# ESA Letter in Jamestown, ND: The Terms Nobody Defined

> North Dakota's rental code uses three animal phrases and defines none of them. An ESA letter in Jamestown fills the gap the legislature left behind.

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

## Key facts

- Population: 15,789
- Households renting: 45.4%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Not chargeable for an ESA
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): No statutory monthly cap
- Breed/weight limits common: sometimes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## Stutsman County, cheap rent, and a search that comes back empty

Jamestown, North Dakota: the Stutsman County seat on the James River, home
of the University of Jamestown, and not to be confused with the Jamestowns
in New York or Virginia: has 3,234 renting households out of 7,123 occupied
homes. That is **45.4 percent** on the 2020–2024 American Community Survey
five-year estimate, eighth-highest of the state's twenty largest cities.
Median gross rent is **$773**, the **fourth-lowest** of the twenty behind
Devils Lake, Grafton and Wahpeton, and a hundred and eighty-one dollars
under the $954 state median. The 2024 Census estimate puts the city at
15,789, ninth in North Dakota.

A tenant here who does the sensible thing (open the North Dakota Century
Code and look up what an assistance animal is) gets a peculiar result. The
phrase is in the statute books. The definition is not.

## Three phrases, and where each of them lives

North Dakota's code uses three different terms for the animals in this
conversation.

**"Service animal"** appears in chapter 25-13 and in the two landlord-tenant sections that carry
the housing rules.

**"Assistance animal"** appears five times across **NDCC 47-16-07.5** and **47-16-07.6** — the
documentation section and the fraud section. Both are operative provisions. Real consequences hang
on them.

**"Companion animal"** appears once, in **NDCC 47-16-07.1(2)**, in the sentence that keeps a pet
security deposit off an animal "required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable
accommodation under fair housing laws."

Of the three, chapter 47-16 defines **none**. It uses two of them to decide who pays a deposit and
who commits an offence, and never says what either one means.

## The one definition, and its first four words

There is exactly one definition of any of the three anywhere in the retrieved code, and it is
**NDCC 25-13-01.1**:

> "**For purposes of this chapter** 'service animal' means any dog trained to do work, perform
> tasks, or provide assistance for the benefit of an individual with a disability. The term
> includes a dog trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability, pull a
> wheelchair, lend balance support, retrieve dropped objects, or provide assistance in a medical
> crisis."

Read the opening. **"For purposes of this chapter."** The legislature fenced the definition in
before writing a word of it. It governs chapter 25-13 and it says so.

## The chapter it governs does not reach your apartment

So what is chapter 25-13 for? Its operative right is **NDCC 25-13-02**:

> "An individual with a disability is entitled to be accompanied by a service animal in **places of
> public accommodations, common carriers, facilities of a health care provider, and all places to
> which the public is generally invited**, without being required to pay an extra charge for the
> animal; provided, that the individual is liable for any damage done to the premises or facility
> by the animal."

Count the categories the sentence protects and then ask which one a leased
apartment in Jamestown belongs to. It is not a place of public
accommodation. It is not a common carrier. It is not a health care
provider's facility. And a tenant's home is the opposite of a place to which
the public is generally invited. The whole point of it is that the public is
not.

The right in 25-13-02 therefore ends where a lease begins, and the
definition attached to it ends in the same spot.

There is a corollary that costs a tenant money if it is missed. The words "without being required
to pay an extra charge" sit inside that same public-places sentence, so they do not travel to a
monthly pet charge on a Jamestown apartment. The charge that reaches rental housing is dealt with
in a different chapter, at 47-16-07.1(2).

## An undefined term is not a locked door

It is easy to read all this as bad news, a right that depends on a word the
code never explains. It is the opposite, and the reason is worth being
precise about.

A definition in a statute is a filter. It decides what gets in. North Dakota's one filter says
"dog," says "trained to do work, perform tasks, or provide assistance," and then confines itself to
a chapter that never mentions dwellings. If that definition governed housing, an animal whose help
is its presence rather than its training would be outside it.

