Landlord Atlas

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

Verified September 21, 2026 All Wyoming topics →

Wyoming does not cap any deposit, so there is no limit on a pet deposit and no figure to look up.

Cited to W.S. § 1-21-1201 (a)(i), (a)(ii), (a)(iv) and 15 more cited sources · Verified September 21, 2026

A pet deposit is just money held as a deposit, and it may be made non-refundable — but only if the rental agreement says so and the renter is also given separate written notice of that when the money is taken. Both steps are required, and the second is the one usually missed. Pet rent and pet fees are unregulated too. No lease has to say anything about pets, Wyoming has no rule about changing a pet policy during a tenancy, and no statute touches breed, size or weight. An assistance animal must be permitted in leased or rented residential property in accordance with the federal Fair Housing Act, and Wyoming's own definition of an assistance animal is wide: it covers an animal that provides emotional support, with no training or certification required. The tenant is liable for damage the animal does. Wyoming says nothing at all about charging for an assistance animal, and it says nothing because the legislature struck its own no-extra-charge clause in 2017, so the money answer is federal. Denying a tenant that right and faking an assistance animal are each a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $750.

Wyoming pets & assistance animals at a glance

Which law governs Wyoming's answers come from two chapters that do not talk to each other. The money and lease questions are in the Residential Rental Property Act, sections 1-21-1201 through 1-21-1211 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which sets what a deposit may be applied to, when it must come back, and what must be disclosed before any part of it may be non-refundable — and which never mentions a pet or an animal. The animal question is in the public health title, in article 2 of chapter 13, an article headed the protection and rights of blind and disabled persons: section 35-13-201, subsection (c), says an assistance animal shall be permitted in leased or rented residential property in accordance with the federal Fair Housing Act and makes the tenant liable for the animal's damage; section 35-13-205 supplies the definitions; and section 35-13-203 makes both denying the right and faking the animal a misdemeanor. There is no state fair housing act — Wyoming's only anti-discrimination statute, the Fair Employment Practices Act of 1965, is about employment — and no administrative rule anywhere in Wyoming addresses an animal in housing.
Where in the state the answers differ Wyoming's two regimes reach different tenants, and the difference is worth knowing. The deposit and fee rules apply only to a 'residential rental unit', which the act defines as a renter's principal place of residence together with its appurtenances, grounds, common areas and facilities, excluding a mobile home lot or recreational property rented on an occasional basis (section 1-21-1201, subsection (a)(iv)). Wyoming has no separate manufactured-home community tenancy act, so a tenant renting a lot in a park has no statutory deposit rule of any kind, and no statutory rule about a pet deposit. The assistance-animal right is wider: its scope words are 'residential property', with no exclusion at all, so the same lot tenant does have the right to keep an assistance animal. Neither regime has any owner-occupied, unit-count or small-landlord threshold.
Which landlords are covered Every residential landlord, with no landlord-size, unit-count or owner-occupied exemption anywhere in Wyoming law. In the Residential Rental Property Act an 'owner' is simply the owner, lessor or sublessor of a residential rental unit, with no threshold attached, and the act reaches every rental of a renter's principal place of residence. The assistance-animal article contains no definition of a landlord or an owner at all: its rule is written in the passive and applies to leasing or renting residential property. The one scope limit that matters is not about the landlord but about the property — the money rules do not reach a mobile home lot or a property rented on an occasional basis, while the assistance-animal rule does. Any exemptions that bite on the animal question come from the federal Act that Wyoming's statute points to, not from Wyoming's own text.
Pet deposit

Yes, with no statutory limit.

