Can Hotels Charge Pet Fees in Vermont? What the Law Actually Says

If you’ve ever booked a room at a Vermont inn only to find a surprise $75 line item for your dog at checkout, you’ve experienced one of the most common points of confusion in pet travel. Can hotels charge pet fees in Vermont? For most dogs and cats, the answer is a straightforward yes — but that answer flips entirely once a service animal enters the room. Vermont hotels operate under a mix of private business policy, federal disability law, and a state public accommodations statute that don’t always overlap the way travelers expect.

Below, you’ll find what’s actually legal at check-in: when a pet fee is fair game, when it’s illegal, and what separates a service animal from an emotional support animal under Vermont law. You’ll also see real fee ranges pulled from properties across the state, plus the steps to take if a hotel bills you for an animal it shouldn’t have charged for.

Can Hotels Charge Regular Pet Fees in Vermont

For an ordinary, non-service pet, Vermont hotels can charge pretty much whatever they want. There’s no state statute capping pet fees for dogs or cats without disability-related training, so the amount comes down entirely to the property’s own policy — and those policies vary widely from one end of the state to the other.

Budget motels and small inns tend to charge the least. Stowe Motel & Snowdrift welcomes 2 dogs of any size for an additional fee of $15 per pet, per night, while Holiday Inn Express in Springfield charges an additional 25.00 USD per night, non-refundable pet fee. Some properties skip the fee entirely: Comfort Inn White River Junction allows two pets of any size in designated rooms for no additional fee.

Larger chain hotels in bigger markets tend to charge more, often as a flat per-stay rate instead of a nightly add-on. DoubleTree by Hilton Burlington Vermont welcomes two pets up to 80 lbs for an additional fee of $75 for stays of 1 to 4 nights and $125 for longer stays, and Hilton Burlington Lake Champlain welcomes two pets up to 75 lbs for an additional fee of $75 per pet, per stay. Farther south, La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham in Williston/Burlington allows 2 pets up to 75 lbs for an additional fee of $25 per pet, per night, not to exceed $150 per stay — a built-in cap that protects longer-staying guests from runaway charges.

Hotel	Location	Pet Fee
Stowe Motel & Snowdrift	Stowe	$15/pet, per night
Holiday Inn Express	Springfield	$25/night, non-refundable
La Quinta Inn & Suites	Williston/Burlington	$25/pet/night (capped at $150/stay)
DoubleTree by Hilton	Burlington	$75 (1-4 nights) / $125 (5+ nights)
Hilton Burlington Lake Champlain	Burlington	$75/pet, per stay
Comfort Inn	White River Junction	No fee

Zoom out across the whole state and the pattern holds. An analysis of 56 pet-friendly hotels in Vermont found the average pet-friendly hotel price to be $175 as of mid-2026, and fees at many properties range from no charge to $25 per night, with some hotels requiring a refundable deposit instead of a flat fee. Because this is private contract territory rather than a civil rights issue, a hotel can also add breed or size restrictions on top of its fee — worth checking before you book if you own a larger dog or a breed that draws extra scrutiny under Vermont’s pit bull ownership rules.

Pro Tip: Book through a platform with a fee guarantee when possible. The pet fee charged by the hotel will not exceed the amount quoted on your reservation confirmation when you book through services like BringFido, which helps you avoid surprise charges at check-in.

Service Animals: Why Hotels Cannot Charge a Fee

The moment a service animal enters the picture, none of the pricing above applies. Only dogs are recognized as service animals under titles II and III of the ADA, and a service animal is a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. Because the law doesn’t treat these dogs as pets, a hotel’s standard pet-fee policy simply doesn’t apply to them.

The financial protection is explicit, not implied. People with disabilities who use service animals cannot be isolated from other patrons, treated less favorably than other patrons, or charged fees that are not charged to other patrons without animals, and if a business requires a deposit or fee to be paid by patrons with pets, it must waive the charge for service animals. The California Hotel & Lodging Association puts it just as bluntly for its own members: you may not charge an extra fee or cleaning deposit for service animals at check-in. Vermont hotels operate under the same federal rule.

Front-desk staff can’t interrogate guests to verify this, either. Hotel staff has the right to ask only two questions: is this animal needed because of a disability? and what task(s) does the animal provide? Staff also cannot ask for documentation or proof of an individual’s disability and the animal’s training. If the answer is obvious — a guide dog wearing a harness, for instance — staff can’t ask anything at all.

Vermont layers its own public accommodations law on top of the ADA. According to Nolo’s legal guide to Vermont service dog law, the statute defines a public accommodation broadly enough to include schools, stores, restaurants, facilities, or establishments that offer to the general public a range of services — a definition that clearly reaches hotels and motels. Vermont’s own service dog statutes go further, and the state ensures service dogs have the right to access public places similar to the rights provided by the ADA, including restaurants, stores, hotels, and recreational facilities.

None of this erases a guest’s normal responsibilities. Vermont’s leash law requirements still apply in shared public spaces around a property, and if a service dog is involved in an incident, the same liability principles covered in guides to what happens if a dog bites someone in Vermont still apply. Hotels also keep one narrow right regardless of disability status: if a business such as a hotel normally charges guests for damage that they cause, a customer with a disability may also be charged for damage caused by himself or his service animal.

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

Not really — and that catches a lot of travelers off guard. Emotional support animals provide real comfort, but ESAs are not covered under the ADA, and Vermont hasn’t stepped in to close that gap at the state level. Vermont does not have ESA-specific state statutes but follows federal ADA definitions, meaning ESAs do not qualify as service animals and have no public-access rights in restaurants, hotels, or other businesses.