It does not govern housing. And because chapter 47-16 defines neither of the
terms it uses, there is no North Dakota definition standing between an
emotional support animal and a rental unit. The door has no lock on it,
because nobody fitted one.

The words "emotional support animal" do not appear in these chapters at all, not as protection,
and not as an exclusion. Some states wrote an exclusion. North Dakota did not.

## What fills the empty definition

If the code will not say what an assistance animal is, something has to. The
statute answers this by describing a process instead of a category.

**NDCC 47-16-07.5** does not ask what the animal is. It asks what a professional found:
documentation from "a physician or medical professional," who is not an operation existing in this
state solely to certify animals, confirming "the tenant's disability **and** the relationship
between the tenant's disability and the need for the requested accommodation."

That is the definition, functionally. Not a species, not a training
standard, not a card. A finding about a person and a finding about that
person's need. Behind it sits **NDCC 14-02.5-06(3)(b)**, which makes a
refusal to make a reasonable accommodation discrimination and names no
animal either.

North Dakota built its housing rule out of a professional judgment rather
than an animal description. That decision is what the empty definition means
in practice.

## The one card in the code belongs to somebody else

Worth heading off, because it is the thing people find while searching for a
definition and misread. **NDCC 25-13-02.1** mentions a photo identification
card from a nationally recognised service animal training program. It
concerns a **trainer** taking an animal in training into public places. It
is not issued to a tenant, it is not a housing document, and it is evidence
of nothing under 47-16-07.5.

North Dakota has no registry, no certificate and no state identification for
an assistance animal in housing. Anything sold as one is a receipt.

## Getting the finding made

Ask a clinician who already treats you first. If you have a real, current
relationship with a provider, they are better placed to make both findings
than anyone meeting you cold, and it costs nothing to ask.

The friction in Stutsman County is worth stating rather than glossing.
Independent practice here is thin, and much of the specialist mental-health
capacity a considered disability finding needs sits in Fargo or Bismarck
with long waits. University of Jamestown student services are built for
short-course counselling on an academic calendar rather than for writing
disability determinations. A provider may also decline, properly, because
they have not done the work that would let them confirm the second finding.

Where that route does not open, a licensed evaluation supplies exactly what
the code left blank: a licensed professional determines whether a disability
exists, determines whether this animal answers a need it creates, and
records both findings or explains why they will not. That the answer can be
no is the reason a yes carries weight.

The code left a definition empty and put a professional's judgment where it
should have been. That judgment is the thing worth having.

## What Jamestown landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- May not refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where the accommodation may be necessary to afford an individual with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling: NDCC 14-02.5-06(3)(b).
- May not discriminate because of disability in the terms, conditions or privileges of the rental, or in the services and facilities provided with it: NDCC 14-02.5-06(2).
- May not charge a pet security deposit for a service animal or companion animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws, NDCC 47-16-07.1(2) excludes that animal by name.
- May not demand or receive security, however denominated, in excess of one month's rent, except for a felony-conviction incentive or where a judgment has been entered for violating a previous rental agreement: NDCC 47-16-07.1(1).
- May not require that the documentation come from a North Dakota clinician. The statute excludes a provider who operates in this state solely to provide certification for service or assistance animals; it does not require an in-state one, NDCC 47-16-07.5.
- May not claim the thousand-dollar damage fee or the eviction right in NDCC 47-16-07.6(2) on suspicion alone. Both arise only if the tenant pleads guilty to or is convicted of the subsection 1 infraction.

**Can:**
- May require reliable supporting documentation where the dwelling is subject to a no-pets policy (but not where the disability or the disability-related need is readily apparent or already known), NDCC 47-16-07.5.
- Must itemize any part of a deposit kept and deliver or mail it within thirty days after termination of the lease and delivery of possession, and is liable for treble damages for money withheld without reasonable justification, NDCC 47-16-07.1(3)–(4).
- May still apply the deposit to damage actually caused by an animal or by the tenant's negligence, NDCC 47-16-07.1(3)(a). The carve-out removes the charge in advance, not the bill for real damage.
- May decline where the tenancy would constitute a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others, NDCC 14-02.5-06(6).
- Is outside the state accommodation duty only in the narrow cases NDCC 14-02.5-09 describes: an owner-occupied dwelling of not more than four families, or a single-family house let by an owner of no more than three, without a broker, once in twenty-four months. The federal Fair Housing Act and chapter 47-16 are unaffected by that exemption.

