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

Yes, with no statutory limit.

Wisconsin has no pet-deposit statute, and it has no residential security-deposit cap of any kind, so there is no ceiling for a pet deposit to count toward or to sit on top of. The landlord-tenant chapter sets no figure and does not even define a security deposit; the rental practices rule uses the phrase 25 times without stating an amount. What the rule does is define the term by function: a security deposit means the total of all payments and deposits given by a tenant to the landlord as security for the performance of the tenant's obligations, and includes all rent payments in excess of one month's prepaid rent. A pet deposit falls inside those words and rides the whole scheme: return within 21 days, a written statement accounting for every amount withheld and describing each item of damage or other claim, and withholding only for the tenant's damage, waste or neglect, unpaid rent, utility service, unpaid municipal permit fees, or a reason set out in a separately titled document of nonstandard rental provisions. Nothing may be withheld for normal wear and tear. A landlord who breaches owes twice the tenant's loss plus costs and reasonable attorney fees. No deposit at all may be required because a tenant keeps an animal that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks, or an emotional support animal.

Refundability: Whatever it is called, money given as security for the performance of the tenant's obligations is a security deposit, and a security deposit must be returned less lawful withholdings within 21 days after the tenancy ends. A refundable pet deposit is therefore ordinary deposit money. A charge that is genuine payment for the privilege of keeping a pet, rather than security for performance, sits outside the definition's words; no Wisconsin court has drawn that line, so both readings are set out under pet rent and fees below.

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

Wisconsin regulates neither pet rent nor a pet fee, and the trap is definitional rather than prohibitory. Two provisions that look like they might help do not: the lists of void lease provisions in the rental practices rule and in the landlord-tenant chapter are closed lists of ten specific terms, about retaliation for contacting law enforcement, eviction without a court order, rent acceleration and waiver of the duty to mitigate, the landlord's attorney fees, confession of judgment, disclaiming the landlord's negligence, making the tenant liable for things beyond the tenant's control, waiving habitability, and terminating a tenancy over a crime in which the tenant was the victim or without the required notice. Neither list reaches a pet clause or a charge of any kind. The only place Wisconsin does regulate the charge is the assistance-animal rule, which forbids requiring extra compensation as a condition of continued residence because the tenant keeps a trained task animal or an emotional support animal. In a manufactured-home community, every charge payable under the agreement that is not included in the rent must be stated in the lease, and the charges may not be raised during the term.

Monthly pet rent: No Wisconsin statute or rule uses the phrase pet rent or sets, caps or bars a recurring pet charge in an ordinary tenancy, and nothing limits when rent may be raised in a residential tenancy. In a manufactured-home community the answer is different: rent and other charges under the rental agreement may not be increased during the term, apart from municipal, recycling and waste fees, directly billed utility charges and pass-through increases in utility service the operator buys.

A one-time pet fee: Unaddressed, and this is where the care is needed. Wisconsin has no general bar on charges that are not refundable: the word nonrefundable does not appear in the rental practices rule or in the landlord-tenant chapter at all. What exists instead is the definition of a security deposit, which reaches money given as security for the performance of the tenant's obligations whatever the landlord calls it. So a charge labeled a pet fee that in substance secures the tenant's performance is deposit money and owes the accounting and the 21-day return; a charge that is genuine payment for the privilege of keeping the pet is outside those words and is an unregulated lease term. No Wisconsin decision has decided which side a pet fee falls on, and neither reading is published here as settled.

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

No Wisconsin law requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed, and none supplies an answer when the lease is silent. The one rule that reaches a pet policy is not pet-specific: a landlord who has written rules must furnish them to a prospective tenant for inspection before the lease is signed and before taking any earnest money or deposit, so a written pet rule has to be on the table before the money changes hands. A landlord with no written pet rule owes nothing. The disclosures Wisconsin does require are about the landlord's identity, known uncorrected building and housing code violations, nine specific habitability conditions and utility arrangements; none of them mentions animals. No statute limits the number, size or weight of pets, and the only occupancy rule in the open housing law is about people rather than animals. Wisconsin requires no publicly financed or income-restricted housing to allow pets, and the official index to the statutes carries exactly one animal line under housing, which is the assistance-animal paragraph.

Changing the rule mid-tenancy: The section that governs a written pet policy is the rule on copies of rental agreements and rules: rental agreements and rules and regulations established by the landlord, if they are in writing, must be furnished to prospective tenants for their inspection before a rental agreement is entered into and before any earnest money or security deposit is accepted (section ATCP 134.03, subsection 1). Beyond that, no statute or rule restricts a mid-tenancy change to a pet rule in an ordinary residential tenancy, and the lists of void lease provisions do not reach one, so a no-pets rule introduced during a term is a question of contract under the lease rather than of statute. In a manufactured-home community the answer is express and different, and it is stated in the separate row below.

