# ESA Letter in Santa Fe, NM: An Exclusion With a Fence Around It

> New Mexico names the emotional support animal in a statute — to exclude it. Four words at the top of that section decide how far the exclusion travels.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/new-mexico-emotional-support-animal/santa-fe/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-09-05
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 90,551
- Households renting: 36.4%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Exclusion is Article 11 only
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): $30-$60/mo for pets
- Breed/weight limits common: yes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## A statute that names your animal, and then shuts a door

Search the New Mexico statutes for "emotional support animal" and you will find it. New Mexico is
one of the states that legislates the phrase directly, which sounds encouraging until you read
what the sentence does with it.

**NMSA 1978, § 28-11-2(B)**, added by Laws 2013, ch. 57, § 2:

> "'qualified service animal' means any qualified service dog or qualified service miniature horse
> that has been or is being trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability; but
> **'qualified service animal' does not include a pet, an emotional support animal, a comfort
> animal or a therapy animal**;"

Named, and excluded in the same clause. A Santa Fe tenant who reads that far
reasonably concludes the legislature has settled the matter against them.

It has not. The exclusion has a fence around it, and the fence is written
into the first four words of the section.

## The scope clause at the top of § 28-11-2

Section 28-11-2 does not open by defining anything. It opens by saying where
its definitions apply:

> "**As used in the Service Animal Act:**"

So the exclusion of the emotional support animal is an exclusion *for the
purposes of the Service Animal Act*. Which raises the only question that
matters: how much law is the Service Animal Act?

New Mexico answers that in its own short-title section, **§ 28-11-1.1**:

> "Chapter 28, **Article 11** NMSA 1978 may be cited as the 'Service Animal Act'."

One article. Sections 28-11-1.1 through 28-11-6. That is the whole of the
territory in which § 28-11-2(B)'s exclusion has any effect.

## What is inside the fence

Article 11 is a short, self-contained set of rules about **access to public places**. Section
28-11-3 admits a qualified service animal to "any building open to the public and to all other
public accommodations" and to common carriers, regardless of a policy denying entry to pets.
Section 28-11-3(B) carves out a direct threat of significant harm in those same settings. Section
28-11-5 deals with unrestrained animals interfering with a service animal, and by its own terms
does not apply to private property that is not open to the public. Section 28-11-6 makes false
presentation a misdemeanour.

Museums, buses, restaurants, county offices, the shops along the Plaza. That
is what the Service Animal Act is about, and inside those doors the
exclusion in § 28-11-2(B) does real work: an emotional support animal has no
statutory right of public access in New Mexico. Stating that plainly is more
useful than pretending otherwise, because a tenant who tries to walk an ESA
into a public building on the strength of the wrong statute will be turned
around.

## What lives outside it

Two bodies of law, and neither is in Article 11.

**The New Mexico Human Rights Act is Article 1 of the same chapter.** Its housing paragraphs at
§ 28-1-7(G): refusal to rent, discrimination in terms and conditions, discriminatory advertising,
run to "any person" and protect a "physical or mental disability." Nothing in § 28-1-7 borrows
the Service Animal Act's definitions, and the scope clause at the head of § 28-11-2 keeps them
where they were put. A landlord who cites the exclusion against a Human Rights Act complaint is
citing a definitions section from a different article about a different subject.

**The federal Fair Housing Act is not New Mexico law at all.** The duty to grant an exception to a
no-pets rule is written at 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B), which makes discrimination include "a
refusal to make **reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services**, when
such accommodations may be necessary to afford such person **equal opportunity to use and enjoy a
dwelling**." A state legislature deciding what its own service-animal statute means cannot narrow
a federal statute, and § 28-11-2 does not attempt to.

The honest summary for a Santa Fe renter: the exclusion is real, it is about
public access, and it does not decide your housing request.

## Which makes accuracy of description the practical rule

Article 11 contains one provision worth reading closely even though it is
not a housing provision. **§ 28-11-6**:

> "A. A person shall not **knowingly present as a qualified service animal** any animal that does
> not meet a definition of 'qualified service animal' pursuant to Section 28-11-2 NMSA 1978. A
> person who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor …"

The prohibited conduct is calling an animal a qualified service animal when
it is not. Asking a landlord to permit an emotional support animal,
described accurately as an emotional support animal, is not that conduct,
and § 28-11-6 says nothing about housing paperwork at all.

