Free United States Pet Addendum Agreement — overview

A United States Pet Addendum Agreement is a bilateral lease addendum authorizing specific named pets in the rental property. Used in all U.S. jurisdictions; state-specific rules on fees apply.

Complete the Pet Addendum Agreement

Complete the form below to generate a comprehensive United States Pet Addendum Agreement. The form produces a multi-page PDF including pet identification, rules, fee structure, and signature blocks. Both parties must sign for the addendum to take effect.

About the United States Pet Addendum Agreement

A pet addendum agreement is the standard way to authorize pets in a rental property where the original lease does not address pets, or to modify existing pet terms. The addendum identifies specific authorized pets, sets fees and deposits, establishes rules, and allocates responsibility for pet-related damage. Both parties sign and the addendum becomes part of the lease. State law varies significantly on permitted fees (some states cap pet deposits within the overall security deposit limit; others allow separate pet fees). The federal Fair Housing Act protects service animals and emotional support animals from pet fees and breed/size restrictions in all states.

United States Pet Addendum Framework

• Federal law: 42 U.S.C. §3604 (Fair Housing Act) for service animals + ESAs – applies nationwide
• State law varies: pet deposit caps, pet rent permissibility, security deposit treatment
• Some states (Florida §760.27) have additional ESA protections
• Pet deposits, fees, and pet rent: permitted in most states; verify locally
• Reasonable accommodation: required nationwide for assistance animals

What This Document Covers

• Identifies specific authorized pets with details (breed, weight, vaccinations)
• Sets pet deposit, pet fee, and/or pet rent amounts
• Establishes pet rules (areas permitted, leashing, cleanup, noise)
• Allocates responsibility for pet-related damage
• Carves out FHA-protected service animals and ESAs
• Both parties sign – addendum becomes part of lease

Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals — Federal Protections

Under the Federal Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. §3604(f)), service animals trained to perform tasks for a person with a disability, and emotional support animals prescribed by a licensed healthcare provider, are handled as reasonable accommodations rather than as pets where the accommodation may be necessary to give a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling. Where that is so, they are not subject to pet fees, pet deposits, pet rent, breed restrictions, weight limits, or species restrictions. A landlord may request documentation of the disability and the disability-related need where these are not obvious, but may not require special training certificates for ESAs or charge fees. The Department of Justice administers ADA protections for service animals in public accommodations; HUD administers FHA protections for housing.

Best Practices

Document pet identification thoroughly at lease signing – this protects both parties if disputes arise. For accommodations involving assistance animals, document the interactive process carefully: tenant’s request, what documentation was reviewed (HUD limits what landlords may request), and the decision. Avoid blanket breed restrictions where possible – they expose landlords to fair-housing claims. Verify your state’s specific rules on permitted fees before signing.

Related Resources

• Lease termination laws by state
• Landlord forms
• Eviction notice laws by state
• Security deposit laws by state
• Tenant screening laws by state
• Late fee laws by state

Can a landlord charge pet rent, a pet deposit, or a pet fee for an assistance animal?

No, not where the animal qualifies as a reasonable accommodation under the Fair Housing Act. An animal a person with a disability needs in order to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling is not a pet, and a pet addendum is the wrong instrument for it. The federal basis is 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B), which makes it discrimination to refuse “to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford such person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” HUD’s implementing regulation, 24 C.F.R. § 100.204(a), repeats that duty, and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204(b) illustrates it with a single, still-current example: a blind applicant wants to live in a building with a no-pets policy, and the regulation states it is a violation of the section for the owner or manager to refuse to permit the applicant to live there with a seeing eye dog.

The consequence for the document generated above is narrow and specific. Where an accommodation is required, the animal sits outside the pet addendum entirely: no pet deposit, no non-refundable pet fee, no monthly pet rent, no breed exclusion, no weight cap, and no numeric limit drawn from the pet policy. It does not mean the tenant escapes ordinary lease obligations. The tenant remains responsible for damage, waste, and control of the animal on exactly the terms every other tenant is held to. Applying a generally applicable damage or nuisance clause is applying the lease. Applying the pet fee schedule is applying the pet policy, and that is the line that generates liability.

