Is It Legal to Own a Hognose Snake? State-by-State Guide

Hognose snakes get flagged by first-time keepers for one reason: they're mildly venomous, in the sense that they have small rear fangs and a weak venom evolved to subdue toads. That's led to a persistent assumption that they must fall under the same permits as cobras or vipers. In practice, almost every venomous-reptile law draws its line well above hognose, and New York City is the exception. The real legal wrinkles are elsewhere.

Where Hognose Snakes Stand

The "Venomous Snake" Myth

A real medical case report on a keeper bitten by a Western hognose during feeding documented local swelling, bruising, and mild cellulitis, with a full recovery in about five months and no systemic effects, which is what a bite from this species actually looks like. That's consistent with how state law treats the species: Florida's wildlife agency states outright that some mildly venomous rear-fanged colubrids "are not regulated as venomous" in the state, and a hognose needs no permit there as a nonvenomous, unprotected reptile. Alabama and Kentucky both name Heterodon as an exception to their venomous-reptile bans, the class rule the venomous snake laws by state guide reads for every jurisdiction and the hognose mostly escapes. New York City is the one place that goes the other way: its health code bans "all venomous, mid-or rear-fanged, Duvernoy-glanded members of the family Colubridae, even if devenomized", and the hognose is exactly that snake. Even a 2025 South Carolina bill to expand venomous-reptile regulation was drafted to exclude hognose.

Alabama is worth a second look, because clearing the venomous rule is not the same as clearing the state. 220-2-.26(1) does except "hognose snakes (genus Heterodon)" from its ban on venomous reptiles that have never naturally existed in Alabama, and that is the clause the exemption lists all quote. A different rule then protects one of the three hognoses: 220-2-.92(1)(c) lists the southern hognose, Heterodon simus, among the nongame species nobody may possess without a scientific collection permit or a written permit from the Commissioner. The eastern hognose, H. platirhinos, is an Alabama animal and is not on that list, and the western, H. nasicus, is the pet-trade species and is not native there at all. So in Alabama the answer turns on which hognose you have, which is exactly the kind of thing a venomous-reptile carve-out will not tell you.

Georgia's Real Exception

Georgia is the clearest genuine restriction here. Its Department of Natural Resources lists Eastern and Southern hognose under species that "may not be held as a pet," and states the restriction applies regardless of the animal's origin or morphology, meaning captive breeding doesn't create an exception the way it does in most other states.

West Virginia Bans Its Own Hognose

Georgia is not the only place hognose ownership is off the table. West Virginia gets there by a different route and reaches further, because its rule is a permitted list rather than a prohibited one. W. Va. C.S.R. § 58-73-1.1 prohibits "the take or possession of any native West Virginia reptile or amphibian species not listed hereafter," and section 4 lists ten salamanders, two frogs and two turtles. No snake is on it.

The Eastern Hog-nosed Snake, Heterodon platirhinos, is on WVDNR's checklist of the state's twenty-two native snakes, so it is inside the prohibition. The department's summary of the rule puts the total at 80 species of reptiles and amphibians whose possession the regulations bar. Nothing here turns on the venom question that decides this species everywhere else: West Virginia is not treating the hognose as dangerous, it is treating it as its own wildlife.

Colorado's New Split Rule

Kansas Bans Both Hognoses, and Virginia Splits the Species

Kansas had been read against K.S.A. 32-1301, the dangerous regulated animal statute, which names six big cats, bears and non-native venomous snakes and settles nothing here. The pair that decides a Kansas animal is K.S.A. 32-1002(a)(2), which makes possessing any wildlife unlawful unless a law or a regulation of the secretary permits it, and the two regulations that do the permitting: K.A.R. 115-20-3 for exotic wildlife, which subsection (d) defines as species "not native or indigenous to Kansas", and K.A.R. 115-20-2 for the state's own. Kansas has both hognose snakes and both are established taxa, so 115-20-3 cannot reach them. 115-20-2 would, because its subsection (b)(13) puts reptiles on the takeable list, except that the opening words of (b) exclude "any species listed in K.A.R. 115-15-1 or K.A.R. 115-15-2", and K.A.R. 115-15-2(a)(4) names both: "Plains hog-nosed snake, Heterodon nasicus" and "Eastern hog-nosed snake, Heterodon platirhinos", as nongame species in need of conservation. Every door closes, and the special permit at 115-15-3 is written for threatened and endangered wildlife rather than for this tier. Kansas names the western first, which is the animal nearly every captive-bred hognose in the trade is.

