How To Get an ESA Letter

For many people, pets are more than just a cute, cuddly part of daily life—they also provide comfort and help their owners cope with and overcome various issues like anxiety or depression.

Living with an emotional support animal (ESA) has shown multiple benefits in managing mental health issues, as the connection with their live-in companion has proven helpful for people navigating various conditions, especially in times of crisis[1]. But sometimes, housing rules restricting pets can lead to missing out on housing opportunities or suffering excessive costs to have your ESA by your side, even if they play an important role in your well-being. 

Getting an ESA letter can be the key to making sure your furry friend is with you, no matter where you live—but this process can be complicated and lengthy. 

Why You’d Need an Emotional Support Animal Letter

If you’re looking for housing, you know residences can come with many restrictions, including property bans on pets. Many landlords don’t allow keeping animals in their accommodations for various reasons, such as fearing potential property damage or disrupting the neighbors.[2] In other cases, you may have to pay a fee to keep your pet in your home.

If you rely on your pet to alleviate one or more symptoms of a recognized mental health issue, they might qualify as your emotional support animal. An ESA letter confirming this grants you the right to live with your animal anywhere—even if your landlord doesn’t usually allow it or charges a pet fee.

This is because the Fair Housing Act (FHA) protects ESA owners from discrimination, letting renters who own an ESA live with their animal even if the building has a no-pet policy. The FHA’s protections are strong, too—in fact, this federal law has helped tenants prove their right to keep their ESAs in court, even with non-traditional pets. For example, in one court case, a tenant diagnosed with a condition that could potentially be improved by an ESA successfully defended owning six emotional support chickens under FHA’s rules.

ESA Letter vs. Service Animal Certification

ESA letters are sometimes confused with animal registration or other certifications. Most often, they are mixed up with service animal certifications,[3] but these serve a different purpose:

How To Get an Emotional Support Animal Letter

As your ESA letter can make or break your ideal housing situation with your animal, it’s important to get it the right way. When you set out to get an ESA letter for housing purposes, here’s what you’d normally do:

1. Find a licensed mental health professional (LMHP)
2. Get a diagnosis
3. Receive your ESA letter

Find a Licensed Mental Health Professional

An ESA letter is only valid if you get it from a licensed mental health professional (LMHP), so finding one is the first thing you need to do.

Your LMHP doesn’t have to be one specific type of specialist—depending on your circumstances, you can get an ESA letter from:

• Psychiatrists
• Psychologists
• Licensed therapists (although not all of them can provide you with an ESA letter)
• Psychiatric mental health nurses (PMHNs)
• Licensed professional counselors
• Licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs)

What’s important is that you find a professional registered and practicing in the state where you’re looking for housing. While federal law protects ESA owners with the Fair Housing Act (FHA), states can also have local regulations affecting ESA owners. LMHPs need to be familiar with these regulations to write a valid ESA letter.

For example, according to Arkansas’ specific ESA laws, you’d need to have a prior 30-day relationship with your healthcare provider before they can issue you an ESA letter. Ideally, your LMHP would know of any similar stipulations that apply in your state, making sure you’re not barking up the wrong tree in your ESA letter quest.

Once you find a specialist who fits the bill, schedule an appointment at the earliest available time to undergo their assessment and set your ESA letter prescription in motion.

Get a Diagnosis

When you see your chosen LMHP, they’ll assess your condition to determine whether you’re in need of an emotional support animal before they can prescribe you a letter.

The specialist will note any symptoms you’re experiencing and use this as the basis for diagnosing you according to the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (which is currently the DSM-5-TR).

If your symptoms don’t match any of the mental health conditions outlined by the DSM, the healthcare professional likely won’t approve you for an ESA letter.

Conditions that often qualify patients as appropriate to receive an ESA letter include:

• Anxiety disorders
• Depression
• Personality disorders
• Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Specific phobias
• Chronic stress
• Other emotional and mental health conditions

Receive Your ESA Letter

If you’re diagnosed with a qualifying condition, your LMHP will prescribe you an official ESA letter that you can present to your landlord or estate agent and have them waive any animal bans or fees on the property you’re looking to move into.

To be considered valid, the letter you receive should:

• Come on the LMHP’s official letterhead
• Include the specialist’s National Provider Identification Number, state license number, and contact details
• Address you explicitly
• Describe the animal(s) it relates to, if possible

While it’s never required for the letter to disclose your diagnosis, it should describe what your ESA is helping you with. The more detail there is about what your animal can help you manage, the clearer your need for an ESA will be—and this can only make approval simpler and quicker.[4]

For example, if you’re diagnosed with PTSD—which is especially common with veterans—and you’re granted a letter for your ESA dog, the letter doesn’t have to state your diagnosis explicitly. However, some helpful details that it can include may explain what your furry friend is supposed to help keep at bay, like anxiety or loneliness. 