So the advice the statute produces is exactly the advice a tenant should follow anyway: use the
correct words. Write "emotional support animal" in the request. Do not put "service animal" on a
form, do not let a letter describe the animal as task-trained when it is not, and do not buy a
vest. The accurate description is both the lawful one and the one that keeps the request inside
the body of law that helps you.

## The city this lands in

Santa Fe rents 15,275 of its 41,921 occupied homes, **36.4 percent** on the
2020–2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate, close to the New
Mexico average of 30.0 percent and well under Las Cruces or Gallup.

Median gross rent is **$1,463**. That is the second-highest of the state's
twenty largest cities, three hundred and ninety-six dollars above the $1,067
New Mexico median, and, contrary to what almost everyone assumes, not the
highest. Rio Rancho at $1,514 takes that. The 2024 Census estimate puts
Santa Fe at 90,551 people, fourth in the state.

An expensive, tight market with a large share of small and individually
owned rentals is one where a no-pets rule is more likely to be a real
preference of a real owner than a corporate policy, and where a well-made
written request lands better than an argument.

## Getting the assessment made

Santa Fe is one of only two places in New Mexico with a real concentration
of specialist mental-health providers; Albuquerque is the other. Everywhere
south and east of here, tenants travel or wait.

Use that if you can. A clinician who already treats you writes the strongest
documentation available, because the finding rests on observation over time
rather than a single appointment. The friction is that being in a
well-served city does not make you a current patient of anybody in it:
new-patient waits at established practices here run long, some systems
decline to write housing determinations as policy, and a provider seeing you
for the first time may reasonably refuse to certify anything yet.

Where that is the position, an evaluation by a licensed provider is the same examination arranged
on purpose. Someone licensed determines whether an impairment substantially limits a major life
activity and whether this animal answers it, then records the finding in writing, the "written
certification of a physician or other appropriate medical authority" that 9.1.1.8(F)(3) NMAC says
the Human Rights Bureau will look for if a complaint is ever filed. A provider who cannot reach
that conclusion says so, and that possibility is why the ones who do reach it are worth something.

New Mexico wrote your animal into a statute in order to exclude it from one
article. Everything that decides a tenancy sits outside the fence.

## What Santa Fe landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- May not refuse to rent, or refuse to negotiate, because of a physical or mental disability: NMSA 1978, § 28-1-7(G)(1).
- May not discriminate because of disability in the terms, conditions or privileges of the rental or in the facilities and services provided with it, § 28-1-7(G)(2). This is the state provision a charge attached to an assistance animal is met by.
- May not use the three-day substantial-violation route over an animal. § 47-8-3(V)'s closed list does not include one. The route is a written seven-day notice and cure under § 47-8-33(A), served within thirty days of the breach or knowledge of it.
- May not raise at trial any ground outside the written notice, § 47-8-33(G).
- May not retaliate by raising rent, cutting services or bringing an action for possession within six months of a fair housing complaint made to a government agency, on pain of liability for two times the monthly rent: §§ 47-8-39(A)(4), 47-8-48(C).

**Can:**
- Must make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where necessary to afford equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling, but under 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204, not under New Mexico law, which imposes that duty only on employers.
- May adopt a no-pets rule only where it is reasonably related to its purpose and applied to all residents fairly, § 47-8-23(B)–(C), and may impose one mid-tenancy only with reasonable notice and only where it does not work a substantial modification of the bargain: § 47-8-23(F).
- May demand only a reasonable deposit, and only to recover damage caused to the premises, § 47-8-18(A). Under a lease shorter than a year the deposit may not exceed one month's rent; under an annual lease anything above one month's rent obliges the owner to pay passbook-rate interest.
- Is outside the state Act only in the narrow cases § 28-1-9 describes: the single-family exemption at (A), with its reservations and its condition that no prohibited advertisement was used, and the separate owner-occupied exemption at (D) for four families. The federal Fair Housing Act draws its own exemptions and is unaffected.