Virginia splits the two species instead of banning both. Virginia runs two schemes, and 4VAC15-20-50 decides which one an animal is in. A "nonnative (exotic) animal" is one "not naturally occurring in Virginia, excluding domestic and naturalized species", so the special permit table at 4VAC15-30-40 never reaches an animal Virginia already has, and native and naturalized status is fixed by a document incorporated into the rule, the department's 2024 List of Native and Naturalized Fauna of Virginia. The eastern hog-nosed snake, Heterodon platirhinos, is on that list and is also a reptile Species of Greatest Conservation Need, so 4VAC15-360-10(A)(6) says it "may not be taken or possessed in any number for private use". The western hognose, Heterodon nasicus, appears nowhere on the native and naturalized list, which makes it a nonnative (exotic) animal, and the permit table at 4VAC15-30-40 names one snake in the whole of it, the brown tree snake. So the pet-trade animal is free in Virginia and the state’s own is not.

Wisconsin Changes on January 1, 2027

The eastern hognose is a Wisconsin native, so it sits under the state's native-herp rule, and that rule changes at the start of 2027. CR 25-092 repeals and recreates Wis. Admin. Code NR 16.12 on that date. From then no one may take from the wild or possess a live native reptile or amphibian except under the exemptions in NR 16.12(3), and the one written for keepers covers captive-bred color variants acquired from a legal source. A wild-type eastern hognose already in your care has to be registered with the DNR by June 30, 2027, and one that is not registered is presumed to be held in violation. The western hognose the pet trade sells is not a Wisconsin animal, so this rule does not reach it.

California and Texas

California is frequently cited on aggregator sites as requiring a hognose permit, and the state's own list says otherwise. Title 14, section 671(c)(7) restricts exactly three colubrid groups: the boomslang and the twig snakes of genus Thelotornis, both dangerously venomous rear-fanged African species, and the watersnakes of genus Nerodia, for invasiveness. Heterodon is on none of them, so a hognose is legal in California without a permit. Texas is settled too, and it turned out not to be a venom question at all. The state's controlled exotic snake rule reaches six named constrictors and venomous species that are not native to Texas, and a hognose is neither. What does reach it is the nongame rule at 31 TAC 65.331(d), which names both the western and the eastern hognose, so a Texas keeper may hold 25 of a species without a permit and may not sell, offer for sale, exchange, or barter any of them. The cap follows captive-bred animals too, because 31 TAC 65.325(a) defines nongame wildlife to include them.

The Takeaway

If you're getting a hognose snake, the venomous-reptile angle almost never applies to you, and New York City is the one place it does. Six places ban a hognose outright. Hawaii, Kansas and New York City reach the western; Georgia, New York State and West Virginia ban only their native hognoses, which leaves the western legal there. Virginia bars the eastern species while leaving the western alone. Colorado owners of Eastern hognose specifically should be aware their subspecies wasn't part of the 2026 legalization, and Massachusetts draws the same line harder: its exemption list clears the Western hognose by name and its special-concern listing puts the Eastern one in a permit tier the state says it will not open for a pet, captive-bred or not. Everywhere else, this is one of the more broadly legal reptiles on this list. The ball python legal guide covers another broadly legal snake with its own species-specific wrinkles, and the exotic pet legal hub holds the full federal and state picture.

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

Sources & Further Reading