Where is the chinchilla legal?

Chinchilla lanigera. Restricted in 3 of the 40 jurisdictions checked. Every entry quotes the rule it comes from.

Alabama: no restriction found for chinchillaAlaska: no restriction found for chinchillaArizona: no restriction found for chinchillaArkansas: no restriction found for chinchillaCalifornia: no restriction found for chinchillaColorado: no restriction found for chinchillaConnecticut: no restriction found for chinchillaDelaware: no restriction found for chinchillaFlorida: no restriction found for chinchillaGeorgia: no restriction found for chinchillaHawaii: no restriction found for chinchillaIdaho: no restriction found for chinchillaIllinois: no restriction found for chinchillaIndiana: no restriction found for chinchillaIowa: no restriction found for chinchillaKansas: no restriction found for chinchillaKentucky: no restriction found for chinchillaLouisiana: no restriction found for chinchillaMaine: no restriction found for chinchillaMaryland: no restriction found for chinchillaMassachusetts: no restriction found for chinchillaMichigan: no restriction found for chinchillaMinnesota: no restriction found for chinchillaMississippi: no restriction found for chinchillaMissouri: no restriction found for chinchillaMontana: no restriction found for chinchillaNebraska: no restriction found for chinchillaNevada: no restriction found for chinchillaNew Hampshire: no restriction found for chinchillaNew Jersey: permit required for chinchillaNew Mexico: unclear for chinchillaNew York: no restriction found for chinchillaNorth Carolina: no restriction found for chinchillaNorth Dakota: no restriction found for chinchillaOhio: no restriction found for chinchillaOklahoma: no restriction found for chinchillaOregon: no restriction found for chinchillaPennsylvania: no restriction found for chinchillaRhode Island: no restriction found for chinchillaSouth Carolina: no restriction found for chinchillaSouth Dakota: no restriction found for chinchillaTennessee: no restriction found for chinchillaTexas: no restriction found for chinchillaUtah: no restriction found for chinchillaVermont: unclear for chinchillaVirginia: no restriction found for chinchillaWashington: no restriction found for chinchillaWest Virginia: no restriction found for chinchillaWisconsin: no restriction found for chinchillaWyoming: no restriction found for chinchillaDistrict of Columbia: no restriction found for chinchilla

Select a state for the rule behind its colour. Alaska, Hawaii and the District of Columbia are drawn out of position so they can be clicked.

What the colours mean

  • BannedNo legal way to keep one, and no permit to apply for.
  • Permit required (1)Legal, but you need a permit or licence before the animal arrives.
  • Conditions applyLegal without a permit only if a stated condition is met, such as a generation, a size or an indoor-only rule.
  • Unclear (2)The rule genuinely does not resolve for this animal. Ask the agency before relying on it.
  • No restriction foundNothing in the body of law we read restricts this animal here.

Choose an animal

ServalFennec foxPrairie dogCapybaraBurmese pythonHedgehogFerretSugar gliderQuaker parakeetBengal catSnapping turtleBoa constrictorDeguArgentine black and white teguNile monitorTiger salamanderBall pythonChinchillaGreen iguanaSavannah monitorTarantulaVeiled chameleonEmperor scorpionGerbilRussian tortoiseHamsterGuinea pigTokay gecko

Every restriction on the chinchilla

3 of the 40 jurisdictions checked restrict this animal in some way. The rest had no rule we could find.

New Jersey

Permit required

Not on the exempt list, unlike the hamster and gerbil.

How this rule works: 4.4 is a closed exempt list; 4.5 requires a permit for 'any other' exotic species not exempted.

N.J.A.C. 7:25-4.4 Exempted Species and 7:25-4.5 Additional Species →

New Mexico

Unclear

Group assignment unknown; unlisted defaults to Group IV.

How this rule works: Four groups. Group I is semi-domesticated and needs no importation permit; Group IV is 'dangerous, invasive, undesirable, state or federal listed threatened, endangered, a furbearer or any other species of concern' and is barred to the general public, allowed only for scientific study, restoration, zoological display, temporary events, service animals or qualified experts. The operative default: 'Any species of live non-domesticated animal not currently on the species importation list will be designated group IV until such time as another determination is made by the director.' The group assignments themselves live in a separate Director's Species Importation List, roughly 27 pages, which I could not obtain.

N.M. Admin. Code 19.35.7, Importation of Live Non-domesticated Animals, Birds and Fish →

Vermont

Unclear

Not resolvable without the Unrestricted list.

How this rule works: Closed list. § 4709 bars bringing in, transporting or possessing any live wild bird or animal without authorisation. Reg 881: 'the Commissioner shall not issue a permit for the keeping or possession of any wild animal in captivity, except for bona fide scientific or educational purposes' unless the species is designated domestic, a domestic pet, or unrestricted. The Unrestricted Wild Animals List is maintained separately on the department website and was not obtainable.

Vermont Regulation 881 (12-021 Code Vt. R.), Governing the Importation and Possession of Wild Animals, with 10 V.S.A. § 4709 →

For the full write-up, including the states that get reported wrongly, read the chinchilla legal guide.

Past the legal question? See the chinchilla profile.

How to read this

A state with no colour is one where nothing in the law we read restricts that animal. That is not the same as a guarantee: it means no restriction was found in the specific body of law checked for that state, which is recorded alongside each jurisdiction. Cities and counties regularly ban animals their state allows, and several states say so in their own rules.

Hatched grey means the rule genuinely does not resolve. Usually a definition arguably reaches the animal without naming it, and the honest answer is to ask the agency rather than to guess. Those entries are marked unclear on purpose rather than being rounded to a yes or a no.

Every entry links to the regulation it came from. None of this is legal advice, laws change without much notice, and the agency that issues the permit is always the last word. For the federal layer and how state schemes are structured, see the exotic pet legal hub.