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

Yes, with no statutory limit.

Washington has no pet-deposit statute for an ordinary residential tenancy, and no dollar or fractional cap on a residential security deposit of any kind. A pet deposit is simply a deposit: it may be collected only under a written rental agreement and only after the landlord gives the tenant a signed checklist describing the condition of the unit at move-in, nothing may be withheld for wear from ordinary use, and a landlord who collects without the checklist is liable to the tenant for the amount of the deposit (sections 59.18.260, 59.18.270 and 59.18.280). Two nearby figures are easy to mistake for a pet cap and are not one: a fee or deposit to hold a unit may not exceed 25 percent of the first month's rent (section 59.18.253, subsection 3), and the same 25 percent is the threshold above which a tenant may require installment payment (section 59.18.610). For a tenant with a disability using a dog guide or service animal, a pet deposit on top of the standard cleaning or damage deposit is an unfair practice (WAC 162-38-100, subsection 5). Manufactured and mobile home lots do carry a ceiling, stated as a separate row below, and the city of Seattle sets its own pet-deposit rule.

Refundability: No pet-specific text, but the general rule decides the label: money paid to a landlord that is not refundable may not be designated a deposit or part of one, and if a fee is not refundable the rental agreement must be in writing and must clearly say so. If there is no written agreement the landlord is liable to the tenant for the amount collected, and if the written agreement fails to say the fee is not refundable, the money must be treated as a refundable deposit and carries the deposit machinery with it (section 59.18.285).

Yes — pet rent or a pet fee may be charged, and no statute caps it.

Washington does not cap or prohibit pet rent or a pet fee, and no statute or rule uses either phrase. What it regulates is the label and the payment schedule. Money that is not refundable may not be called a deposit, and a fee that is not refundable must be identified as such in a written rental agreement, or it converts into a refundable deposit and drags the move-in checklist condition and the itemized-return duty with it (section 59.18.285). A tenant who asks in writing may pay deposits, fees that are not refundable and last month's rent in three equal monthly installments for a tenancy of three months or longer, or two for a shorter one, unless the deposits and fees together are no more than 25 percent of the first full month's rent; the landlord may not add any fee, interest or cost for the installments, and refusing the right costs one month's rent plus attorney fees (section 59.18.610). If the tenant defaults on an agreed installment plan, the landlord may treat the default as rent owing (section 59.18.283, subsection 3).

Monthly pet rent: Monthly pet rent is a recurring and periodic charge identified in the rental agreement, so it is rent (section 59.18.030). The starting amount is not capped by state law; because it is rent, an increase in it is governed by the rent-increase rules in force since May 7, 2025, which the rent-increase page carries. No Washington statute or rule uses the words pet rent.

A one-time pet fee: A one-time pet fee is lawful and uncapped, but it must be handled correctly: if it is not refundable, the rental agreement must be in writing and must clearly say the fee is not refundable, or the money is treated as a refundable deposit and must be held, accounted for and returned like one (section 59.18.285). A tenant may also require the landlord, on written request, to take deposits and fees that are not refundable in two or three equal monthly installments, and a landlord who refuses owes a penalty of one month's rent and reasonable attorney fees (section 59.18.610).

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

No Washington statute requires a lease to state whether pets are allowed, and the required contents of a rental agreement carry no animal word. What the act supplies instead is a condition on the restriction itself: a pet rule binds the tenant only if it is reasonable, lawful and was brought to the tenant's attention at initial occupancy, and a new rule takes 30 days' written notice and the end of the term or the tenant's consent. No statute limits how many pets a tenant may keep or caps a landlord's own number limit. No Washington law requires publicly financed, state-funded or subsidized housing to allow pets; the housing finance, housing trust fund, homeless housing, housing authority, resident-owned park and common-interest chapters carry no pet or assistance-animal rule. Manufactured and mobile home lots have express pet protections of their own, stated as a separate row below.

When the lease is silent: A tenant must conform to all reasonable obligations and restrictions concerning the use, occupation and maintenance of the unit, however the landlord denominates them, only if they are consistent with the act and not otherwise contrary to law and if they were brought to the tenant's attention at the time of initial occupancy and so became part of the rental agreement (section 59.18.140, subsection 1). A pet restriction that was never disclosed at move-in is therefore not an obligation the tenant has to keep.

Changing the rule mid-tenancy: Except for terminating the tenancy and for raising the rent, a new rule of tenancy may take effect only after 30 days' written notice to each affected tenant, and then only when the term of the rental agreement is complete, or sooner by mutual consent (section 59.18.140, subsection 2). A mid-tenancy no-pets rule imposed on a tenant who already keeps a pet therefore needs both the notice and either the end of the term or the tenant's agreement.

Yes.