Wyoming has no pet-deposit statute and, more to the point, no residential deposit cap of any kind. The words 'pet' and 'animal' do not appear anywhere in the title that carries the whole landlord-tenant statute, and there is no maximum, no 'however denominated' clause and no limit on the amount of a deposit anywhere in the act. A pet deposit is therefore simply property or money held as a deposit, lawful in whatever amount the parties agree. What the act does regulate is what the money may be applied to and when it comes back. On termination, a deposit may be applied to accrued rent, to damage to the unit beyond reasonable wear and tear, to the cost of cleaning the unit to the condition it was in at the start, and to other costs provided by the contract. The balance, together with a written itemization of any deductions and the reasons for them, must be delivered or mailed without interest within thirty days after termination or within fifteen days after the landlord receives the renter's new mailing address, whichever is later, and that period is extended by a further thirty days where there is damage; the renter must give the address within thirty days of termination. The remedy is modest: an unreasonable failure to comply lets the renter recover the full deposit and court costs, with no multiple damages and no attorney fees, and a renter who acted unreasonably in bringing the action may be made to pay the landlord's court costs. There is no assistance-animal exception to any of this.

Refundability: A pet deposit may be made non-refundable, but only on a dual disclosure. Any rental agreement must state whether any portion of a deposit is non-refundable, and written notice of that fact must also be given to the renter at the time the deposit is taken (section 1-21-1207). Both limbs are required and the second one is the one most often missed. Wyoming attaches no express penalty to a failure to disclose; the only remedy in the article is the one for a failure to account and return.
Pet rent and pet fees

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

No Wyoming statute names a pet charge of any kind. What Wyoming does have, and what makes it the opposite of the states that bar non-refundable charges, is a provision that assumes a deposit may lawfully be non-refundable and regulates only how that must be disclosed. So a Wyoming landlord may charge pet rent at any figure and may make a pet charge non-refundable, provided both limbs of the disclosure are met. The rental article is also largely open to agreement on its face: any duty or obligation in it may be assigned to a different party or modified by explicit written agreement signed by the parties (section 1-21-1202, subsection (d)).

Monthly pet rent: Monthly pet rent is simply rent. Wyoming has no cap on it, no reasonableness standard, no rent regulation at all and no rent-increase notice provision in the rental article.

A one-time pet fee: A one-time pet fee is unregulated in amount, and it may be non-refundable — but only if the rental agreement says so and the renter is separately given written notice of that at the time the money is taken. Money that is not held as a deposit is outside the deposit section altogether, because the section speaks of property or money 'held as a deposit', which is a test of how the money is held rather than of what it is called.
Pet policy in the lease, and changing it mid-tenancy

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

Wyoming requires nothing and supplies nothing. No statute makes a lease state whether pets are allowed, none supplies a default when the lease is silent, none limits the number, size or kind of animal, and — unusually — Wyoming has no rules-and-regulations section and no mid-term-change provision anywhere in its rental article. The word 'modifies' appears once, inside the definition of a rental agreement, which is a term of definition rather than a power or a procedure. A pet term in Wyoming is whatever the lease says it is. Three tenant duties are the hooks a pet clause actually runs through, and none of them names an animal: the renter must keep the unit clean and safe and not unreasonably burden any common area; must occupy it in the manner for which it was designed and not increase the number of occupants above the number in the agreement without written permission; and must comply with all lawful requirements of the rental agreement. A fourth bars the renter from intentionally or negligently damaging the unit or knowingly permitting any person to do so — 'person', not 'person or animal'. No publicly financed housing class carries a pet mandate.
Breed, size and weight restrictions

Yes.

No Wyoming statute or rule restricts a landlord's breed, size, weight or number clause, and none protects an assistance animal from one. The word 'breed' does not occur at all in the titles covering civil procedure, crimes, cities and towns, counties, insurance, labor, professions, property or public health; the only three occurrences in the whole Code are livestock husbandry provisions about horse registries, livestock conformation and poultry breeding stock. Wyoming also does not preempt breed-specific municipal ordinances — there is no such provision anywhere — so a city that wanted a breed-specific animal-control ordinance would not be stopped by state law. The limit on a breed rule for an assistance animal comes from the federal Act that Wyoming's own statute points to, and the federal section of the 50-state page carries it.
Assistance animals: the state instrument and who it binds

Yes — a disability-title housing right, with no documentation rule. The operative rules are statutory. State law incorporates a federal statute or codified regulation by reference.

