Emotional support animals (ESAs) have become a common topic in housing, which requires tenants and landlords alike to stay up to date on the rules governing ESAs.
On May 22, 2026, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued new guidance about requests for reasonable accommodations involving animals. The guidance changes how HUD will handle certain complaints involving assistance animals.
Under the new guidance, HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity will focus its enforcement efforts on animals that are trained to provide disability-related assistance. Requests involving animals that are not trained to perform disability-related tasks, including many emotional support animals, will instead be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
This does not mean that emotional support animals are no longer protected under the Fair Housing Act. The new guidance is about how HUD will enforce the law; it does not change the Fair Housing Act itself. State and local laws may also provide additional protections.
For housing providers, the change is an important reminder that animal accommodation requests should be looked at carefully and based on the individual circumstances. A request involving an emotional support animal may be treated differently from a request involving a trained service animal, but that does not mean the request can simply be ignored or automatically denied.
For tenants, HUD’s new guidance does not eliminate the reasonable-accommodation process for assistance animals. Instead, it changes how HUD will approach complaints involving animals that are not trained to perform disability-related tasks.
As HUD’s new enforcement policy takes effect, housing providers and tenants should pay attention to how HUD and the courts continue to address emotional support animals and reasonable accommodations.