No Washington statute or rule bans, limits or authorizes a breed, size or weight restriction in a tenancy, in any class of housing; the word breed does not appear in either landlord-tenant act, in the discrimination chapter, in the criminal code, in the professions title, in the insurance code or in the Human Rights Commission's rules. Two things sit close to the question without answering it. Since 2019 a city or county may not prohibit a dog by breed, impose breed-specific possession requirements, or declare a dog dangerous by breed unless it maintains a process for exempting any dog that passes a recognized canine behavioral test, with the exemption lasting at least two years and a chance to retest; the legislature's stated finding is that a dog's breed is not inherently indicative of whether a dog is dangerous (section 16.08.110). That binds local animal control, not a landlord's lease. And for an assistance animal, removal is governed by conduct rather than type: it is an unfair practice to ask that a trained dog guide or service animal be removed unless the presence, behavior or actions of the animal are an unreasonable risk of injury or harm to property or other persons and a reasonable attempt to eliminate the behavior has failed, with the risk required to be immediate or reasonably foreseeable rather than remote or speculative, and annoyance to staff or other tenants expressly not enough (WAC 162-38-105).

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.

Freedom from discrimination because of the presence of a sensory, mental or physical disability, or because of the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability, is declared a civil right, and it includes the right to engage in real estate transactions without discrimination (section 49.60.030). The operative section makes it an unfair practice to refuse to engage in a real estate transaction, to discriminate in the terms, conditions or privileges of a transaction or in the furnishing of facilities or services in connection with it, to expel a person from occupancy, or to make a record or inquiry indicating an intent to discriminate (section 49.60.222, subsection 1). A pet fee charged only to a tenant with a disability who has an assistance animal is a difference in the terms, conditions or privileges of the tenancy on the face of that subsection. The same section makes it an unfair practice to refuse to make reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services when the accommodation may be necessary to afford a person with a disability, and or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal, an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling (subsection 2, paragraph b). Because the duty is owed on the disability basis as well as the animal basis, it does not depend on the animal qualifying as anything. The section preserves landlords' and tenants' rights under both landlord-tenant acts, including the right to post and enforce reasonable rules of conduct and safety for all tenants and their guests, except so far as those acts are inconsistent with the nondiscrimination requirements (subsection 4). Washington sets no certification regime for an assistance animal in housing and no deadline for a landlord's answer to a request.

Who it binds: Every housing provider, subject to three exemptions in the discrimination chapter, two of them narrower than they look. First, the accommodation and modification duties do not apply to a single-family house rented by an owner who does not own or hold an interest in the proceeds of more than three such houses at one time, where the rental happened without a salesperson or broker and without a discriminatory advertisement, or to rooms or units in a dwelling for no more than four families living independently where the owner occupies one of them. Those two exemptions reach only the duties to accommodate and to allow modifications: an exempt owner still may not refuse to rent to, expel, or impose different terms, conditions or privileges on a person because of a disability or the use of a dog guide or service animal. Second, the whole chapter does not apply where a person shares a dwelling unit, or rents or subleases part of one, that the owner or subleasor occupies, so a roommate arrangement is outside it entirely (section 49.60.222, subsection 2 proviso and subsection 7). The bar on demanding medical records has no unit threshold and reaches both ordinary and manufactured-home tenancies, but not assisted living facilities, nursing homes, adult family homes or continuing care retirement communities (sections 59.18.620 and 59.18.625).

The rule's currency: Chapter 162-38 WAC, the Human Rights Commission's real-estate transactions and disability discrimination rules, adopted under RCW 49.60.120(3); the operative sections 162-38-040, -100, -105, -110 and -120 were filed 7/12/99 and took effect 8/12/99, and the chapter page on the Legislature's administrative-code site prints the banner "Last update: 7/12/99", so the rule that carries Washington's housing answer has not been amended in 27 years. The Commission restated the same definition of service animal in its 2015 real-estate rules at WAC 162-36-010(8), filed 11/25/15.

No state text sets a documentation standard for an assistance animal in housing. A landlord may not require medical records, a diagnosis or its severity.

A records demand: A landlord who inquires about, considers or requires disclosure of a tenant's or applicant's medical records or history outside the accommodation exception is liable in a civil action for up to two and one-half times the monthly rent of the property at issue, plus court costs and reasonable attorney fees, and the court must set the amount at what is necessary to deter future violations, payable to the tenant who brings the action (section 59.18.625, subsection 4).

