Can Hotels Charge Pet Fees in Texas? What the Law Actually Allows

Drury Hotels, one of the more pet-friendly chains with several Texas locations, charges a daily fee for guests who bring a dog or cat to their room. That fee legally disappears the moment the animal in question is a trained service dog. This gap between what hotels routinely charge and what federal and Texas law actually permit trips up a lot of travelers, and it’s a big part of why the question of whether hotels can charge pet fees in Texas keeps coming up.

The short version: it depends entirely on what kind of animal you’re bringing. Ordinary pets, emotional support animals, and ADA-recognized service dogs are treated very differently under Texas and federal law, and knowing which category applies to your trip can save you real money at check-in.

Can Hotels Charge Regular Pet Fees in Texas

Texas has no statute that stops a hotel from charging guests to bring an ordinary pet. Most individual hotels set their own pet policies, even when they belong to a larger national chain, so the fee you pay in Amarillo might look nothing like the fee at a sister property in Houston.

That variation shows up clearly once you compare major chains with Texas locations:

Hotel Chain	Typical Pet Fee Policy
Aloft Hotels	No pet fee, though weight limits vary by property
Kimpton Hotels	No additional fee or deposit for pets of any size
Motel 6	Pets stay free unless prohibited by local law
Red Roof Inn	One pet per room welcomed at no extra charge
Drury Hotels	Daily pet fee of $35 per room plus tax

Drury’s corporate policy sets a daily pet fee of $35 per room plus tax at its Texas properties, while chains like Aloft and Kimpton skip the charge entirely as a brand differentiator. Because no state agency regulates these amounts for ordinary pets, the fee a property charges is purely a business decision, not a legal one.

That flexibility ends immediately, though, once the animal traveling with you is a service dog rather than a pet. Standard chain pet policies do not apply to service animals, and the next section explains exactly why.

Pro Tip: If you’re driving across Texas with a pet or service dog, plan for outdoor relief breaks around local wildlife. Rural and suburban properties near green space can put you within range of venomous and non-venomous snakes, biting wasps, and other common Texas insects, so keep leashes short and check grassy areas before letting an animal off-lead.

Service Animals: Why Hotels Cannot Charge a Fee

Hotels and motels are places of public accommodation, which puts them squarely under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Standard hotels and motels fall under Title III of the ADA as places of public accommodation, and that classification is what triggers the fee prohibition in the first place.

Under the ADA, a service animal is a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. Guide work, alerting a deaf guest, pulling a wheelchair, and interrupting a seizure all qualify. Once an animal meets that definition, the fee question is settled: if a business requires a deposit or fee from patrons with pets, it must waive the charge for service animals.

Texas law backs this up with its own statute. The Texas Human Resources Code defines an assistance or service animal as a canine that is specially trained or equipped to help a person with a disability and is used by that person, and the definition of “public facility” that the law protects is written broadly enough to include lodging. Texas’s public facility definition explicitly names “a hotel, motel, or other place of lodging” alongside restaurants, retail stores, and government buildings.

There’s also a narrower, less-known Texas provision worth knowing about. Texas state law separately prohibits a lodging property from charging an extra fee or security deposit for a “service canine” accompanying a peace officer, firefighter, or search-and-rescue operator. That rule covers working K-9s rather than disability service dogs, but it reinforces the same principle: certain categories of dogs simply cannot be billed like pets.

Front desk staff also have limited authority to question your dog’s status. Under the ADA, hotels cannot require documentation, certification, or papers proving service dog status, and only two verification questions are allowed, with no fees or deposits permitted. Staff can ask whether the dog is required because of a disability and what task it performs, and that’s the end of the inquiry if the task isn’t already obvious.

None of this means a service dog gets a free pass on bad behavior. A hotel may exclude any animal, including a service animal, when its behavior poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others, though staff cannot assume how a dog will behave based on past experience with other animals. Texas law codifies this exception at Human Resources Code Section 121.004(a), which permits an establishment to ask a guest to remove an animal that is aggressively lunging at other patrons without violating the law.

Damage is the other carve-out. If a hotel normally charges guests for damage they cause, a customer with a disability may also be charged for damage caused by their service animal. A chewed comforter or a stained carpet can still land on your final bill, but the charge has to match what the hotel would bill any other guest for the same damage.

Emotional Support Animals: Do Texas’s Laws Offer Extra Protection

Emotional support animals occupy a much weaker legal position than service dogs, and Texas doesn’t close that gap. ESAs are not covered under the ADA, though recent litigation has arisen when people with ESAs have been denied equal access. That distinction matters enormously once you’re standing at a front desk.

The Fair Housing Act, not the ADA, is where ESA protections live, and the FHA is built for residential housing rather than overnight stays. ESAs receive protection under the Fair Housing Act for residential housing but have no access rights to hotels under the ADA, so hotels may treat ESAs as pets and apply standard pet fees and policies. Some properties waive those charges voluntarily as a courtesy, but federal law never requires it.