Yes, for a pet — the only breed rule in housing is that an assistance animal may not be refused on breed.

For an ordinary pet, Wisconsin says nothing: no statute or rule limits a landlord's breed, size or weight rule, and the word breed does not appear anywhere in the open housing law. For an assistance animal the answer comes from a closed list rather than an express breed clause. Nothing in the assistance-animal subsection stops a landlord from denying an animal if any of four things applies: the individual is not disabled, has no disability-related need for the animal, or fails to provide the documentation requested; allowing the animal would be an undue financial and administrative burden or would fundamentally alter the nature of the services provided; the specific animal in question poses a direct threat to a person's health or safety that cannot be reduced or eliminated by another reasonable accommodation; or the specific animal in question would cause substantial physical damage to a person's property that cannot be reduced or eliminated by another reasonable accommodation. Breed is not among them, and the last two are tied to the individual animal, so a blanket breed rule applied to an assistance animal does not fit the list and the prohibition on refusing housing, evicting, charging extra or harassing the tenant because of the animal applies. That is a reading of a closed list rather than a breed clause in terms, and no Wisconsin court has tested it. Wisconsin also does not preempt local breed ordinances; its dog chapter expressly preserves a town, village or city's power to pass ordinances for keeping and regulating dogs, reserving only dog licensing to the state scheme.

Size and weight: Size and weight stand exactly where breed does. The four grounds are the same whatever the animal's type, and two of them turn on the specific animal in question, so a rule that refuses animals over a given weight or of a given size, applied to an assistance animal without looking at that animal, fits none of them. For an ordinary pet, nothing in Wisconsin law reaches breed, size or weight.

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.

Two parallel paragraphs, one for each kind of animal, and they are nearly word for word the same. If an individual has a disability and a disability-related need for an animal that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks, it is discrimination to refuse to rent or sell housing to the individual, to cause the individual's eviction from housing, to require extra compensation from the individual as a condition of continued residence in housing, or to harass the individual because he or she keeps such an animal. The emotional support animal paragraph says the same in the same words. Each paragraph then permits a documentation request, places the liability for sanitation and damage on the tenant, and sets out the four grounds on which the animal may still be denied. The two differ in three ways: documentation for an emotional support animal must come from a licensed health professional, while the trained-animal track names no source; the trained-animal track bars a documentation request altogether where the disability is readily apparent or known, and the emotional support animal track carries no such limit on its face; and two forfeitures for misrepresentation appear in the emotional support animal paragraph and nowhere else. The paragraphs were created in 2018 and, apart from a comma corrected in 2026, have not been amended since.

Who it binds: The animal paragraphs name an owner, a lessor, a lessor's agent, an owner's agent or a representative of a condominium association, so condominium associations are expressly inside the rule, which is unusual. The open housing law has no small-landlord seam at all: the legislature declared that it extends equal housing opportunities to owner-occupied single-family residences, and the list of exemptions carries nothing about owner occupancy or unit counts. Those exemptions are housing for older persons, limited to age and family status; a first-class city housing authority's discretion over source of income in property it owned before October 1, 2021; age-related financing terms; housing developed for people with disabilities and a preference in their favor; tenancies presenting a direct threat or substantial damage, which must rest on evidence of behavior and may not rest on a person's status as a victim of domestic abuse; the domestic-abuse eviction rule; reasonable occupancy limits; a person's choice of whom to share a dwelling unit with, capped at residences of five people or fewer, with the advertising rules still binding; the information a landlord may require; and good-faith reliance on the older-persons exemption. Administration is by the Department of Workforce Development through its equal rights division.

Two things and no more: reliable documentation that the individual has a disability, and reliable documentation of the disability-related need for the animal. On the trained-animal track the request may not be made at all unless the disability is readily apparent or known, and where the disability is apparent or known but the need is not, only the need may be asked about. The emotional support animal paragraph repeats the two items but carries no readily-apparent limit on its face, so on the words of the statute a request there is not conditioned on the disability being unobvious. The consequence of not producing what was properly requested is denial of the animal, which is one of the four permitted grounds.

A licensed or qualified professional must certify.

Who may certify: The two tracks differ. For an emotional support animal the documentation of the disability-related need must come from a licensed health professional, which the statute defines as a physician, psychologist, social worker, or other health professional who is licensed or certified in this state and is acting within the scope of that license or certification. The in-state limb does real work: an out-of-state online provider is not a licensed health professional for this purpose. For an animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks, the statute imposes no source requirement at all; any reliable documentation will do.

