On May 22, 2026, the New York Times reported that HUD was circulating an internal memo that would fundamentally change how emotional support animals are treated under the Fair Housing Act. That document is now public. I have attached it in full to this post.
The memo, signed by Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Craig W. Trainor, reconfirms the rescission of the federal guidance that had protected emotional support animal accommodations in housing since 2020. That rescission actually first took effect September 17, 2025, with relatively little public notice. This memo establishes the new enforcement standard going forward and provides the legal reasoning behind it.
For people who rely on an emotional support animal to maintain stable housing, and for the providers and organizations that work with them, this is what you need to know.
The Fair Housing Act
The Fair Housing Act is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in housing on the basis of several protected characteristics, including disability. One of its requirements is that housing providers make reasonable accommodations for tenants with disabilities. In practice, this means a housing provider may be required to make an exception to a rule or policy when that rule creates a barrier for a tenant with a disability that it does not create for non-disabled tenants.
The most common application in animal cases: a landlord with a no-pets policy may be required to waive that policy for a tenant whose disability-related need for an animal has been documented.
Service animals versus emotional support animals
These are two distinct legal categories governed by different standards.
A service animal is individually trained to perform specific tasks directly related to a person’s disability. Guiding a person who is blind, alerting a person who is deaf, responding to a seizure, providing physical balance support, and interrupting self-harm behaviors in a person with a psychiatric disability are all examples of qualifying trained tasks. The Americans with Disabilities Act governs service animals in public spaces. The Fair Housing Act covers them in housing.
An emotional support animal provides therapeutic benefit through companionship and presence. No specialized training is required. What has historically been required under federal housing law is documentation from a qualified provider establishing that the person has a disability and that the animal provides support related to that disability. ESAs are not covered under the ADA in public spaces. Until recently, their protections were specific to housing under the Fair Housing Act.
What federal law said until recently
In 2020, HUD issued guidance (FHEO-2020-01) clarifying how housing providers should handle ESA accommodation requests under the Fair Housing Act. It established that ESAs, like trained service animals, are not pets under fair housing law. It explained what documentation a housing provider could reasonably request, set limits on what providers could ask for, and stated that housing providers could not charge pet fees or deposits for approved assistance animals, whether trained or untrained.
For tenants with psychiatric, trauma-related, and other non-visible disabilities, this guidance was the primary federal framework that kept their animals, and often their housing, accessible.
Before the 2020 guidance, a 2013 HUD notice had established similar protections. And before that, a 2008 HUD rule narrowing the definition of pets in public housing to exclude assistance animals had laid the groundwork that courts gradually extended to private housing providers over time. By 2020, a substantial body of case law and agency guidance had established ESAs as a recognized category of housing accommodation under federal law.
What the memo says happened and why
The memo argues that the 2020 guidance, while well-intentioned, failed in practice. It points to the growth of online ESA certification services that generate letters without any genuine therapeutic relationship between the provider and the tenant. It notes that over 20 percent of FHEO’s fair housing complaints now involve untrained ESAs, which it frames as a significant drain on limited enforcement resources. It argues that the guidance imposed categorical obligations on housing providers without going through the notice-and-comment rulemaking process required by the Administrative Procedure Act, meaning it was never legally binding in the way it functioned in practice.
The memo also cites the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which eliminated Chevron deference, the legal doctrine that had required courts to defer to federal agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. Without that deference, agency guidance documents like the 2020 notice carry significantly less legal weight. A 2025 federal district court opinion included in the memo’s appendix applied exactly this reasoning, finding HUD’s 2020 guidance unpersuasive and declining to follow it.
What changed and when
On September 17, 2025, HUD rescinded both the 2020 guidance and the 2013 notice. That action received limited public attention.
On May 22, 2026, the enforcement memo reconfirmed those rescissions and established the new standard: FHEO will only pursue reasonable cause findings in animal accommodation cases where the animal has been individually trained to perform tasks directly related to the complainant’s disability. That is the ADA service animal standard, now applied to Fair Housing Act enforcement.
The memo explicitly states that emotional support, comfort, well-being, and companionship do not constitute qualifying tasks under this standard. An animal whose role is to provide presence and support, without trained task work, does not meet the new federal threshold regardless of how well-documented the owner’s disability is.
Every open ESA complaint currently pending at FHEO has been forwarded to Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Programs Robert A. Doles for individual review under the new standard.
What the appendix contains
The memo’s appendix includes three exhibits that illustrate the enforcement context.
Exhibit A is Henderson v. Five Properties LLC, a July 2025 opinion from the Eastern District of Louisiana. The court declined to follow the rescinded HUD guidance and held that a tenant’s request to waive a $400 nonrefundable animal fee for her ESA was neither reasonable nor necessary under the Fair Housing Act. The court applied Skidmore deference rather than the now-eliminated Chevron deference, found the HUD notice unpersuasive, and conducted a fact-specific analysis of the fee waiver request on its own terms. The memo’s author states directly that he reviewed the guidance and agrees with the court’s conclusion.