The Challenges of Getting an ESA Letter

While getting an ESA letter may seem straightforward, it’s not always a walk in the park. In fact, the standard process has a lot going against it, including:

1. Time and effort investments
2. Required research
3. Lack of guarantee

Time and Effort Investments

Getting an LMHP to issue you an ESA letter isn’t as simple as making a quick phone call—it requires you to put a lot of time and effort into searching for the right professional, scheduling an appointment, getting assessed, and waiting for the outcome.

Many mental health specialists have packed schedules and long waitlists, and even if you manage to secure an appointment, you likely won’t get your letter immediately. Sometimes, LMHPs may need multiple sessions to properly diagnose you, which can be exhausting to go through (especially if you’re physically attending the appointments) and delay the process of getting an ESA letter.

Apart from posing a major inconvenience, these potential hurdles can interfere with your housing approval, especially when you need the letter quickly. If your move-in date is just around the corner, any delays in getting your ESA letter could mean missing out on the place you want or facing extra pet fees while you wait.

Required Research

If you’re not already seeing a licensed professional or have a friend’s recommendation for a therapist versed in issuing ESA letters, you’ll have to call a lot of local specialists you find on Google to determine if they’re the right person for the job.

Research of this kind is no easy feat, especially if you have to do it on your own. In addition to checking costs, there’s a lot to consider, including:

• An LMHP’s location—While there might be a ton of great professionals out there, you’ll need to find the ones in your area for easy access, or at least in your state if they offer remote consultations
• The specialist’s licensing—You’ll have to look into an LMHP’s credentials to make sure they can offer you the services you need
• Whether the specialist issues ESAs in the first place—Not all LMHPs deal with issuing ESA letters, so you might need to double-check whether they do to avoid being turned away or getting a sub-standard letter

Lack of Guarantee

Even when you jump through all the hoops, your LMHP may still decide you’re not a good fit for an ESA letter.

In that case, you’ll be left without a document that grants you equal housing rights, and you also won’t be able to recover any resources invested in the process. The hours and effort you sunk into researching specialists, booking appointments, and attending the sessions will be gone forever, as will the money you paid to the specialist—it’s unlikely you’ll get a refund just because they didn’t diagnose you the way you thought they would.

Luckily, there’s an alternative to the traditional process that offers you the opportunity to get around these challenges—getting an ESA letter online.

How To Get an ESA Letter Online

When you take the online route to get an ESA letter, the bones of the process are the same—a licensed professional assesses your situation, and if you qualify, they issue you the documentation you require. The main difference is that everything happens remotely and organization is taken off your hands, making the process faster and more convenient.

Here’s how it usually works:

1. You undergo online screening—Instead of scheduling an in-person appointment only to find out you don’t qualify and leave disappointed, you complete a quick online quiz to see if you meet the requirements for an ESA letter. This is a big time-saver that sets the stage for the next step in the process
2. You consult with a licensed professional virtually—After pre-qualifying, you’ll meet with an LMHP on a video call. During your conversation, they’ll assess your condition and needs to determine whether an ESA is right for your case
3. You receive a digital ESA letter—If approved, you’ll get your ESA letter via email within a couple of days. As long as you go through a trustworthy provider, your letter will be legally valid and ready to submit to your landlord immediately. If you’re not approved, you’ll get a refund of your investment

While this process has obvious perks, you’ll only successfully get an ESA letter online if you choose the right service. Unfortunately, you may stumble upon many illegitimate options on the internet. For example, while you may be able to get a cheap ESA letter, you can’t get a free one—anywhere this is offered is most likely a scam, and the letter you get won’t be valid. You also can’t create your own letter, as some online offers may suggest.

If you’re looking for a service that legitimately grants you the speed and convenience of online letter issuing, there’s a solution that can help you get settled into your dream home with your animal friend in no time—Your Service Animal.

Get an ESA Letter Online With Your Service Animal

Your Service Animal is an online platform that helps you quickly and efficiently get an ESA letter—because making sure your animal friend is always by your side shouldn’t be complicated or time-consuming.

While simplifying and speeding up the process of getting an ESA letter, Your Service Animal makes sure it fully aligns with various relevant laws and regulations that make living together with your ESA possible.

Here’s what you can expect from the service:

How It Works

When you’re ready to start the process, take these steps:

1. Pre-qualify in 3 minutes to see if you’re a good fit
2. Pay and book your meeting with a licensed therapist
3. Attend your call and receive your ESA letter if clinically appropriate
4. Receive a full refund if it’s determined you’re not qualified for an ESA letter