ESA letter online, written by a clinician licensed in your state

What is an ESA letter?

An emotional support animal letter is clinical documentation. A licensed mental health professional writes it after evaluating you, and it states that you have a condition that substantially limits a major life activity and that your animal helps with symptoms or effects of that condition. It does not need to name your diagnosis, and it should not.

You use it to ask a housing provider for a reasonable accommodation, such as living with your animal in a building with a no pets rule. Colleges use it when you request an ESA in student housing. It is not a registration, an ID card or a certificate, and no official ESA registry exists. Our ESA registration guide explains why those products do not count.

How to get an ESA letter online with Pet ESA Service

Take the free assessment. About 5 to 10 minutes of questions about how you feel, how symptoms affect your days, your housing and your animal. Nothing is charged to start.

Choose your evaluation and pay once. One pet $89, two pets $109, three pets $129, four pets $149. Payment runs through Stripe.

Talk with your clinician. A licensed mental health professional licensed in your state reviews your answers and connects with you by phone or video when your state's rules or their judgment call for it.

Receive your signed letter. If an ESA is clinically appropriate, your letter arrives by email as a PDF. If it is not, you get a full refund.

Share it and get verification help. Send the letter to your landlord. If they want to confirm it, we handle verification at no extra cost. The full walkthrough is on how it works.

What your letter includes

Housing providers look for specific details when they review a letter. Ours are written to include everything a careful property manager checks, and nothing private that they are not entitled to see. You can see the layout on our annotated sample ESA letter.

Does an ESA letter still work for housing in 2026?

Yes, with an important change you should know about. On May 22, 2026, HUD's fair housing office said it will only find reasonable cause in animal accommodation complaints when the animal is individually trained, and it withdrew its older ESA guidance. That changes what the federal agency will enforce. It did not change the Fair Housing Act itself or HUD's regulation at 24 CFR 100.204.

What still supports an ESA request: state fair housing laws (California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, South Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, Maine, Hawaii and Wisconsin among them), private lawsuits under the Fair Housing Act, Section 504 in federally funded housing and colleges, and the many housing providers who simply approve requests backed by solid documentation. Each of those routes relies on a letter from a qualified clinician who actually evaluated you. Our 2026 HUD guide explains the details, and your state page shows what your state adds.

Why people choose Pet ESA Service

We built the service around the questions careful renters ask before they pay.

• Licensed in your state: your clinician holds a license where you will be during the evaluation, which telehealth rules require.
• State rules followed: waiting periods in California, Arkansas, Louisiana and Montana, in person rules in Colorado, and Florida's out of state rule are built into how we match and schedule.
• One clear price: $89 for one pet, with no subscription, rush fee or landlord form fee.
• Full refund if not approved: your payment never buys a guaranteed outcome, and you never pay for a letter you did not get.
• Verification help: when a landlord asks questions, we answer them so you do not have to chase anyone.
• Honest guidance: our guides are dated, sourced and updated when the law changes.

Who an ESA letter is for

Renters in buildings with pet restrictions, people moving to a new apartment, students requesting an ESA in campus housing, and people whose landlord has asked for current documentation. If your dog is trained to perform tasks that help with a psychiatric disability, a psychiatric service dog evaluation may fit better, because trained animals keep HUD's presumption of reasonableness.

An ESA letter does not give public access to stores or restaurants, and airlines treat emotional support animals as pets. Our guides on stores and restaurants and flying with an ESA cover those situations.

ESA letter cost

Pet ESA Service charges one fee per evaluation, shown before you pay. National online services commonly charge $139 to $199 for one pet, and some add subscriptions or fees for landlord forms. See the full breakdown on our pricing page and in what an ESA evaluation costs.

Start with the free assessment

It takes about 5 to 10 minutes, you pay nothing to start, and a clinician licensed in your state makes the decision. Start your free assessment and see whether an ESA letter is right for you.