Renting Out Your Row House With Pets: What DC's New Law Lets You Charge, and What It Still Lets You Refuse

A tenant with a 90-pound dog applies to rent your row house in November. Under last year's lease you could have turned the dog away for its breed, charged a $500 pet fee you kept, and added $75 a month. As of October 1, 2026, two of those three are illegal in DC. The third is capped well below $75 on most rents.

The change comes from the Pets in Housing Amendment Act, D.C. Law 25-308. It applies to anyone who rents out a house or a unit in one, including the owner renting a single row house or an English basement. Here is what it lets you charge, what it still lets you refuse, and what it means for the tenant already living in your house.

Know the most you can charge before you sign the next lease

The law allows two pet charges and nothing else. The first is a refundable pet deposit of up to 15% of the monthly rent, on top of the regular security deposit. You may keep it only for damage the pet directly caused beyond ordinary wear and tear, not for unpaid rent. It is a security deposit under DC law, so it follows the same holding and return rules as the one you already collect.

The second is monthly pet rent: up to 1% of the first full month's rent for each dog, and up to 1% in total for every other pet combined. Note the base. The cap is tied to the first full month the tenant paid, not to whatever the rent becomes later. The law does not say whether a renewal at a higher rent resets it, so I would not count on it.

Take a row house worth about $1 million, rented at $5,000 a month. The security deposit can be one month's rent, $5,000. The pet deposit can be $750 more. Pet rent tops out at $50 a month per dog. A household with two dogs and a cat pays at most $150 a month in pet rent: $50 for each dog and $50 for the cat.

Everything else is out. No nonrefundable pet fee. No pet application, registration, screening or DNA fee, even when a third-party service collects it. If the damage runs past both deposits, the tenant still owes the difference. The deposit is a cap on what you hold, not a cap on what you can recover.

Keep the right to say no

The law limits what you charge for a pet. It does not, by its terms, require you to accept one. The landlord-side attorneys who have written about it read it the same way: a no-pets rental is still a lawful choice, and so is a policy that requires written approval before any animal moves in. You may also limit the number of pets and set reasonable rules for safety, sanitation and upkeep.

Here is the line you may not cross. For a lease that begins after October 1, 2026, you may not turn a tenant down because of a pet's breed, size or weight. You may not charge more for it either. A rule that gets to the same place by another road is the risk. An insurance requirement applied only to certain breeds reads as a breed rule. So does a weight limit dressed up as a safety policy.

A service or assistance animal is not a pet under this law. You may not charge a pet deposit or pet rent for one. A request for an assistance animal is a request for a reasonable accommodation, and it gets its own answer under fair housing law, separate from your pet policy.

Check whether the animal is covered

The caps and the breed rule protect a "common household pet," and the law lists what that means. Dogs and cats are covered. So are domesticated rodents and rabbits, captive-bred cage birds, ferrets, fish, turtles and snakes that are not venomous.

The list begins with the word "including," so it is not the whole universe. A domesticated animal kept at home for pleasure can count even if the law does not name it. What the law shuts out by name is narrower: dogs and cats crossed with wild species, such as a wolf hybrid or an ocelot cross, and venomous snakes. An animal kept for commercial purposes is outside it too. For those, your lease and the rest of DC law still govern.

Handle the tenant already in your house

The law is written around when a lease begins. The fee caps reach leases that began after October 1, 2025. The breed, size and weight rule reaches leases that begin after October 1, 2026. The law gives no transition rules for pet charges already above the caps on a lease that started in the past year, and both firms that have written on it flag that gap.

Here is what I would do. At the next renewal, bring the pet deposit and pet rent under the caps and put them in a new pet addendum. If the tenant is month to month, assume the new rules apply now and price to them. Charging too little for a few months is the cheaper mistake. If your tenant adds a pet in the middle of a lease, your lease still governs whether they may. The deposit language in the law is written for a prospective tenant, so ask an attorney before you collect a new deposit mid-lease. A pet kept in breach of a no-pets lease is still a breach.

Why it started now

The Council passed the law in December 2024, and it took effect in March 2025 on paper. A clause tied it to funding for a pet-friendly homeless shelter, and that money never came. The FY2027 Budget Support Emergency Act (D.C. Act 26-416) narrowed the condition to the shelter alone. The landlord rules applied from October 1, 2026. If you look the law up, the online DC Code may still show "Not Funded" beside these sections. It lags the emergency act.

If pets worry you, set the terms before the listing goes live

Decide first. Choose pets or no pets before you list, and say so in the listing. DC already requires you to give an applicant every fee and deposit in writing before you screen them, so the pet deposit and pet rent belong on that notice.

Call your insurer. Landlord policies sometimes exclude certain dogs or cap bite liability. You can no longer screen by breed, so any exclusion in your policy is now your exposure. Ask your agent what is covered, and whether an umbrella policy makes sense.

Ask every tenant for the same coverage. If you require renter's insurance with liability coverage, require it from every tenant, pet or not. A rule applied to everyone is a rule about risk. A rule applied to some dogs is a rule about breed.

Photograph the house. Photograph floors, doors, trim, the yard and the fence at move-in and again at move-out. Since August 14, 2026, DC requires you to send a departing tenant written notice of anything owed within 45 days, with photographs or other documentation. The pictures are how you collect.

Write a pet addendum. Name the approved animals, the number allowed, waste and yard rules, and what happens after damage or repeated complaints. A clear addendum settles most disputes before they start.

Act on the animal, not the breed. Documented aggression, repeated nuisance and real damage can support a decision about one particular animal. That decision rests on what the animal did, not on what it looks like.

I am a real estate broker, not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. Before you change a lease or a deposit practice, run it past a DC landlord-tenant attorney.

The principle

You can no longer price a pet by how it looks. You can still price the risk: a deposit, a monthly charge, an insurance policy and a camera roll. Set all four before the lease is signed, and the breed of the dog stops mattering.