Washington sets no documentation standard for an assistance animal: no list of professions, no minimum treatment relationship, no telehealth rule, no annual renewal, no prescribed or prohibited form, no clause about online certificates, no vaccination condition and no deadline for the landlord's answer. No duty, standard or licensing consequence falls on a health-care provider who writes a letter. What Washington does set is a pair of limits on what a landlord may ask. A landlord may not inquire about, consider or require disclosure of a tenant's or prospective tenant's medical records or history unless the disclosure is necessary to evaluate a reasonable accommodation or modification request, so the accommodation request is the exception that unlocks the inquiry and the inquiry is bounded by what evaluating it requires (section 59.18.625, subsection 3). And it is an unfair practice for a landlord to inquire into matters personal to an applicant with a disability beyond what is necessary and appropriate to the landlord-tenant relationship; the rule's own example is that a landlord may ask how many people will occupy the unit but ordinarily has no reason to know whether an aide assists the person, or when (WAC 162-38-110). A related rule bars asking anyone to waive rights or hold the landlord harmless because the property will be occupied by a person with a disability or by a person using a trained dog guide or service animal, so a hold-harmless addendum presented as the price of an assistance animal is itself an unfair practice (WAC 162-38-120). The two permitted questions in the discrimination chapter are written for an enforcement officer or a place of public accommodation and have no housing counterpart.

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 an administrative rule.

Washington's answer has two halves and a landlord needs both. The rule half: a landlord's no-pet policy cannot be applied to the dog guide or service animal of a person with a disability, and charging that tenant a pet deposit on top of the standard cleaning or damage deposit is an unfair practice, though the standard cleaning or damage deposit itself may be charged if it is charged equally to all tenants (WAC 162-38-100, subsections 3 to 5). That bar runs to a trained animal, and the definition it hangs on is broad in species and expressly reaches mental disability, so a trained psychiatric or support animal is inside it, while an untrained emotional support animal is outside it. The accommodation half: the narrow definition of service animal in the discrimination chapter is switched off for housing, and the duty not to discriminate in the terms, conditions or privileges of a tenancy and the duty to make reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices and services both run on the disability basis and do not depend on how the animal is classified. So a pet deposit, pet rent or pet fee charged for an animal a landlord must permit as an accommodation can still fail under section 49.60.222, subsections 1 and 2. What Washington lacks is a clause saying so in terms, and the rule that does say it is 27 years old and speaks only of a dog guide or service animal.

The definition it hangs on: The bar runs to "a tenant with a disability using a dog guide or service animal" (WAC 162-38-100(5)), and service animal in that chapter means "an animal that is trained for the purpose of assisting or accommodating a disabled person's sensory, mental, or physical disability" (WAC 162-38-040). The training element is what limits it; Washington's Court of Appeals held on this wording that "there must be some evidence of individual training to set the service animal apart from the ordinary pet."

Remedy: A violation is an unfair practice under the Law Against Discrimination, enforced through a complaint to the Human Rights Commission or a civil action under that chapter; the rules carry no separate penalty figure. A charge imposed only on a tenant with a disability is separately a difference in the terms, conditions or privileges of a real estate transaction (section 49.60.222, subsection 1, paragraph b), and a county or a first-class city over 125,000 may provide its own administrative or judicial remedies for discrimination proscribed by the chapter (section 49.60.330), though no one may recover from more than one government body for the same complaint (section 49.60.226).

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

Parity, expressed as a permission rather than a duty: a landlord may enforce its standard cleaning or damage deposit on a tenant with a disability using a dog guide or service animal if the same deposit is enforced equally on all tenants (WAC 162-38-100, subsection 4). Liability for injury or harm is left to law outside the discrimination chapter, and the person using the animal is responsible for it and may be held liable for its actions or behavior (WAC 162-38-105, subsection 4). The ordinary deposit rules still forbid withholding anything for wear resulting from ordinary use of the premises (section 59.18.260).

None in housing — the only offense is scoped to public accommodations and does not reach housing.

Misrepresenting an animal as a service animal or service animal trainee is a civil infraction, not a crime: a person violates the section by expressly or impliedly representing that an animal is a service animal or trainee in order to secure the rights or privileges afforded disabled persons accompanied by service animals, while knowing or having reason to know that the animal did not meet the definition (section 49.60.214). The maximum penalty and the default amount are $500 (section 7.80.120). It does not reach housing, and a landlord who suspects a false claim cannot use it. Every enforcement mechanism in the section is public-accommodation machinery; the legislature's own declaration is about bringing an animal into a place it would otherwise not be allowed to enter; and the definition the offense tests against is the one Washington has switched off for housing and real estate transactions. An older prohibition on a person who is not disabled using a service animal to secure the rights of the white cane law is limited to the streets, buildings, carriers, hotels, lodging places and other public places that chapter lists, and a dwelling is not among them, and it carries no penalty of its own (section 70.84.060). Washington has no criminal assistance-animal offense at all; the criminal code contains none, and the separate offense of interfering with or injuring a dog guide or service animal protects the animal rather than punishing a false claim.

