Pet deposits and pet rent for an emotional support animal in Vermont

What used to be true

HUD's 2020 assistance animal notice said plainly that an assistance animal is not a pet, and that a housing provider may not charge a pet fee, a pet deposit or pet rent for one. Almost every page you will find on this subject is still repeating that sentence.

What changed

On 22 May 2026 HUD permanently rescinded its 2020 assistance animal notice and narrowed its own enforcement to animals individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. That is the Americans with Disabilities Act service animal test, and an emotional support animal does not meet it. A complaint to HUD about a refused emotional support animal is now unlikely to produce a finding of reasonable cause.

Where that leaves Vermont

Vermont has its own fair housing statute, the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act (9 V.S.A. § 4503), enforced by the Vermont Human Rights Commission. A state complaint runs on state law, so HUD changing its own enforcement priorities does not decide it.

Vermont has no statute written specifically about emotional support animals. That is the ordinary position: only seven states have one. It means the question in Vermont is decided by the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act and by how a court reads the reasonable accommodation duty, not by a dedicated rule you can point a landlord at.

Deposit rules in Vermont

With the federal guidance withdrawn, the argument runs on ordinary Vermont landlord-tenant law, which is where most of the real variation between states now sits.

• Vermont sets no statutory ceiling on a residential security deposit, so the amount is whatever the lease says and the market bears.
• A deposit has to be returned within 14 days of the end of the tenancy.

If you move

A letter is tied to the licence of the clinician who wrote it, not to your lease. Moving out of Vermont does not void it, but a new housing provider is entitled to reliable documentation, and a clinician licensed only in Vermont is a weaker answer to that question once you live somewhere else. Vermont sits in the New England, and the rules next door are not the same.

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island run on the federal position plus their own fair housing statute, much as Vermont does.

What is not in doubt

• You remain liable for damage the animal actually causes, everywhere, and always did. An accommodation is not an indemnity.
• A provider may apply an ordinary damage deposit that it applies to every tenant, animal or not.
• A refundable deposit and a non-refundable pet fee are different things and get argued about differently.
• Nothing here stops a provider agreeing to waive a fee, and many still do rather than litigate.