Pet versus assistance animal: what actually differs

Question	Pet under this addendum	Animal approved as a reasonable accommodation
Pet deposit, pet fee, or pet rent	Permitted subject to state law	Not permitted as a condition of the accommodation
Breed, weight, or species restriction	Permitted subject to state and local law	Not applied to the approved animal
Numeric pet limit	Set by the addendum	Governed by what the accommodation requires
Liability for damage the animal causes	Tenant	Tenant, under the generally applicable lease terms
Nuisance, leash, waste, and noise rules	Apply	Apply, if enforced the same way against every tenant
Refusal where tenancy is a direct threat	Yes	Yes, under 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(9), on individualized evidence

The direct-threat point deserves its exact wording, because it is routinely overstated in both directions. Section 3604(f)(9) provides that nothing in that subsection “requires that a dwelling be made available to an individual whose tenancy would constitute a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals or whose tenancy would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others.” The parallel regulation is 24 C.F.R. § 100.202(d). It is an exception measured against the specific animal and the specific facts, not authority for a blanket breed exclusion, and it is not satisfied by a general belief that a category of animal is dangerous.

A scope point most landlords never check

Fair Housing Act coverage is not universal. 42 U.S.C. § 3603(b) exempts certain transactions from section 3604 other than subsection (c): a single-family house sold or rented by a private individual owner who owns no more than three such houses at a time and does not use a broker or agent, and, under 3603(b)(2), “rooms or units in dwellings containing living quarters occupied or intended to be occupied by no more than four families living independently of each other, if the owner actually maintains and occupies one of such living quarters as his residence.” Two cautions before relying on it. The conditions are cumulative and turn on facts about ownership, occupancy, and how the unit was advertised or brokered. And a federal exemption says nothing about state or local fair housing law, which is separately enacted and frequently broader. Treat 3603(b) as a question for counsel, not a default.

What changed in federal assistance-animal guidance in 2025 and 2026, and what did not?

The statute and the regulations did not change. The sub-regulatory guidance interpreting them was withdrawn, and HUD’s enforcement posture toward untrained emotional support animals changed substantially. That distinction is the whole of it, and getting it backwards is the most expensive mistake available on this topic right now.

Two documents govern the current picture. The first is a HUD notice published at 91 FR 17291 on 6 April 2026, Docket No. FR-6571-N-01, titled “Notification of Withdrawal of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Guidance Documents.” It records that the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity withdrew a list of guidance documents effective 17 September 2025. Two entries are the ones landlords have quoted for years: FHEO-2020-01, “Assessing a Person’s Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act,” issued 28 January 2020, and FHEO Notice 2013-01, “Service Animals and Assistance Animals for People with Disabilities in Housing and HUD-funded Programs,” issued 25 April 2013. The notice states the withdrawn documents “have been removed from active use and should not be relied upon as authoritative,” and have been removed from the HUD.gov website.

The second is an enforcement memorandum dated 22 May 2026 from Craig W. Trainor, Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, to FHEO headquarters, enforcement, and regional staff, titled “Enforcement Guidance – Assessing Requests for the Use of an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act.” Its operative instruction is that, effective immediately, for complaints related to animal-related reasonable accommodations, FHEO will find reasonable cause and recommend charges only for those cases involving animals trained to provide disability-related assistance. The memorandum adopts the training component of the Americans with Disabilities Act service-animal definition at 28 C.F.R. §§ 35.104 and 36.104, under which an animal must be “individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability” and under which “the provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort, or companionship do not constitute work or tasks for the purposes of this definition.” It states that requests to waive pet policies for animals trained to perform disability-related tasks are presumptively reasonable, that requests for untrained emotional support animals are not, and that FHEO no longer expects housing providers categorically to extend trained-animal accommodations to untrained emotional support animals. In a footnote it departs from the ADA on one point: under the Fair Housing Act the animal need not be a dog, provided it is trained to perform a disability-related task.

What to take from this, and what would be a mistake to take from it

• The accommodation duty still exists. 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204 are untouched. A withdrawn notice and an enforcement memorandum do not repeal a statute or a regulation.
• An enforcement policy binds the enforcer, not a court. The memorandum says so, and points to the private right of action: under 42 U.S.C. § 3613(a)(1)(A) an aggrieved person may commence a civil action in federal or state court not later than two years after the occurrence or termination of an alleged discriminatory housing practice. A landlord who refuses because HUD will not charge it can still be sued directly.
• State and local law is untouched. Many states and municipalities have their own assistance-animal provisions, with their own documentation rules and their own penalties for a false request. A federal enforcement priority does not narrow them.
• The memorandum is expressly limited. It states it does not address how the Department will process complaints under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or the ADA. Separately, 24 C.F.R. § 5.303 excludes animals “used to assist, support, or provide service to persons with disabilities” from the pet rules that subpart imposes on project owners and public housing agencies.
• Further change is signalled. The memorandum states HUD intends to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking on animal-related reasonable accommodations, aiming to harmonize its regulations with the ADA’s. Any resulting rule would go through public comment and be published in the Federal Register. Until then, the regulation on the books is the one quoted above.

The posture that follows is unglamorous and defensible: keep taking requests, assess each one individually, keep the pet addendum off any animal you approve as an accommodation, and document the request and the decision. A landlord who blanket-denies every emotional support animal because of a 2026 memorandum has adopted a categorical rule, and categorical rules are what generate private lawsuits.

What may a landlord ask?

24 C.F.R. § 100.202(c) makes it unlawful to inquire whether an applicant, an intended occupant, or an associated person has a handicap, or to inquire as to the nature or severity of one. The regulation then lists inquiries it does not prohibit, provided they are made of all applicants whether or not they have handicaps, including inquiry into an applicant’s ability to meet the requirements of ownership or tenancy. The workable rule that survives the guidance withdrawal: a request for an accommodation opens a conversation about the accommodation, not an entitlement to the applicant’s medical file, and whatever screening questions you ask must be the ones you ask everybody. Record what was requested, what was provided, what you asked, and what you decided, with dates.

What is the difference between a pet deposit, a pet fee, and pet rent?

They differ in refundability and in whether a statutory security-deposit cap reaches them. A pet deposit is security: held, applied against actual damage or unpaid amounts at the end of the tenancy, with the unused balance returned. A pet fee is normally described as non-refundable consideration for the privilege of keeping the animal and is not returned whether or not damage occurs. Pet rent is a recurring monthly charge added to rent for the term.

	Pet deposit	Pet fee	Pet rent
When paid	Once, at signing	Once, at signing	Monthly, with rent
Refundable	Yes, less lawful deductions	No, where the state permits the charge at all	No, it is rent
Counted against a statutory deposit cap	Often yes, where the state caps deposits	Varies, and several states dispute it	Usually treated as rent, not deposit
Duties at move-out	Itemization and return within the state’s deadline	Generally none	None
Main risk to the landlord	Recharacterization if not truly held and itemized	Recharacterization as a disguised deposit	Fewer, if disclosed and consistent

The shape of the state variation matters more than any single number. Some states cap the total security deposit at a multiple of monthly rent and treat a pet deposit as part of that total, so a pet deposit is available only to the extent the cap has not already been used. Some prohibit non-refundable charges outright, so a “pet fee” collected there risks being treated as a deposit that must be accounted for and returned. Some are silent, leaving the charge to the lease. Because the categories are not defined the same way from state to state, the label on the line item does not control: a court will look at how the money was actually treated. If the addendum calls a payment non-refundable but the landlord holds it and applies it against damage, expect it to be judged a deposit.

Three drafting habits follow. State each charge on its own line with its own label and amount rather than merging them. Say explicitly whether each is refundable and, if so, that it is held as part of the security deposit. Confirm your state’s deposit cap and its rule on non-refundable charges before setting amounts, and re-confirm at renewal, because deposit statutes are among the most frequently amended provisions in landlord-tenant law.

What should a pet addendum actually specify?

A pet addendum earns its keep by being specific enough that a disagreement two years later has a documented answer. Vague permission to “keep a pet” resolves nothing.

• Identification. Name, species, breed or predominant breed, adult or expected adult weight, age, colour and markings, licence or microchip number, and spay or neuter status. Attach a dated photograph and say in the addendum that it is attached. Identification is what converts “the approved pet” into a specific animal, and it is the only way to enforce a substitution rule later.
• Number and type limits. State the maximum, state that only the animals identified are authorized, and state what happens if the tenant wants to replace or add one. The replacement clause is the one landlords most often omit and most often need: without it, a tenant who loses a nine-pound cat can arrive with a ninety-pound dog and argue the addendum permits one animal.
• Vaccination and licensing. Require proof of current rabies vaccination and any other vaccination a local ordinance requires, and the local animal licence where one exists, both kept current. Set a delivery mechanism: proof on signing, updated proof on request or renewal. A document requirement without a mechanism produces nothing.
• Waste, noise, and common areas. Specify where the animal may be, where it must be leashed or carried, who removes waste and how quickly, whether it may be left unattended outdoors or on balconies, and what noise standard applies. “No excessive barking” is weak; a clause tied to repeated complaints, quiet hours, or a documented pattern is enforceable because it describes something a witness can testify to.
• Damage responsibility. Allocate damage to the unit, the building, and common areas, and say the obligation is not limited to the pet deposit. Pet damage concentrates in flooring and subfloor, doors and frames, sills, screens, blinds, and odour in carpet and padding. Naming those categories makes a later deduction defensible, because it shows the tenant was told.
• Consequences of breach. Make the consequence staged: written notice, an opportunity to correct where the breach can be corrected, and revocation of pet permission for a serious or repeated breach. A clause jumping straight to termination for any breach is likely unenforceable in states requiring an opportunity to cure, and a landlord relying on it may lose the eviction on procedure rather than merits.
• Condition record. Record the unit’s condition when the animal is approved, especially mid-tenancy. A move-in report predating the animal, plus a dated record at approval, separates “damage caused by the pet” from “pre-existing wear” when the deposit is itemized.

Who is liable if a tenant’s animal injures someone, and what does insurance actually cover?

Liability for an animal injuring a third party is a question of state law with no single national rule, so what follows describes contract and insurance practice rather than any state’s standard. What a landlord controls directly is the allocation in the lease and the insurance behind it.

Start with your own policy. Landlord liability and property policies are underwritten with animal exposure in mind, and it is common for a policy to carry an animal-liability exclusion, a limitation on coverage for tenants’ animals, or a schedule of breeds the insurer will not cover. Some insurers will write coverage back by endorsement. These terms live in your policy, not in a statute, and the only reliable way to learn them is to read the policy or ask the carrier in writing before approving an animal. Approving a breed the carrier excludes breaks no law; it creates an uninsured exposure, which in practice is worse.

Then the tenant’s side. Requiring renter’s insurance with a stated minimum personal-liability limit, and requiring that the coverage not exclude the approved animal, is a contractual requirement the addendum can impose. Many landlords also ask to be named as an additional insured or, more commonly on renter’s policies, as an additional interest. Know the difference: additional-interest status is essentially a notification right if the policy lapses, while additional-insured status extends coverage and is not always available on a personal lines policy. Ask the carrier which one the tenant’s policy supports rather than assuming.