Wisconsin's documentation rule is short and has two moving parts: what may be asked, and who may answer. A landlord may ask for reliable documentation of the disability and of the disability-related need for the animal, and for a trained task animal may not ask at all where the disability is readily apparent or known. For an emotional support animal the answer must come from a licensed health professional, meaning a physician, psychologist, social worker or other health professional licensed or certified in Wisconsin and acting within scope, so a letter bought from an out-of-state website does not meet the statute even though Wisconsin has no clause saying so. Everything else is absent: no minimum length of relationship, no rule about telehealth, no annual renewal, no prescribed or prohibited form, no bar on asking for medical records, no vaccination condition, and no duty on the landlord to answer a request in writing or within any period. No duty falls on the professional who writes the letter either; the medical, psychology and social-work licensing chapters contain no animal text, and there is no ground of discipline for an emotional support animal letter. The only provider-facing rule in Wisconsin is a penalty, not a duty, and it is set out under misrepresentation below. A bill that would have added a 30-day patient relationship requirement was vetoed in 2025 and the override failed, so it is not law.

No — a state bar on an extra charge reaches an emotional support animal on the face of the definition it hangs on; the bar is an express no-extra-charge clause, in a statute.

It is discrimination to require extra compensation from a tenant as a condition of continued residence in housing because the tenant keeps an animal that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks, or an emotional support animal. The phrase names no charge type, which is what makes it broad: a pet deposit, pet rent, a one-time pet fee, a surcharge and a higher rent are all extra compensation. The same sentence also forbids refusing to rent, causing an eviction and harassing the tenant because of the animal. Both paragraphs carry the bar in identical words, and the second one is the emotional support animal paragraph, so Wisconsin is one of the states where the bar reaches an untrained animal rather than a trained service animal only. The tenant still carries liability for sanitation and for damage, which is stated separately below, and a landlord who holds money for that liability is holding a security deposit and owes the 21-day accounting; taking it because of the animal is the extra compensation the paragraph forbids.

The definition it hangs on: The charge bar appears twice in identical words, and the second time it sits in the paragraph headed "Emotional support animals", which hangs on the definition in § 106.50(1m)(im): an emotional support animal "means an animal that provides emotional support, well-being, comfort, or companionship for an individual but that is not trained to perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability." So the words "require extra compensation from the individual as a condition of continued residence in housing … because he or she keeps such an animal" (§ 106.50(2r)(br)1.) reach an untrained emotional support animal on the face of the statute.

Remedy: A charge in breach is discrimination under the open housing law, so the whole enforcement apparatus applies. A complaint goes to the Department of Workforce Development's equal rights division, which must investigate within 100 days and reach a final administrative disposition within a year; a hearing examiner may award the economic and noneconomic damages the aggrieved person suffered and injunctive or other equitable relief, but may not award punitive damages, and may add a forfeiture of up to $10,000 for a first adjudicated act of discrimination, up to $25,000 where there is one prior act and up to $50,000 where there are two or more, with attorney fees and costs to a prevailing complainant. Alternatively the person, or the attorney general on the person's behalf, may bring a civil action for injunctive relief and damages including punitive damages, with costs and reasonable attorney fees to a prevailing plaintiff, within one year, and the clock is paused while an administrative proceeding on the same complaint runs. The Department of Justice may sue over a pattern or practice or a denial raising an issue of general public importance. And where the landlord or agent holds a state license or charter, the department may ask the licensing agency to suspend or revoke it.

An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: a forfeiture, reaching the person claiming the animal and the certifier who signs. Penalty terms: not less than $500, forfeited by the individual (§ 106.50(2r)(br)5.); and not less than $500, forfeited by the licensed health professional (§ 106.50(2r)(br)6.).

Wisconsin penalizes both sides of a false emotional support animal claim, which few states do. An individual shall forfeit not less than $500 if he or she, for the purpose of obtaining housing, intentionally misrepresents that he or she has a disability or misrepresents the need for an emotional support animal to assist with that disability. A licensed health professional shall forfeit not less than $500 if he or she, for the purpose of allowing the patient to obtain housing, misrepresents that the patient has a disability or misrepresents the patient's need for an emotional support animal. Both are tied to housing by their own words, both are floors rather than maximums, and both sit in the emotional support animal paragraph alone. There is no offense of lying to the professional in order to get a letter, no licensing discipline for the professional beyond the forfeiture, and no public-accommodation version of the offense: a 2025 bill that would have added one, together with a 30-day patient relationship requirement, was vetoed in full and the override failed on the last day of the session, so any summary describing those rules as Wisconsin law is describing a bill that did not become law.

