's disability status had not significantly changed since the earlier case between the same parties, and of the fourth, while reversing the award of costs and fees as to that fourth request. The court noted with approval that a reasonable accommodation may include waiving a no-pets rule to allow a service animal. The housing was a condominium owned by the claimant rather than a tenancy.

Meridian Property Management, LLC v. Cordie, 2026 ND 52 (Supreme Court of North Dakota; residential setting; bears on the pet deposit): The thirty-day itemization duty in the security-deposit section carries no forfeiture remedy: the legislature chose not to specify a remedy for a lessor's failure to provide a timely itemization of damages, so a landlord who misses it does not thereby forfeit the right to retain money reasonably withheld or the right to sue for damages. A violation is tested for prejudice to the tenant. Treble damages remain the remedy where security is withheld without reasonable justification.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, North Dakota Pet & Assistance Animal Laws (verified September 21, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/pets/north-dakota/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

North Dakota assistance-animal documentation at a glance

Each row is what the state's own statute or rule says about that slot; a row that reads not stated is a slot no state text addresses. The full text of each slot, with its section, is in the table above.

Slot What the state's text says
Who may certify, and on what test A licensed or qualified professional may certify. The text states what documentation is sufficient rather than who may certify.
The certifier's minimum relationship period Not stated
Telehealth Not stated
Online registration or certificate Does not satisfy the rule by itself
Form Not stated
Medical records Not stated
Written answer from the landlord Not stated
Annual re-evaluation Not stated
Proof of vaccination or licensing Not stated

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.

Notes and caveats

Common questions: North Dakota pets & assistance animals

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Can a landlord charge a pet deposit in North Dakota, and is there a limit?
Yes, up to a ceiling the statute sets for a pet deposit as such. A pet security deposit may not exceed the greater of two thousand five hundred dollars or an amount equivalent to two months' rent (section 47-16-07.1, subsection 2).
Can a landlord charge pet rent or a non-refundable pet fee in North Dakota?
Yes — no statute caps, authorizes or forbids pet rent or a pet fee. Nothing in North Dakota law caps pet rent or a one-time pet fee, requires either to be reasonable, or requires a landlord to disclose them.
Does a North Dakota lease have to state a pet policy?
No — but a written-rules or mid-term-change provision would govern a pet rule the landlord adopts. No North Dakota statute requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed, and the state has no lease-contents statute at all — the only document a landlord must hand over is a statement describing the condition of the facilities at the time the rental agreement is made, which is prima facie proof of that condition and says nothing about animals (section 47-16-07.2).
Can a North Dakota landlord restrict pets by breed, size or weight?
Yes. No North Dakota statute limits, authorizes or preempts a breed, size or weight rule in a tenancy.
Does North Dakota have its own assistance-animal law for rentals?
Yes — a state statute or rule sets what a landlord may request or what a certifier must meet for an assistance animal in housing. The operative rules are statutory.
What documentation can a North Dakota landlord ask for when a tenant requests an assistance animal?
Not an enumerated list. The landlord may require reliable supporting documentation, and the documentation must confirm two things and only two: the tenant's disability, and the relationship between that disability and the need for the requested accommodation (section 47-16-07.5).
Can a North Dakota landlord charge a pet deposit or pet rent for an emotional support animal?
No, not a pet deposit — the state bar is a carve-out in the deposit statute that reaches an emotional support animal, and it does not reach pet rent or a one-time pet fee. A landlord may not charge a pet security deposit for an animal that is a service animal or a companion animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws.
What is the penalty for falsely claiming an assistance animal in North Dakota?
An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: an infraction, a ground for eviction, and a civil penalty, reaching the person claiming the animal. Penalty terms: a damage fee of not more than $1,000.

Citations

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the North Dakota Century Code on the Legislative Branch's own site. The free code carries no edition banner and no credit or source notes of any kind, so currency was established from the state's own two dating instruments, both read: the per-section Sections Affected ledgers for the 64th through 69th Assemblies, and the session-law volumes themselves, each chapter ending in its approved and filed dates. Chapters 47-16 (leasing of real property), 25-13 (blind and disabled persons' activities), 14-02.4 (human rights), 14-02.5 (housing discrimination), 11-11, 40-05, 40-05.1 and 11-09.1 were read in full as the publisher's own chapter PDFs, and the whole Century Code was read as the single document the site serves, so that every term below could be counted across the code and each hit attributed to its section. The administrative code articles that could hold a housing animal rule, article 46-04 on human rights practice and procedure and article 46-05 on housing for older persons, were read in full; each rule prints its own effective date, October 1, 2008 and January 1, 2010 respectively. The Legislative Council's statement of the effective-date rule was read, which sets out that a law enacted in a regular session takes effect on the August 1 after its filing unless it carries an emergency clause or a later date, and none of the acts on this page does. The enrolled acts for the 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2025 changes to the sections cited here were read in the session-law volumes, and the 69th Assembly's bill index, covering the 2025 regular session and both 2026 special sessions, was read measure by measure. The state appellate opinion archive was searched in six calls, one at a time; three decisions were read in full and one was read and excluded.

What was read to state each absence on this page: