Where is the tarantula legal?

Theraphosidae. Restricted in 3 of the 3 jurisdictions checked. Every entry quotes the rule it comes from.

Alabama: no restriction found for tarantulaAlaska: no restriction found for tarantulaArizona: no restriction found for tarantulaArkansas: no restriction found for tarantulaCalifornia: no restriction found for tarantulaColorado: no restriction found for tarantulaConnecticut: no restriction found for tarantulaDelaware: no restriction found for tarantulaFlorida: no restriction found for tarantulaGeorgia: no restriction found for tarantulaHawaii: no restriction found for tarantulaIdaho: no restriction found for tarantulaIllinois: no restriction found for tarantulaIndiana: no restriction found for tarantulaIowa: no restriction found for tarantulaKansas: no restriction found for tarantulaKentucky: no restriction found for tarantulaLouisiana: no restriction found for tarantulaMaine: no restriction found for tarantulaMaryland: no restriction found for tarantulaMassachusetts: no restriction found for tarantulaMichigan: no restriction found for tarantulaMinnesota: no restriction found for tarantulaMississippi: no restriction found for tarantulaMissouri: no restriction found for tarantulaMontana: banned for tarantulaNebraska: no restriction found for tarantulaNevada: no restriction found for tarantulaNew Hampshire: no restriction found for tarantulaNew Jersey: no restriction found for tarantulaNew Mexico: no restriction found for tarantulaNew York: no restriction found for tarantulaNorth Carolina: no restriction found for tarantulaNorth Dakota: no restriction found for tarantulaOhio: no restriction found for tarantulaOklahoma: no restriction found for tarantulaOregon: no restriction found for tarantulaPennsylvania: no restriction found for tarantulaRhode Island: permit required for tarantulaSouth Carolina: no restriction found for tarantulaSouth Dakota: no restriction found for tarantulaTennessee: no restriction found for tarantulaTexas: no restriction found for tarantulaUtah: no restriction found for tarantulaVermont: no restriction found for tarantulaVirginia: no restriction found for tarantulaWashington: no restriction found for tarantulaWest Virginia: no restriction found for tarantulaWisconsin: no restriction found for tarantulaWyoming: no restriction found for tarantulaDistrict of Columbia: no restriction found for tarantula

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. The counts include New York City, which has rules separate from the surrounding state and so cannot be shaded on a state map. Listed in full below.

What the colours mean

  • Banned (2)No 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.
  • UnclearThe 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 tarantula

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

Montana

Banned§ 87-5-705(1)
A person may not import into the state, possess, or sell any exotic wildlife unless: (a) the importation, possession, or sale of the exotic wildlife is allowed by law or commission rule

Not by name, but by omission. The arachnid entry at ARM 12.6.2205(3) clears two scorpions and no spiders, and under the white list an unclassified exotic species is not permitted. Montana is the one state where the emperor scorpion is expressly cleared and the tarantula is not.

How this rule works: Montana runs a white list, which is unusual. § 87-5-705(1) says a person may not import, possess or sell any exotic wildlife unless it is allowed by law or commission rule, so an animal that appears on none of the three lists is not permitted rather than unregulated. § 87-5-706 is the statutory noncontrolled list and § 87-5-702 puts rodents, cats, dogs and Eurasian ferrets outside the scheme as domestic animals.

Montana Code Annotated Title 87, Chapter 5, Part 7, Importation, Introduction, and Transplantation of Wildlife →

New York City

Banned
All venomous spiders, including, but not limited to, tarantula, black widow and solifugid

How this rule works: § 161.01 is the list of animals that may not be kept in the five boroughs. It binds regardless of what New York State allows, which is why the city and the state answer differently for several species.

New York City Health Code Article 161, Animals (NYC Department of Health official PDF) →

Rhode Island

Permit required§ 3.8(G)
Nothing in this Part shall prohibit any person from possession of exotic animals or native animals of the class Insecta unless the animals of that class appear on the list of prohibited insects

The blanket invertebrate exemption is written for the class Insecta. Spiders are Arachnida, so on the literal wording they stay inside the definition of exotic animal at § 3.6(A)(9), which covers any invertebrate that is not domestic, native or exempt.

How this rule works: One of the most species-specific schemes in the country. § 3.6 defines domestic animals, § 3.7 sets general prohibitions, § 3.9 governs permits, and § 3.17 is the long exempt list of animals that need no exotic animal possession permit. Anything not domestic, not native and not on the § 3.17 list needs a permit.

250-RICR-40-05-3, Rules and Regulations Governing the Importation and Possession of Wild Animals →

Past the legal question? See the tarantula 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.