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A deposit is held, a fee is spent, and monthly pet rent is spent again every month. Enter the lease's deposit, fee, monthly pet rent and the number of pets, and this page gives the cash due before move-in, the total across the lease, the deposit that comes back and the net cost. No averages and no state caps: every figure is arithmetic on what you enter.
Cash due for 1 pet before move-in
$300.00 deposit + $0.00 fee, then $25.00 a month
Leave a charge at 0 if the lease does not ask for it. Most leases charge per pet; if yours charges per unit, put 1 in the pets field and the per-unit amount in each charge.
The deposit is counted as returned only if the lease makes it refundable and nothing is charged against it. A deduction comes off the refund, not off the rent, so add your best estimate of the repair to the net cost to see the worst case.
The bar is what leaves your account over a 12-month lease on the figures above: $600.00. The left half is the deposit, which is held rather than spent. The right half is pet rent, which is spent. Only the right half is a real cost — unless something is charged against the deposit.
A pet deposit, a pet fee and monthly pet rent are three instruments that often sit on the same lease, and the same headline number costs three different amounts. The table prices one $300 charge in each form, per pet, over stays of different lengths. It assumes the deposit is refundable and nothing is charged against it.
| Stay | Deposit $300 | Fee $300 | Pet rent $25/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 months | $0.00 | $300.00 | $150.00 |
| 12 months | $0.00 | $300.00 | $300.00 |
| 18 months | $0.00 | $300.00 | $450.00 |
| 24 months | $0.00 | $300.00 | $600.00 |
Twelve months is the break-even. At $25.00 a month, pet rent has cost $300.00 by the end of a year — exactly the fee — and every month after that is money a fee would not have charged. A two-year lease pays for the fee twice over. The same arithmetic runs the other way: leave after six months and the monthly form has cost $150.00, half the fee.
That is why a deposit and a fee are not interchangeable even when the numbers match. The deposit is a hold on your money; the fee is a price for permission. If a landlord offers a $300.00 deposit in place of a $300.00 fee, the deposit is the better line every time — it costs nothing if you hand the unit back in the condition you found it.
Most leases charge per pet, so every line multiplies: a $300.00 deposit becomes $600.00 held, a $300.00 fee becomes $600.00 spent, and $25.00 a month becomes $50.00. The net cost over a year goes from $300.00 to $600.00. Check which way your lease counts before you budget for a second animal.
The amount matters less than the word in front of it. Four terms do four different things to your money.
Money held against damage, not a payment for the pet. It comes back at move-out minus anything charged for damage beyond ordinary wear — nail marks on a door frame, a chewed blind, a stain that will not come out of the carpet. Of the three charges on a pet addendum, this is the only one that can come back.
Money spent. The word deposit in front of non-refundable does not make it returnable; it is a fee wearing a deposit's name. Ask which one you are paying before you sign, because over a one-year lease the difference is the whole amount.
A recurring charge for as long as the animal is in the unit, usually per pet. It is the only one of the three that grows with the length of the lease, and the only one that keeps charging after a one-time charge would have been left behind.
The page that states all three, plus weight and breed limits, how many animals are allowed, what the landlord counts as damage, and whether the monthly charge stops if the pet leaves. If a charge is not on the addendum, ask for it in writing — a number quoted at a showing is not a number anyone is held to.
Is the charge per pet or per unit? Is the deposit refundable, and on what conditions? Does the monthly charge stop when the pet leaves? What counts as damage rather than wear? And is the deposit returned on the same clock as the rest of the security deposit? The answers move the arithmetic more than the headline amount does.
This page still does not decide whether a particular animal is a pet or an assistance animal. What it can do is put the federal rule in front of you, because that rule is what a pet clause runs into — and because the two HUD documents that used to explain it were withdrawn.
24 CFR § 100.204(a), as published by the Legal Information Institute from the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations: “It shall be unlawful for any person to refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford a handicapped person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling unit, including public and common use areas.” The section's first example is a blind applicant who wants a seeing eye dog in a building with a no pets policy: “It is a violation of § 100.204 for the owner or manager of the apartment complex to refuse to permit the applicant to live in the apartment with a seeing eye dog because, without the seeing eye dog, the blind person will not have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.”