Texas-specific guidance echoes the same conclusion. ESAs unfortunately do not have rights when it comes to hotels in Texas; they are solely protected by Fair Housing rules that apply to your home. If a Texas hotel charges you a pet fee for an ESA, that charge is legal in the vast majority of ordinary overnight-stay situations.

There’s one meaningful exception worth flagging for long-term stays. For extended stays, some temporary housing, including hotels or short-term rentals, may be considered a “dwelling” under the Fair Housing Act, in which case hotels could be required to make reasonable accommodations and potentially waive pet fees for ESAs. Booking a hotel room for weeks or months at a time, rather than a night or two, is what typically triggers this reclassification.

Important Note: Trying to pass an ESA off as a service dog to dodge a pet fee carries real legal risk in Texas. Misrepresenting an ESA as a service animal in public triggers Section 121.006 penalties, which include up to a $1,000 fine plus 30 hours of community service.

Pet Fee vs. Pet Deposit: What’s Legal in Texas

Hotels typically use two different billing structures for animals, and the terms aren’t interchangeable. A pet fee is usually a flat, non-refundable charge added to your bill regardless of whether the animal causes any mess. A pet deposit works differently, functioning as a refundable hold that’s returned at checkout if the room comes back undamaged.

For a genuine service dog, Texas and federal law strip away both options at once. Neither a deposit nor a surcharge may be imposed on an individual with a disability as a condition of allowing a service animal to accompany them, even if deposits are routinely required for pets. A hotel can’t get around the fee prohibition simply by relabeling it a “deposit.”

For ordinary pets and ESAs treated as pets, Texas doesn’t set rules for how a property splits a charge between a fee and a deposit; that combination is left entirely to the hotel’s own policy. This mirrors how the state handles residential rentals, where it’s common for landlords to require a pet deposit, and some also charge pet rent as a recurring monthly fee for tenants with pets. Hotel guests aren’t residential tenants, so that statute doesn’t govern nightly stays directly, but it shows the same fee-versus-deposit split exists across Texas lodging generally. Drury’s model, for example, skips deposits entirely in favor of a flat daily pet fee of $35 per room plus tax rather than a refundable hold.

Are There Limits on How Much Hotels Can Charge in Texas

No Texas statute sets a maximum dollar amount that a hotel can charge for an ordinary pet. Nightly and per-stay pet fees are set by the property, which is why you’ll see everything from $0 at chains like Kimpton and Aloft to a flat daily charge at Drury properties. There’s no regulatory ceiling to check against before booking.

The one hard limit that does exist applies exclusively to service dogs, and it isn’t a capped dollar figure — it’s zero. That distinction has real financial consequences for travelers who don’t know their rights. A family road trip might budget $50 per night for lodging, and if three hotels along the route each charge a $75 pet fee, that’s $225 in illegal charges that could price the trip out of reach for a handler traveling with a legitimate service dog.

Because there’s no cap on what a property can charge for a regular pet or an ESA treated as a pet, it pays to call ahead and confirm the exact figure before you arrive, especially at independently owned motels where policies aren’t published online.

What to Do If a Hotel Charges You Illegally in Texas

If a Texas hotel tries to bill you for a service dog, you have more leverage than most guests realize. If a hotel tries to charge you for a service dog, you are not obligated to pay it, and you’re never required to provide documentation beyond answering the two permitted verification questions.

Here’s a practical sequence to follow if you’re charged at check-in:

1. Ask for a manager immediately. Front-desk staff sometimes apply pet policies automatically without realizing service animals are exempt.
2. Cite the law directly. You may be able to show the hotel the Americans with Disabilities Act and cite the regulation that allows you to bring your service dog into a hotel without a fee.
3. Get everything in writing. Ask for an itemized receipt and keep a copy of any policy the property cites, in case you need to dispute the charge later.
4. Dispute the charge with your card issuer if the hotel refuses to remove it before you check out.
5. File a formal complaint. Texas maintains contact points specifically for this: the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Department of Justice both field complaints related to service animal access issues under state and federal disability law.

Complaints involving extended-stay bookings that qualify as housing rather than transient lodging follow a different path. If you believe you’ve been discriminated against in housing because of a service dog or emotional support animal, you can file a complaint through the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division or the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Keep a simple record of the date, property name, staff member’s name, and the exact fee charged. That documentation makes any complaint or chargeback dispute far easier to resolve, whether you’re dealing with a single questionable line item or a pattern of charges across several Texas properties on a longer trip.

Legal Disclaimer: This article is for general informational purposes and reflects publicly available guidance on the ADA and Texas Human Resources Code as of 2026. It is not a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney familiar with the specifics of your situation.