In practice, that means hotels may treat ESAs as pets, applying standard pet fees and policies, and many properties choose to waive fees for ESAs as a business practice, but federal law doesn’t require it. A hotel that charges $75 per stay for a dog can legally charge the exact same $75 for an emotional support dog, because the law simply doesn’t distinguish between the two in a hotel setting.

The confusion usually traces back to housing law, which works very differently. According to ESA Pet’s guide to hotel laws, the Fair Housing Act covers ESAs in housing, not typical hotel stays, so it does not require hotels to waive fees or no-pet rules for ESAs. A Vermont landlord has to waive a pet deposit for a documented emotional support animal; a hotel two blocks away is under no such obligation. An ESA letter in Vermont is valid for 12 months and then needs to be renewed, but even a current letter doesn’t unlock the hotel access rights that come automatically with a trained service dog.

Important Note: Because emotional support animals aren’t guaranteed public access under Vermont or federal law, a hotel is generally within its rights to decline one outright — not just charge a fee for it. Properties that also manage seasonal pet allergy concerns among other guests often lean on this discretion to keep stricter pet policies. Always call ahead and confirm a property’s ESA policy in writing before you book.

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

The two terms get used interchangeably at the front desk, but they aren’t the same charge, and the difference affects what you get back. A pet fee is typically a flat, non-refundable charge added to your bill regardless of how the room looks when you leave — the kind of charge you see at Holiday Inn Express in Springfield, where an additional 25.00 USD per night, non-refundable pet fee applies. A pet deposit, by contrast, is meant to be returned if the room comes back undamaged.

Important Note: Sources don’t always agree on which category a given hotel’s charge falls into. An older regional pet-friendly lodging directory listed Doubletree By Hilton in Burlington as charging a $75 refundable fee, while current booking platforms describe the same property’s charge as a flat, non-refundable pet fee. Policies change, so confirm directly with the front desk which type of charge you’re being billed before you pay.

Vermont doesn’t have a hotel-specific statute dictating how a property must label or structure this charge, unlike the clearer refundability rules that sometimes govern residential landlord-tenant deposits. That leaves the fee-versus-deposit distinction largely up to each property’s own written policy, which is one more reason to read the pet policy section of your reservation confirmation closely rather than assume.

The private-contract nature of these charges also means a hotel can restrict which animals qualify for its “pet” policy in the first place. A property that welcomes only dogs and cats isn’t required to extend the same fee-based access to species covered under Vermont’s exotic pet ownership laws or smaller companion animals like those discussed in guides to hedgehog ownership in Vermont — it can simply decline them, fee or no fee.

Are There Limits on How Much Hotels Can Charge in Vermont

No dollar ceiling exists in Vermont law for ordinary pet fees. The state hasn’t passed legislation capping what a hotel can charge for a dog or cat, so the market itself sets the range — and that range is wide. Fees at Vermont properties run from no charge to $25 per night, with some hotels requiring a refundable deposit instead, while Hampton Inn and Suites in Manchester charges an extra 75 USD per pet, with guests staying five nights or longer billed 125 USD — nearly the same structure as the DoubleTree in Burlington on the other side of the state.

Because there’s no statutory cap, the meaningful protection for travelers isn’t a price ceiling — it’s accuracy in advertising. If a property lists a $50 pet fee on its website and then bills your card $85 at checkout, that’s a billing dispute, not the kind of civil-rights violation that applies to service animals. Some properties address this directly by building in their own cap, the way La Quinta’s $25-per-pet, per-night fee is not allowed to exceed $150 per stay regardless of how long you stay.

The takeaway for anyone comparing properties: treat the pet fee the same way you’d treat a resort fee or parking charge. Read the fine print on the reservation confirmation, and don’t assume a nightly rate advertised elsewhere automatically includes it.

What to Do If a Hotel Charges You Illegally in Vermont

If you’re traveling with a legitimate service animal and a Vermont hotel tries to bill you a pet fee anyway, you’re not obligated to pay it. If a hotel tries to charge you for a service dog, you are not obligated to pay it. Handling the situation calmly and in the right order makes a real difference in whether the charge actually gets removed.

1. Address it at check-in, not checkout. Politely explain that the animal is a service dog and reference the two-question rule staff are allowed to ask under the ADA.
2. Ask for a manager if the front desk pushes back. Line staff sometimes aren’t trained on the distinction between a general pet policy and a service animal exemption.
3. Cite the law directly if needed. Vermont’s public accommodations statute, Vt. Stat. Tit. 9, § 4501, backs up the same protections found in the federal ADA.
4. Get the removal in writing. Ask for an updated folio or receipt showing the fee was waived before you leave the property.
5. Dispute it after the fact if you were still charged. Contact your credit card issuer to dispute the charge, and consider filing a complaint through the Department of Justice’s ADA complaint process.

State laws do vary, but the majority of them uphold and expand on the federal public access protections granted to service dogs by the ADA, according to US Service Animals. It’s worth knowing both layers apply in Vermont — the ADA sets the floor, and the state’s public accommodations law reinforces it. If you’re bringing a dog along for a long Vermont road trip in warm weather, it’s also worth reviewing Vermont’s rules on leaving pets in hot cars before you make any rest stops.

Common Mistake: Paying the disputed fee first and planning to “sort it out later.” Once you’ve paid, getting a refund is far harder than simply declining the charge at check-in and escalating to a manager on the spot.

Whether a hotel can legally charge you for traveling with an animal in Vermont comes down to one question: is it a pet, or is it a service animal? Ordinary dogs and cats fall under whatever fee a property sets, with no statewide cap in either direction. Service dogs are exempt from that fee by federal and state law, full stop, while emotional support animals sit in a gray area where a hotel’s regular pet policy — fees included — still applies. Know which category your animal falls into before you book, and you’ll avoid both an unwanted surprise at checkout and an unnecessary argument at the front desk.