The statute behind it, 42 U.S.C. §3604(f)(3)(B), lists the same refusal among the prohibited practices: “a refusal 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.”
| Requirement | Where it is stated | What the text does not answer |
|---|---|---|
| The person has a disability | “handicapped person” in § 100.204(a) | What proof of a disability a landlord may ask for |
| The obstacle is a rule, policy, practice or service | § 100.204(a); the example names a no pets policy | Whether any particular clause in your lease is one |
| The accommodation is necessary for equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling | § 100.204(a) and example (1) | How “necessary” is measured in a case where it is contested |
| The accommodation is a reasonable one | “reasonable accommodations” in § 100.204(a) | The section's own text does not define the word |
The two HUD documents that set out how a request for an animal should be assessed are no longer in force. Federal Register document 2026-06624, Docket No. FR-6571-N-01, published April 6, 2026 at 91 FR 17291: “This notice informs the public that the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) has withdrawn the guidance documents identified below,” with the withdrawal effective September 17, 2025. Two entries in that list are the animal documents:
| Document | Issued | Status |
|---|---|---|
| FHEO 2020-01: Assessing a Person's Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act | January 28, 2020 | Withdrawn, effective September 17, 2025 |
| FHEO Notice 2013-01: Service Animals and Assistance Animals for People with Disabilities in Housing and HUD-funded Programs | April 25, 2013 | Withdrawn, effective September 17, 2025 |
| 42 U.S.C. §3604(f)(3)(B) | Statute | Stands — not a guidance document |
| 24 CFR § 100.204 | Regulation | Stands — not a guidance document |
That is why this page states no documentation standard. The documents that described what a landlord could ask for, and what a tenant could supply, are the two withdrawn ones; the statute and the regulation quoted above say nothing about paperwork. Quoting a withdrawn notice as though it were current would put a rule in front of you that HUD has taken down, and paraphrasing it would be worse, because the paraphrase would look like the page's own opinion.
What survives is the shape of the question: a rule that treats the animal as a pet, a request to set that rule aside, and a decision that has to be made on the facts of one tenancy. The arithmetic on this page prices a pet. If the animal is not one, the pet line is the wrong line to price, and the answer is not a smaller number — it is a different question.
No averages. This site does not publish an average pet deposit, because an average blends refundable deposits with non-refundable fees, per-pet charges with per-unit ones, and expensive cities with cheap ones. The number would not describe any lease you can actually sign. Every figure here is arithmetic on what you type.
No state caps and no return deadlines. How much a landlord may charge, and how quickly a deposit must come back, vary by state and by lease, and this page quotes none of them. Read the statute for your state, or ask the landlord to put the rule into the addendum.
No ruling on assistance animals. If the animal is a service animal or an assistance animal rather than a pet, the pet line may not apply at all. That is a question about your lease and your situation rather than arithmetic, and this page does not decide it.
It is whatever the lease says, and this page turns that into a total. Put the deposit, any fee and any monthly pet rent into the fields above: the page shows the cash due before the pet moves in, the total across the term, the deposit that comes back and the net cost per month. With a $300.00 refundable deposit, no fee and $25.00 a month for 12 months, one pet costs $600.00 out of pocket and $300.00 net.
A charge called a deposit is normally refundable, minus anything charged for damage. A charge called a fee, or a non-refundable pet deposit, is not. The name is the tell: if the lease says non-refundable, the money is spent the day you pay it, whatever the rest of the sentence says.
Timing. The deposit is paid once and held; monthly pet rent is paid every month and spent. At $300.00 against $25.00 a month the two cost the same over 12 months, but only the deposit comes back — so the monthly form is $300.00 of real cost and the deposit is nothing, if the unit is handed back clean. After 12 months the monthly form keeps costing and the deposit does not.
This page does not publish one. An average mixes refundable deposits with non-refundable fees and per-pet charges with per-unit ones, so it would not describe any lease you can sign. The arithmetic on your own lease is the only number that holds, and it is three fields away.
This page does not decide that. What it can say is that the arithmetic changes completely if the animal is treated as an assistance animal rather than a pet: no deposit, no fee, no monthly pet rent. Ask the landlord in writing how the animal is classified before you pay anything, and keep the answer.
The deposit is what the damage is charged against, so the refund is the deposit minus the repair. The net cost above assumes nothing is charged; add your best estimate of the repair to it to see the worst case. Ordinary wear is not damage, but the line between the two is usually argued at move-out rather than at signing.
Usually, which is why the pets field multiplies all three charges. A few leases charge per unit; if yours does, put 1 in the pets field and the per-unit amount in each charge, and the totals stay correct. The addendum decides, so read it before you assume either way.
Only if the addendum says so. The field above assumes the charge runs for the whole term, which is the common case. If your lease lets you remove the pet and the charge, set the term to the number of months the animal actually lives there — that is the honest comparison against a one-time fee.