Where the words leave the reach open: The first subsection is venue-neutral on its face, because it speaks of securing the rights or privileges afforded disabled persons accompanied by service animals set forth in state or federal law, and those words are not limited to a public place. Everything around it is public-accommodation machinery, and no Washington court has read it to reach a housing request. A future court could read it more widely; nothing in Washington law does so today.

Enforcement: Only an enforcement officer as defined in the civil-infraction chapter may investigate and enforce the offense, and the remedy on a refusal to answer is that the officer may issue a civil infraction and require the person to remove the animal from the place of public accommodation (section 49.60.214, subsection 2). A landlord has no role in the section and no route to invoke it, and it creates no eviction ground, no liability for a fee and no lease consequence.

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

The one preemption that reaches pets is a conditional breed rule for local governments: a city or county may not ban or regulate a dog by breed unless it runs the exemption process the statute requires (RCW 16.08.110), so a locality's breed ordinance binds a tenant's dog only on those terms. Washington neither grants nor denies localities power over pets in housing as such; three separate things stand apart. Counties and large first-class cities may enact their own enforcement machinery for discrimination the state chapter forbids, which is devolution of remedies and not authority over pet charges. Local controls on the amount of rent are preempted, so a municipal cap on pet rent is out of reach while a municipal rule on a pet deposit or a pet fee is not, which is why a city can cap the deposit and bar a pet fee but only permit pet rent. And neither landlord-tenant act contains a preemption clause, so local landlord-tenant regulation generally stands; the act's own required disclosure text concedes as much by noting that some local laws provide longer periods than the state minimums. Seattle is the city a reader will meet: its published rules cap a pet damage deposit at 25 percent of the first full month's rent, bar a pet fee that is not refundable, permit pet rent, allow only one pet deposit per household, require the deposit to be written into the rental agreement, and let it be paid in three equal monthly installments. The locality page carries the ordinance itself.

Breed-specific local animal-control rules barred: Since 2019 a city or county may not prohibit the possession of a dog based on its breed, impose breed-specific requirements, or declare a dog dangerous by breed unless it maintains an exemption process for a dog that passes the American Kennel Club canine good citizen test or an equivalent behavioral test, exempts a passing dog for at least two years, and allows retesting (RCW 16.08.110, subsection 1). The rule binds cities and counties in their animal-control power and does not reach a private landlord's lease terms. Text: RCW 16.08.110 · (1).

The fair-housing act preserves or devolves local ordinances: Any county, and any city classified as a first-class city with more than 125,000 population, may enact resolutions or ordinances consistent with the Law Against Discrimination providing administrative or judicial remedies for any form of discrimination the chapter forbids, subject to judicial review, with the superior courts hearing matters of violation and enforcement. The Commission and local governments administering similar real-estate provisions must enter cooperative agreements, and no complainant may obtain relief from more than one state or local body for the same matter. Text: RCW 49.60.330.

Local rent control barred: The imposition of controls on rent is declared to be of statewide significance and is preempted, so no city or town of any class may enact, maintain or enforce provisions regulating the amount of rent charged for single-family or multiple-unit residential rental structures or sites, other than publicly owned or publicly managed property and low-income housing under joint public and private agreements; the county provision is the same, with an express carve-out for floating home moorage sites. A local cap on pet rent would be a control on the amount of rent and falls inside this; a local rule about a pet deposit or a pet fee does not, because deposits and other fees are expressly outside the definition of rent. Text: RCW 35.21.830.

Timberlane Mobile Home Park v. Washington State Human Rights Commission ex rel. Campbell, 122 Wn. App. 896, 95 P.3d 1288 (Washington Court of Appeals, Division II; 2004; residential setting; bears on the assistance-animal rule): A dog kept in a manufactured-home park tenancy with a no-pets clause was not a service animal, because the definition requires training: there must be some evidence of individual training to set the service animal apart from the ordinary pet, and an owner's positive reinforcement is not enough, since treating it as training would make any family pet a service animal. This is the decision that gives the word trained its bite in the rule that bars a pet deposit for a dog guide or service animal. It was decided in 2004, before the sentence disapplying the narrow statutory definition to housing was added, and it turns on the definition rather than on the separate duty to make a reasonable accommodation on the basis of disability, which it leaves untouched.

Washington State Human Rights Commission v. Summerwalk Homeowners' Association, No. 61643-2-II (published) (Washington Court of Appeals, Division II; 2026; a general statement of law; bears on the topic as a whole): The plain language of the real-estate discrimination section reaches a homeowners' association's enforcement of its covenants against an owner, and it includes discriminatory enforcement of those covenants even after the sale of the property has concluded. The decision is not an animal case, but it settles that the prohibition on discrimination in the terms, conditions or privileges of a real estate transaction reaches rule enforcement after a person is already in place, which is how nearly every pet-charge and assistance-animal dispute with a sitting resident arises.