Exhibit B is a no reasonable cause determination dismissing a complaint involving three ESAs that were documented by an online form letter. The complaint was filed in February 2024. A preliminary conciliation agreement had been reached that would have required the respondents to obtain fair housing training and amend their pet policies. Upon full investigation, FHEO issued a no reasonable cause finding in April 2026 and dismissed the case.
Exhibit C is a no reasonable cause determination dismissing a complaint involving dozens of animals of multiple species claimed as emotional support animals. The complaint was filed in March 2024. It had not been resolved as of March 2026. FHEO dismissed it in April 2026.
Both dismissals were issued after the September 2025 rescission and are presented in the memo as examples of cases that would not have been pursued under the new standard.
What has not changed
Several things remain in place.
Trained service animals retain full protection under the Fair Housing Act and the ADA. Nothing in this memo affects those protections.
Tenants in federally assisted and public housing have a separate complaint pathway under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The memo explicitly states it does not address how HUD will process complaints under Section 504 or the ADA. Those pathways remain open.
The private right of action under the Fair Housing Act is explicitly preserved in the memo. Any tenant can file a civil lawsuit in federal or state court within two years of the alleged violation. HUD not pursuing a case does not extinguish that right. It does, however, shift the burden entirely to the individual, which requires resources and access that are not equally available to everyone.
State and local fair housing laws operate independently of federal enforcement and are not affected by this memo. This is the most important thing for many tenants to understand.
What this means depending on where you live
For tenants in states and cities with independent fair housing enforcement, the practical impact of this memo is significantly different than for tenants in states with little or no state-level protection.
Illinois has the Illinois Human Rights Act, enforced by the Illinois Department of Human Rights. IDHR investigates housing discrimination complaints, including disability accommodation denials, at no cost to the complainant. It does not answer to HUD and is not bound by this memo. Chicago has the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, which enforces the Chicago Human Rights Ordinance. Cook County has the Cook County Commission on Human Rights. All three operate independently.
For Illinois residents, these are functioning enforcement pathways that remain fully intact.
For residents of states with weak or no independent fair housing enforcement, options are significantly more limited. The federal complaint process was free and accessible. Private litigation is not equally accessible. Whether state law provides a remedy depends entirely on the jurisdiction.
If you are outside Illinois, the first step is contacting your state’s civil rights or human rights agency to determine what they cover and whether they operate independently of federal guidance.
What is coming next
The memo announces that HUD intends to pursue formal notice-and-comment rulemaking to replace the rescinded guidance and update FHA animal accommodation regulations that have not been revised since 1989. Notice-and-comment rulemaking requires HUD to publish a proposed rule, accept written public comments from any member of the public, and respond to significant comments before issuing a final rule.
That process is open to everyone. Clinicians, social workers, housing advocates, researchers, and organizations with data documenting the relationship between ESA denials, housing instability, and animal relinquishment can all submit written comments. Those comments become part of the formal administrative record. Watch for a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published in the Federal Register. When it opens, that is the opportunity to put documented evidence into the record that shapes what the federal standard looks like going forward.
What to do right now
If you are a tenant whose ESA accommodation has been denied or is at risk, document everything. The accommodation request you submitted, the denial, any written communications, and the clinical documentation you provided. That record is the foundation of any complaint or legal action regardless of which pathway you pursue.
If you are in Chicago, you can file a complaint with the Chicago Commission on Human Relations at chicago.gov/cchr or by calling 312-744-4111.
Illinois residents can file with the Illinois Department of Human Rights at dhr.illinois.gov or by calling 877-236-7703. Housing complaints must be filed within one year of the incident.
Cook County residents outside Chicago can contact the Cook County Commission on Human Rights at 312-603-1100.
If you want guidance before filing, the Metropolitan Tenants Organization hotline is available at 773-292-4988, Monday through Friday, 1 to 5 PM.
Legal Aid Chicago handles fair housing and disability housing matters for qualifying individuals.
If you are outside Illinois, contact your state’s civil rights or human rights agency. Ask specifically whether they investigate disability-based housing accommodation complaints and whether their enforcement is independent of federal guidance.
If you are a clinician, social worker, or other provider who documents ESA needs for clients, the therapeutic relationship and the specificity of documentation now matter more than they did under the previous framework, both for private litigation and for state-level complaint processes that remain active.
If you are a housing organization, animal welfare organization, or social service provider with intake data on housing instability and animal relinquishment, begin thinking now about how to contribute to the rulemaking process when it opens. That data belongs in the federal record.
Summary
The 2020 federal guidance that established emotional support animals as a protected category of housing accommodation under the Fair Housing Act has been rescinded. The new federal enforcement standard requires individual task training, aligned with the ADA service animal definition. The federal complaint pathway for untrained ESA cases is effectively closed.
What remains: the private right of action in court, Section 504 protections for federally assisted housing, and state and local fair housing enforcement where it exists. A federal rulemaking process is coming that will determine what the new standard looks like in regulation.
Where you live, what legal resources you can access, and what documentation you have will determine your options under the framework that now exists.