Add an indemnity clause and understand its limits. It does not stop an injured third party naming you as a defendant, and it is worth only what the tenant can pay, which is why the insurance requirement matters more than the indemnity language. Finally, be deliberate about breed restrictions. Where a person requests an assistance animal a breed ban is not a permissible basis for refusal, because the analysis is individualized and 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(9) requires a direct threat assessed on the facts. Some municipalities regulate specific breeds and some prohibit such regulation; an insurer’s breed schedule and a municipality’s rules are separate constraints that may not agree.

When can a landlord revoke permission for a pet, and what must be documented first?

Permission can be revoked when the addendum says it can and the stated ground has actually occurred, which in practice means nuisance, aggression, damage, or breach of the addendum’s own terms. Revocation is a contract remedy, so it lives or dies on whether the addendum reserved the right and whether the landlord can prove the ground.

Reserve the right explicitly. An addendum granting pet permission with no revocation clause has given a term-long licence, and a landlord who withdraws it anyway is the party in breach. The clause should name the grounds, require written notice, and state whether the tenant gets an opportunity to correct the problem first.

Then build the record before you act, not after. What survives challenge is contemporaneous and specific:

• Dated written complaints from other residents or neighbours, kept as received rather than summarized later, with the complainant identified.
• A dated log of each incident with time, location, what happened, and who observed it. A log started the week you decided to revoke reads as reconstruction; one kept from the first complaint reads as a record.
• Photographs of damage with a verifiable date, taken before repair, plus invoices describing what was repaired.
• Any official record, such as an animal control report, citation, or police report, which carries far more weight than the landlord’s own account.
• Copies of every notice sent, with method and date of delivery, and the tenant’s response if any.

Send written notice describing the specific conduct, the clause it breaches, what the tenant must do, and by when, then escalate in writing. Where the animal was approved as a reasonable accommodation, the same discipline applies with more force, because the question is no longer whether the lease was breached but whether this specific animal presents a direct threat within 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(9) or has caused substantial physical damage to the property of others. That rests on this animal’s documented conduct, not on the species, the breed, or general apprehension.

What should a landlord do about an unauthorised pet?

Treat an unauthorised animal as a lease violation and follow the notice procedure your state requires for a curable breach, rather than self-help. The procedural shape is broadly consistent nationally even though the details are not: written notice identifying the violation, a defined period to correct it, and termination only if the tenant does not correct it in time. What varies by state is the length of the period, the form and content the notice must take, how it must be served, whether the violation is curable at all, and whether a repeat within a window is treated differently. Those variables are exactly the ones that get evictions dismissed, so read your own state’s notice statute before drafting, and never reuse a notice form from another state.

Decide the outcome you want before sending anything. An unauthorised animal can be resolved by removal or by authorization, and authorizing it on a signed addendum with the proper charges and rules often produces a better result than an eviction. If you take that route, execute the addendum properly rather than accepting the animal informally, because informal acceptance is the fact pattern that later defeats enforcement.

Then fix the evidence, because photographs matter here for a reason particular to animals: they can be removed. A tenant who receives a notice and boards the animal elsewhere for a fortnight can appear at a hearing and assert no animal was ever kept in the unit, and without a dated photograph, a dated neighbour complaint, or a dated inspection note, the landlord is arguing recollection against denial. Photograph the animal if you can do so lawfully during a properly noticed entry or from a common area, photograph bowls, bedding, litter trays, crates, and damage, record the date in a way that does not depend on your word alone, and keep the complaints that prompted the inspection.

Two things to avoid. Do not accept a payment designated as pet rent for an animal you simultaneously claim is unauthorized, because accepting money referable to the animal undercuts the position. And do not remove or dispose of the animal yourself: animal removal has its own legal machinery, generally involving animal control or a court order, and a landlord who takes an animal has converted a straightforward lease violation into a much harder problem.

Where the tenant responds to your notice by requesting a reasonable accommodation, the analysis changes rather than ends. A request made after a violation notice is still a request, and the assessment is the same individualized one described earlier. Pause the pet-policy enforcement, assess the request on its own terms, document the request, the response, and the decision with dates, and resume the lease-violation track only if the request is properly denied.