## How to get an ESA letter in Santa Fe

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Santa Fe. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for New Mexico clients who reviews your situation in a telehealth evaluation. (Telehealth evaluation)
3. **Complete your evaluation**, The professional evaluates whether an emotional support animal alleviates symptoms of a condition recognized in the DSM-5. Honest evaluations, not everyone qualifies. (Most of Our Applicants Qualify)
4. **Receive your signed letter**, Your letter arrives on the professional's letterhead with their license number: the documentation New Mexico landlords may lawfully request. (Typically within days of approval)
5. **Send it to your landlord**, Submit the letter with a short reasonable-accommodation request. Pet fees, pet deposits, and breed limits no longer apply to your animal in Santa Fe. (Protection under FHA + state law)

## Conditions that can qualify for an ESA

No fixed government list exists. A licensed professional evaluates whether an animal alleviates symptoms of a DSM-5-recognized condition, commonly:

- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Major depressive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Panic disorder
- Social anxiety disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Phobias with housing impact
- Chronic stress affecting daily function

## Housing help in Santa Fe

- [City of Santa Fe](https://santafenm.gov/) (city government)
- [Santa Fe County Housing Authority](https://www.santafecountynm.gov/housing-services) (local housing authority)
- [New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness](https://www.nmceh.org/) (housing nonprofit)
- [New Mexico Legal Aid](https://newmexicolegalaid.org/) (legal aid)
- [Disability Rights New Mexico](https://drnm.org/) (disability rights org)

## Frequently asked questions

### New Mexico law says an emotional support animal is not a service animal. Does that decide my housing request?

No, because of where the sentence lives. Section 28-11-2 begins "As used in the Service Animal Act," which is a scope clause, and § 28-11-1.1 defines that Act as Chapter 28, Article 11 NMSA 1978. The exclusion in § 28-11-2(B) therefore controls the meaning of one term inside one article about access to public places. It is not a statement that emotional support animals have no rights in New Mexico.

### How much law is the Service Animal Act?

Six sections: 28-11-1.1 through 28-11-6. They cover admission of a qualified service animal to buildings open to the public, other public accommodations and common carriers; a direct-threat limit expressly confined to those same settings; interference with a service animal by an unrestrained animal, which by its own terms does not apply to private property closed to the public; and the offence of false presentation. There is no housing section in the article.

### Can I take my emotional support animal into a Santa Fe museum, shop or bus?

Not on the strength of state law. Section 28-11-3 gives a right of admission to a person using a qualified service animal, and § 28-11-2(B) puts an emotional support animal outside that class. This is the part of New Mexico law where the exclusion genuinely bites, and it is better learned here than at a door. A private business may of course allow the animal if it chooses.

### Could describing my animal incorrectly be a criminal matter?

Only if you describe it as something it is not. Section 28-11-6 makes it a misdemeanour to "knowingly present as a qualified service animal any animal that does not meet a definition of 'qualified service animal' pursuant to Section 28-11-2 NMSA 1978." Asking a landlord to permit an emotional support animal, and calling it an emotional support animal, is not that conduct. Accurate wording keeps the request inside the law that helps you.

### So where is the duty to permit the animal written?

Outside the Service Animal Act entirely. The obligation to set a no-animals rule aside comes from 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) in the federal Fair Housing Act. Article 1 of Chapter 28, the Human Rights Act, adds a claim under § 28-1-7(G)(2) for discrimination in the terms, conditions or privileges of a rental because of a disability, a state forum, and three hundred days to use it under § 28-1-10(A).

### Is Santa Fe the most expensive place to rent in New Mexico?

It is second. Median gross rent on the 2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate is $1,463 here against $1,514 in Rio Rancho, with Carlsbad third among reliable figures at $1,236. Santa Fe still sits nearly four hundred dollars above the $1,067 state median, with 15,275 renting households among 41,921 occupied homes.

### Which housing authority serves Santa Fe renters?

Santa Fe County runs a Housing Authority offering the Housing Choice Voucher programme from Camino de Jacobo, and that is the office reachable online. A separate body, the Santa Fe Civic Housing Authority, has no working website at any of the addresses that look like it. One domain matching its acronym belongs to an unrelated club. Get its contact details from the city or the county rather than from a search result.

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Get evaluated by a licensed provider: https://my.supportanimal.com/qualify?sa_source=blog&sa_medium=blog&sa_campaign=esa-guides&sa_content=markdown&ref=blog&sa_term=new-mexico-emotional-support-animal%2Fsanta-fe