Can I charge pet rent, or require the tenant to take out pet insurance?
No to all of it. The ban comes from a different piece of legislation than the one landlords have been reading about, which is why it catches so many people out.
Why not
The Tenant Fees Act 2019 works by permission, not prohibition. There is a defined list of payments a landlord may require from a tenant, and anything not on that list is a prohibited payment. GOV.UK’s guidance on fees you can charge puts it plainly: you cannot charge your tenant any payment that is not on the list, and among the things specifically called out as prohibited is requiring the tenant to take out insurance.
Pet rent is not on the permitted list. Pet insurance is caught directly by the prohibition on requiring insurance. And a larger deposit is not available either, because deposits are capped at five weeks’ rent (six where annual rent is £50,000 or more) regardless of whether there is a pet — so “an extra week for the dog’s sake” simply is not permitted.
The pet insurance provision that people remember
If you have a clear memory of reading that landlords would be able to require pet insurance, you are not imagining it. That provision appeared in earlier drafts of the Bill and was widely reported. It did not make it into the final Act. Guidance from the NRLA is explicit that the pet insurance provisions were not included in the final Act and that landlords are also unable to take a larger deposit where a tenant has a pet.
Anything written before Royal Assent that says otherwise is describing a Bill, not the law.
What you can actually do
Losing the charges does not leave you defenceless. It just moves the protection from money up front to evidence.
Document the property properly. A thorough, dated, photographic inventory at check-in and check-out is what turns pet damage into a successful deposit claim. So do not skip the inventory. It now does the job the extra pet deposit used to do — and a deposit was never large enough to cover serious damage anyway.
Use the deposit you have. Damage caused by a pet is damage, and a properly evidenced claim against the deposit for it is entirely legitimate. What you cannot do is take more deposit because a pet exists.
Consider your own insurance. You cannot require the tenant to insure. You can review your own landlord policy and what it says about pet damage, and price that into the rent generally if you wish — the rent itself is not capped.
Respond to the request properly. This is the part you still control — the next section explains how.
The consent rules, briefly
A tenant has the right to request permission to keep a pet, and consent is not to be unreasonably refused. Section 11 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 inserts sections 16A and 16B into the Housing Act 1988 and defines a pet as an animal kept mainly for personal interest, companionship or ornamental purposes. You must respond in writing, and within 28 days.
What makes a refusal reasonable is fact-specific: the animal, the property, whether a superior lease prohibits pets. What is not reasonable is refusing because you would rather have had the pet rent. Our guide on the 28-day pet rule covers how to handle the request itself, including what to ask and how to word the response.
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The check asks how you handle pet requests and what you charge, and flags prohibited payments alongside everything else the Act changed.
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Written statement of terms · Missed the 31 May deadline? · How to increase rent (Form 4A) · Does every tenant need their own copy? · Proving you served it · Why Form 4A notices get rejected · Do you need a deed of guarantee? · Pet rent and pet insurance · The 28-day pet rule