## How to get an ESA letter in Jamestown

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Jamestown. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for North Dakota 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 North Dakota 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 Jamestown. (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 Jamestown

- [City of Jamestown](https://www.jamestownnd.gov/) (city government)
- [Stutsman County](https://www.stutsmancounty.gov/) (county government)
- [Community Action Region VI (Jamestown)](https://www.capnd.org/programsandinitiatives/regions/jamestown/) (community action agency)
- [North Dakota Housing Finance Agency, Renter Resources](https://www.ndhousing.nd.gov/renter-resources) (state housing authority)
- [Legal Services of North Dakota](https://lsnd.org/) (legal aid)

## Frequently asked questions

### I searched the North Dakota code for "emotional support animal" and found nothing. Why?

Because the phrase is not in the chapters that govern this. It appears nowhere in chapter 25-13, chapter 14-02.4, chapter 14-02.5 or chapter 47-16. That absence is neutral rather than negative: some states wrote the term in specifically to exclude such animals from a definition, and North Dakota did not. The code works through other phrases, chiefly "assistance animal" in NDCC 47-16-07.5 and 47-16-07.6.

### Is "assistance animal" defined anywhere in North Dakota law?

Not in the chapters retrieved for this material. The phrase is used five times across NDCC 47-16-07.5 and 47-16-07.6 without a definition attached, and "companion animal" is used once in 47-16-07.1(2) the same way. Both are operative (a deposit and an offence turn on them), and neither has a meaning fixed by statute. Do not treat either as a defined term.

### NDCC 25-13-01.1 defines a service animal as a trained dog. Does that exclude my cat from an apartment?

No, because that definition never arrives at an apartment. It opens with the words "For purposes of this chapter," which confines it to chapter 25-13. That chapter's right, at NDCC 25-13-02, runs to places of public accommodations, common carriers, facilities of a health care provider, and places to which the public is generally invited. A rented home is none of those, and North Dakota's housing chapters impose no species or training requirement of their own.

### If the term is undefined, what does a landlord actually measure my request against?

Against the documentation. NDCC 47-16-07.5 describes what reliable supporting documentation is: it comes from a physician or medical professional, not from an operation existing in this state solely to certify service or assistance animals, and it confirms both the tenant's disability and the relationship between that disability and the need for the accommodation. The statute substituted a professional finding for a category definition.

### Chapter 25-13 says no extra charge. Can I use that against a pet fee here?

That sentence belongs to the same public-places right and travels with it. NDCC 25-13-02 entitles a person to be accompanied by a service animal in the listed public settings "without being required to pay an extra charge," and dwellings are not among the settings listed. The provision that reaches rental housing is NDCC 47-16-07.1(2), which withholds the pet security deposit from an animal required as a reasonable accommodation.

### What is the photo identification card in NDCC 25-13-02.1?

It belongs to a trainer rather than to a tenant. The card is one of the conditions attached to bringing a service animal in training into the public settings chapter 25-13 governs, and it is issued by a private training programme rather than by any North Dakota authority. Nothing in NDCC 47-16-07.5 asks for it, no landlord may treat it as the missing item in a housing file, and no tenant is eligible for one on the strength of a tenancy.

### Jamestown, North Dakota has no housing authority website. Where should I start?

With bodies that are verifiably in this state. The City of Jamestown is at jamestownnd.gov and Stutsman County at stutsmancounty.gov; Community Action Region VI covers Barnes, Dickey, Foster, Griggs, LaMoure, Logan, McIntosh, Stutsman and Wells counties from a Jamestown address; and the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency publishes statewide renter resources. Searching "jamestown housing" leads to an authority in Jamestown, New York, which has nothing to do with a North Dakota tenancy.

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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=north-dakota-emotional-support-animal%2Fjamestown