Is It Legal to Own a Hedgehog? State-by-State Guide

There is no federal law about hedgehogs. Nothing bans them, nothing licenses them, and the USDA's only interest is in imports. Every restriction you will run into is a state or city rule, and there are six places that will not let you keep one.

That much is in every article on the subject. What is almost always wrong is why, and the why is what decides whether the rule is likely to change, whether a permit exists, and whether the answer is different for the animal you actually want.

So this guide quotes the regulations instead of summarizing other summaries. Three of the things below contradict what you will read elsewhere.

Where You Cannot Keep One

Pennsylvania Has No Hedgehog Law

This is the one worth understanding, because it explains why the situation there keeps almost changing.

Pennsylvania's exotic wildlife definition, at 34 Pa.C.S. § 2961, covers "all bears, coyotes, lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, cheetahs, cougars, wolves and any crossbreed of these animals which have similar characteristics in appearance or features." There is no hedgehog in it, and nothing resembling one. The entire prohibition hangs on four words earlier in the sentence: "includes, but is not limited to."

The Game Commission reads those words to reach hedgehogs. A sitting legislator describes it that way too. House co-sponsorship memo 44994, filed by Representative David Zimmerman in January 2025 to legalize hedgehogs and sugar gliders, says they "are banned from ownership as pets through the Game Commission's regulations and their interpretation of Title 34. The Commission recognizes these animals as 'exotic' and does not allow for their sale or possession."

The same memo notes they "are legal throughout a vast majority of the country." Versions of this bill have been introduced every session since 2017 and none has passed.

Hawaii Does Not Ban Hedgehogs

Hawaii bans almost everything, which is a different thing, and the distinction matters if you are asking about any other animal.

The state runs on an inverted rule. Under HAR § 4-71-6, "the introduction into Hawaii of live animals or live non-domestic animals as defined in this chapter at any stage of development is prohibited except for those animals on the lists" of approved species. Not on a list, not allowed. Nothing has to be singled out.

The only hedgehog Hawaii names anywhere is Hemiechinus auritis, the long-eared hedgehog, on the research-and-exhibition list. That is not the pet species. The African pygmy hedgehog, Atelerix albiventris, appears nowhere at all, and is barred precisely because it appears nowhere.

Washington DC: The Rodent Problem

DC works like Hawaii, from a closed list. D.C. Code § 8-1808(j) says no one may keep "any living member of the animal kingdom" as a household pet except seven categories, and one of them is "Domesticated rodents and rabbits."

That sounds like it should cover a hedgehog, and it is probably why people get DC wrong. It does not. Hedgehogs are not rodents. They are Eulipotyphla, closer to moles and shrews than to anything with incisors, and no other category on the list fits them either. A hamster is fine in DC. A hedgehog is not, on a taxonomic technicality.

New York City takes the opposite approach and simply names them. Health Code 161.01(b) prohibits "insectivorous mammals (Insectivora): all aardvark, anteater, shrew, otter shrew, gymnure, desman, tenrec, mole and hedgehog." No ambiguity, no permit, and note that this is a city rule, so upstate New York is a separate question.

Georgia Says License, Means No

Georgia's rule, at Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 391-4-8-.05, lists "Order Erinaceopmorpha (hedgehogs) - All species" among animals requiring a wild animal license. On paper that is a licensing requirement, not a ban, which is why some sources call Georgia a permit state.

In practice the Department of Natural Resources states its position plainly on its own exotics page: "The exotic species listed below, except where otherwise noted, may not be held as pets in Georgia."

The "otherwise noted" part is real and worth knowing, because two animals do get carve-outs written into the rule itself. Ferrets may be kept if neutered by seven months and vaccinated against rabies. Sugar gliders may be kept with documentation that the animal came from a USDA-inspected source. Hedgehogs have no such note.

Everywhere Else

No other state has a rule against hedgehogs, and in most of the country you can buy one without telling anyone.

Local ordinances are the exception that catches people. California's own regulation acknowledges the pattern in § 671(a): "Cities and counties may also prohibit possession or require a permit for these and other species not requiring a state permit." A city can ban an animal its state allows, and hedgehogs turn up on municipal exotic-pet lists fairly often. Check your city as well as your state, particularly if you are renting.

The Takeaway

If you live in California, Georgia, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Washington DC or New York City, there is no legal way to keep a hedgehog, and no permit to apply for. If you live in New Jersey there is a permit and you need it. Everywhere else, the state will not stop you, and your city might.

The one place the rule keeps getting challenged in the legislature is Pennsylvania, where the ban is an agency's reading of a definition rather than anything a legislature wrote. That is a weaker foundation than a statute, and it is why the bill keeps coming back.

The hedgehog encyclopedia profile has the species background behind an animal this many states still file as wildlife, and the exotic pet legal hub sets those rules beside every other species' state map.

To see this at a glance, our interactive map of hedgehog laws shades every state that restricts one, and clicking a state gives you the rule it comes from.

Sources & Further Reading