Wyoming's housing rule is a single subsection. A person shall not be discriminated against in the leasing or rental of residential property because the person has an assistance animal, which shall be permitted in leased or rented residential property in accordance with the federal Fair Housing Act; and the person is liable for any damage the assistance animal does to the premises or facilities of the leased or rented property (section 35-13-201, subsection (c)). Beside it, and older, is a bare non-discrimination limb: a person with a disability shall not be discriminated against in the leasing or rental of apartments and other private residential property because of the disability (subsection (a)(iii)), with no accommodation machinery of its own. Both are enforced by the same misdemeanor, which names the housing subsection by number. That is the whole of it. Wyoming sets no procedure for making or answering a request, no permitted questions, no documentation standard, no certifier and no deadline, and it has no state fair housing act behind the rule: the phrase 'fair housing' occurs once in about 8.2 million characters of Wyoming statute, and it is the reference to the federal Act inside this subsection. What an accommodation requires in Wyoming is therefore what federal law requires, which the statute says in terms.

Who it binds: Every lessor of residential property, with no exemption of any kind in Wyoming law. Article 2 contains no owner-occupied carve-out, no unit-count threshold, no single-family exclusion and no small-landlord exemption, and it does not define a landlord or an owner at all. The rule is written in the passive — a person shall not be discriminated against in the leasing or rental of residential property because the person has an assistance animal — and its scope words are 'residential property', which is wider than the money rules' 'residential rental unit'. A tenant renting a mobile home lot, who is outside the deposit article entirely, is inside this one. The exemptions that do bite come from the federal Act that section 35-13-201, subsection (c), points to rather than from Wyoming's own text, and the federal section of the 50-state page carries them.
What counts as an assistance animal Wyoming has two animal terms and the housing one is the wide one. An 'assistance animal' is an animal that works, provides assistance or performs tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, or provides emotional support that alleviates one or more identified symptoms or effects of a person's disability (section 35-13-205, subsection (a)(iv)). That definition is neutral as to species and neutral as to training, and it expressly includes an animal kept for emotional support — which is the term the housing rule uses. The narrower term is 'service animal', which takes its meaning from the federal disability regulations and includes service miniature horses under those regulations, and which since 2025 expressly includes a dog that is being trained to do work or perform tasks (subsection (a)(viii)); that term governs the public-accommodation, public-entity and common-carrier provisions and not the housing one. A 'person with a disability' is an individual with a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, and 'major life activities' are functions associated with the normal activities of independent daily living such as caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing or speaking. The former definition of a service dog was repealed in 2017. One caution about all of it: every federal reference in these definitions is undated, so they move with the federal regulation as it is amended.
Documentation a landlord may request, and what a certifier must meet

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

Wyoming sets no documentation rule at all, and that is a finding rather than a gap. There is no list of permitted questions, no certifier, no license class, no treatment-relationship test, no rule about telehealth, no annual re-evaluation, no prescribed or prohibited form, no clause about online registrations or certificates, no limit on what records may be asked for, no power of verification and no deadline for a landlord's answer. Nothing in the professions title reaches a person who writes a letter about an animal, so no Wyoming board can discipline one and no Wyoming statute makes one liable. What Wyoming supplies instead is a wide definition and a pointer: the animal may be one that provides emotional support, with no training or certification required, and it shall be permitted in accordance with the federal Fair Housing Act. So the answer to what a Wyoming landlord may ask for is whatever federal law allows, and the federal section of the 50-state page carries that.
Charges for an assistance animal

Under state law, yes — no state text bars a charge for an assistance animal; the federal rules alone govern it.

Wyoming's own law says nothing about money for an assistance animal, and it says nothing because the legislature took the words out. The housing subsection bars discrimination and requires the animal to be permitted; it sets no deposit, fee or rent rule, and its only money-adjacent sentence runs against the tenant, making the tenant liable for damage the animal does. Until July 1, 2017 the statute did contain a charge bar: a person with a disability could be accompanied by a service dog in the places the section listed 'without paying an extra charge for the service dog'. The 2017 act struck those words, replaced the subsection with a reference to the federal disability regulations, and put the sentence about the federal Fair Housing Act in the new housing subsection instead. Whether the repealed words had ever reached the leasing limb is arguable and no court has decided it, because no court has ever cited this article at all. What is certain is that before July 1, 2017 Wyoming's statute contained the words and today it does not, and that whatever a Wyoming landlord may or may not charge for an assistance animal now comes from federal law.
Damage caused by an assistance animal Express, and in the housing subsection itself: the person is liable for any damage done by the assistance animal to the premises or facilities of the leased or rented residential property (section 35-13-201, subsection (c)). There is no wear-and-tear carve-out and no sanitation-only limit attached to that sentence, though a deposit may in any event be applied only to damage beyond reasonable wear and tear under the rental article. Wyoming gives a landlord no immunity for injury or damage caused by an animal permitted as an accommodation; the only immunity in the article protects a public accommodation that permits a service animal, or an animal believed in good faith to be one, and it has no landlord counterpart.
Misrepresenting an assistance animal