The landlord-side offense: A landlord who refuses the animal, evicts, charges extra or harasses the tenant because of the animal commits discrimination under the open housing law, which carries the administrative forfeitures of up to $10,000, $25,000 or $50,000 by prior-act tier, damages and attorney fees, or a civil action with punitive damages. Where the landlord or agent holds a state license or charter, the department may ask the licensing agency to suspend or revoke it or to take lesser disciplinary action.

Where the words leave the reach open: Three things the enacted words leave in an odd shape. The amount is a floor with no stated maximum: each subdivision says not less than $500. The word intentionally appears in the tenant's subdivision and not in the professional's, so on the face of the statute the professional's liability has no stated intent element. And both subdivisions sit in the emotional support animal paragraph only, so misrepresenting a trained task animal to obtain housing carries no Wisconsin forfeiture at all.

Who enforces it: The forfeitures are collected by the State, not by the landlord. A forfeiture imposed by statute is recovered in a civil action, and every such action is brought in the name of the state of Wisconsin, with costs, fees and the usual surcharges. So a landlord who believes a tenant or a letter-writer lied has no private claim on these subdivisions, and the equal rights division's hearing machinery does not reach them either, because that machinery runs against a respondent who has discriminated. There is no criminal alternative: the criminal code carries no animal misrepresentation offense.

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

Wisconsin does three separate things and they must be kept apart. On money and disclosure it preempts: a municipality may not add requirements about security deposits, may not limit what a landlord may recover under the lease, may not regulate the amount of rent or fees for a rental unit, and may not require a landlord to tell tenants anything state or federal law does not already require. Since a pet deposit is a security deposit by definition, and pet rent is rent, that closes off a local pet-deposit rule, a local pet-rent cap and a local pet-disclosure mandate alike. On discrimination it devolves: the open housing law says in terms that it does not preempt the subject of equal housing opportunity, and a city, village, town or county may pass its own ordinance against housing discrimination on the basis of a protected class, which may be more inclusive than the state law, so long as it does not invent a new class and its penalties are not lower than the state's. And on dogs it steps back entirely, preserving local power to regulate the keeping of dogs while reserving licensing to the state. The rental practices rule says of itself that it does not nullify a local ordinance it is not in direct conflict with and controls where compliance with one means violating the other, but on deposits the preemption statute settles the question before that rule is reached. No Wisconsin city carries a pet rule of its own in housing.

Local deposit or fee rules barred: No city, village, town or county may enact an ordinance placing requirements on a residential landlord with respect to security deposits, earnest money or pre-tenancy and post-tenancy inspections beyond the requirements of the state rental practices rules, and none may limit a tenant's responsibility or a landlord's right to recover for damage, waste or neglect or for any other costs, expenses, fees, payments or damages the tenant owes under the rental agreement or applicable law. Because a pet deposit is a security deposit by definition, a municipal pet-deposit rule is foreclosed, and a local cap on a pet charge payable under the lease runs into the second limb. Separately, no city, village, town or county may regulate the amount of rent or fees charged for the use of a residential rental dwelling unit, which forecloses a municipal pet-rent cap; that section saves only housing the municipality or a housing authority owns or operates and voluntary agreements with private owners. Text: Wis. Stat. § 66.0104 · (2)(b), (2)(c), (3); with Wis. Stat. § 66.1015(1).

Another express preemption: No city, village, town or county may enact an ordinance requiring a landlord to communicate to tenants any information that federal or state law does not already require, with one exception about the manufacture of illegal narcotics. A local ordinance requiring landlords to disclose a pet policy, or to give tenants pet-related information, is therefore foreclosed. Text: Wis. Stat. § 66.0104 · (2)(d)1.a.

The fair-housing act preserves or devolves local ordinances: The open housing law makes it the duty of political subdivisions to assist in preventing and removing discrimination in housing, and the enabling section says the state law does not preempt the subject matter of equal opportunities in housing. A political subdivision may enact ordinances prohibiting discrimination in housing solely on the basis of a person being a member of a protected class, and such an ordinance may be similar to the state law or more inclusive in its terms or in the types of housing it covers, though a local forfeiture may not be less than the state figures. The ceiling is that a locality may not invent a protected class of its own, which the courts have held. A local assistance-animal rule is inside that grant, because disability is a protected class; a local rule about pets generally is not, because keeping a pet is not. Text: Wis. Stat. § 66.1011 · (1), (2); with Wis. Stat. § 106.50(1).

Localities may regulate the keeping or licensing of animals: The dog chapter does not in any way limit the existing right or authority of any town, village or city to pass ordinances for the keeping and regulating of dogs, and does not repeal any existing ordinance or local regulation governing them; only dog licensing is reserved to the state scheme, and local licensing ordinances were made void in 1920. Wisconsin therefore has no preemption of breed-specific local ordinances, and a municipality may regulate dogs as it sees fit outside licensing. Text: Wis. Stat. § 174.12 · (3).