An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: a misdemeanor, reaching the person claiming the animal and a landlord who denies or interferes with the right. Penalty terms: a fine of not more than $750 for misrepresenting an animal; and a fine of not more than $750 for denying or interfering with the right.

Wyoming penalizes both sides of the housing right, which is unusual. A person who knowingly and intentionally misrepresents that an animal is a service animal or an assistance animal, for the purpose of obtaining any of the rights or privileges set forth in the article, is guilty of a misdemeanor and may be fined not more than $750 (section 35-13-203, subsection (b)). The article in question is article 2 of chapter 13, headed the protection and rights of blind and disabled persons, which runs from section 35-13-201 to section 35-13-206 and contains the residential-leasing right — so faking an animal to get a rental is inside the offense. The companion limb punishes the landlord who denies the right, on the same $750 ceiling. Neither requires a prior warning, both are fine-only, and both figures are maximums rather than fixed amounts. Wyoming has no other misrepresentation offense reaching an animal: the word does not occur in the criminal title at all in that sense. One asymmetry is worth stating plainly, because it is current law and most summaries have the old figure: denying the right or faking the animal each cap at $750, while knowingly and willfully inflicting serious bodily harm, permanent disability or death on a service or assistance animal carries imprisonment for less than one year, a fine of up to $5,000, or both, plus mandatory restitution for veterinary bills, for replacing or retraining the animal and for any other expense reasonably incurred. Those penalties were raised from six months and $750 in 2025.

The landlord-side offense: Denying or interfering with admittance to or enjoyment of any place or facility referenced in section 35-13-201, subsections (a) through (c), or otherwise interfering with the rights of a blind, partially blind, deaf or hearing-impaired person or other person with a disability, is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $750 (section 35-13-203, subsection (a)). Subsection (c) is the residential-leasing right, so denying a disabled tenant that right is itself the offense. The 2017 act widened this limb from the public facilities the section had enumerated to the subsections it names today, extending it to the housing rule that the same act created.

Who enforces it: Both limbs are ordinary misdemeanors, prosecuted as such, with a fine and no other sanction; the statute names no agency, no private action and no eviction consequence. There is no provider branch at all, because Wyoming's scheme has no clinician in it: nobody can be penalized for writing a letter.
Can cities add their own rules

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

Wyoming neither blocks nor enables a local pet rule in housing. There is no preemption of local landlord-tenant or pet regulation, no preemption of breed-specific municipal ordinances, no authorization of a municipal deposit or pet ordinance, and no fair-housing devolution clause — there being no state fair housing act to devolve. The municipal-powers grant runs the other way and is about animal control at large rather than tenancies: the governing body of each city or town may regulate or prohibit the running at large of any animals within the city limits, impose a license fee for keeping or harboring dogs, and establish and operate a pound (section 15-1-103, subsection (a)(xiv)). Nothing cuts that grant back for breed-specific ordinances. The counties title's only animal provisions are big-game setback rules in the zoning sections, and Wyoming has no rent-control preemption statute either. No Wyoming city or town has a pet ordinance for this page to point at.
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 Wyoming's housing rule is an incorporation, and knowing exactly what it takes in matters. Section 35-13-201, subsection (c), says an assistance animal shall be permitted in leased or rented residential property 'in accordance with the federal Fair Housing Act' — the statute itself, named and not numbered. Subsection (b) takes in two federal disability regulations for public entities and public accommodations, and the definitions section takes in four more for the terms 'place of public accommodation', 'public accommodation', 'public entity' and 'service animal', including the provisions on service miniature horses. That is the whole list: no federal agency notice and no joint statement is referenced anywhere in Wyoming law. Two things follow. Changes to federal agency guidance do not move a single Wyoming citation, because Wyoming points at a statute and at regulations rather than at guidance. And every one of those references is undated, so Wyoming's own definitions, and its answer to what accommodation is owed and what may be charged, move with federal law as it is amended, without any act of the Wyoming legislature. The federal section of the 50-state page carries the federal layer.
Changes already signed into law No signed act is waiting to change these answers
Leading court decisions None carried — the answers rest on the statutes and rules cited

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

Wyoming assistance-animal documentation at a glance

The state's instrument sets no documentation standard, so every row below reads not stated unless a slot is addressed elsewhere in state law; the federal rules further down this page apply on top. 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 Not stated
The certifier's minimum relationship period Not stated
Telehealth Not stated
Online registration or certificate Not stated
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: Wyoming 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 Wyoming, and is there a limit?
Yes, with no statutory limit. Wyoming has no pet-deposit statute and, more to the point, no residential deposit cap of any kind.
Can a landlord charge pet rent or a non-refundable pet fee in Wyoming?
Yes — pet rent or a pet fee may be charged, and no statute caps it. No Wyoming statute names a pet charge of any kind.
Does a Wyoming lease have to state a pet policy?
No — no statute requires a lease to state a pet policy, and no written-rules provision governs one. Wyoming requires nothing and supplies nothing.
Can a Wyoming landlord restrict pets by breed, size or weight?
Yes. No Wyoming statute or rule restricts a landlord's breed, size, weight or number clause, and none protects an assistance animal from one.
Does Wyoming have its own assistance-animal law for rentals?
Yes — a disability-title housing right, with no documentation rule. The operative rules are statutory.
What documentation can a Wyoming landlord ask for when a tenant requests an assistance animal?
No state text sets a documentation standard for an assistance animal in housing. Wyoming sets no documentation rule at all, and that is a finding rather than a gap.
Can a Wyoming landlord charge a pet deposit or pet rent for an emotional support animal?
Under state law, yes — no state text bars a charge for an assistance animal; the federal rules alone govern it. Wyoming's own law says nothing about money for an assistance animal, and it says nothing because the legislature took the words out.
What is the penalty for falsely claiming an assistance animal in Wyoming?
An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: a misdemeanor, reaching the person claiming the animal and a landlord who denies or interferes with the right. Penalty terms: a fine of not more than $750 for misrepresenting an animal; and a fine of not more than $750 for denying or interfering with the right.

Citations

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the Wyoming Statutes in the Legislative Service Office's own title documents, which carry no edition line and, except for repeal notes, no per-section credit line, so currency comes from two other places. The server's own publication date for the title documents used here is May 8, 2026, after the 2026 budget session adjourned on March 11, 2026, and the served text was confirmed on its face to carry the penalties enacted in 2025. Article 2 of chapter 13 of title 35, the protection and rights of blind and disabled persons, sections 35-13-201 through 35-13-206, was read end to end with its article heading, and sections 1-21-1201 through 1-21-1211, the whole Residential Rental Property Act, were read end to end. Sections 27-9-101 through 27-9-106, the Fair Employment Practices Act of 1965, were read to establish that Wyoming has no state fair housing act. Ten whole titles were taken and searched locally on normalized text — titles 1, 6, 11, 15, 18, 26, 27, 33, 34 and 35, about 8.2 million characters — with every non-zero result opened and read in context. The Secretary of State's administrative rules system was searched on seven terms in the only mode that returns true results. The Legislature's own measure rolls for 2017, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 were taken in full, 485, 497, 366, 556 and 335 measures, and every measure whose title touched an animal, a pet, a tenancy or a disability was opened. Two enrolled acts, the 2017 act that rewrote the article and the 2025 act that amended it, were read and compared line by line against each other and against the codified text. A four-query search of the case-law index across the Wyoming courts returned one opinion, which was read in full and set aside. Every date was read against September 21, 2026.

What was read to state each absence on this page: