Monkey Legal States: Can You Own a Pet Monkey? (50-State Table, 2026)

Almost every “monkey legal states” list on the internet is a copy of another list. They disagree with each other, they cite nothing, and several of them put the same state in two different columns on the same page. This one is built the other way round: every row below is tied to the statute or administrative rule we opened and read, and the sixteen rows we could not pin to primary text carry a visible Verify flag rather than a confident guess.

Last verified: 27 July 2026.

Status at a glance

Two structural points explain most of the confusion in this niche. First, “primate” is not one legal category — a large number of states regulate great apes and baboons far more harshly than they regulate a capuchin or a marmoset, and a list that reports one answer per state necessarily gets one of those wrong. Second, the binding layer is federal, and no state-by-state list we found mentions it at all.

The federal layer that no monkey list mentions

1. Since 1975, an imported primate may not lawfully be kept as a pet — anywhere

CDC’s quarantine regulation at 42 C.F.R. § 71.53 governs every nonhuman primate that enters the United States. Two sentences do the work. § 71.53(d)(1): “A person may not import live NHPs into the United States unless the person is registered with HHS/CDC as a NHP importer in accordance with this section.” And § 71.53(d)(3): “A person may not accept, maintain, sell, resell, or otherwise distribute imported NHPs (including their offspring) for use as pets, as a hobby, or as an avocation with occasional display to the general public.”

Read that second clause carefully, because it is broader than it first looks. It reaches “including their offspring”, and it binds the person who accepts or maintains the animal, not only the importer. The permissible uses are defined in § 71.53(c) and are limited to science, education and exhibition — exhibition meaning a public display at a facility meeting AZA accreditation standards. There is no pet category. The section credit line is [78 FR 11538, Feb. 15, 2013].

This is why the legally-kept pet monkeys in the United States are overwhelmingly domestically bred: the import channel has been shut to the pet trade for half a century.

2. Every chimpanzee in the country has been an endangered species since 14 September 2015

Captive chimpanzees used to be listed separately from wild ones. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ended that split rule with “Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Listing All Chimpanzees as Endangered Species”, 80 FR 34500, published 16 June 2015 and effective 14 September 2015 (verified against the Federal Register’s own record for that document). Once an animal is endangered, the Endangered Species Act’s prohibitions attach to selling it and to moving it in interstate commerce without a federal permit.

That is the real answer to “which state can I buy a chimp in.” The question is misdirected: the constraint is not the state line.

3. The bill that would federalise the whole question is still a bill

The Captive Primate Safety Act of 2025 (H.R. 3199, with a Senate companion at S. 1594) would amend the Lacey Act to treat nonhuman primates as prohibited wildlife species and end the private primate pet trade nationally. It was introduced on 5 May 2025 and referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources. As of this page’s verification date it has not been enacted, and versions of it have been introduced and died in multiple previous Congresses. Treat any page that describes a nationwide primate pet ban as current law as out of date — or as describing the bill rather than the law.

What the copied lists get wrong

Texas does not ban pet monkeys — it names four primates and stops

Texas has no master exotic-pet statute. Its dangerous-wild-animal regime, Tex. Health & Safety Code § 822.101(4), is a closed enumerated list, and its primate entries are individual items: (P) a baboon; (Q) a chimpanzee, followed by orangutan and gorilla. A capuchin, a marmoset, a squirrel monkey or a spider monkey is simply not on the list, so the certificate-of-registration regime in § 822.103 does not reach it. This matches what we found when we mapped the whole state in our Texas exotic pet law guide: Texas is permissive at state level and restrictive at county level.

Virginia’s regulation ends with a sentence that legalises everything it did not name

Virginia’s list of restricted nonnative animals is 4VAC15-30-40. We searched the entire rule for primate, monkey, chimpanzee, gorilla, macaque, lemur and marmoset and found none of them. Subsection (J) then says the quiet part out loud: “All other nonnative (exotic) animals not listed in subsection A of this section may be possessed, purchased, and sold; provided, that such animals shall be subject to all applicable local, state, and federal laws and regulations, including those that apply to threatened/endangered species.” That is an express permission, not an inference. (The same regulation is the one that bans Mustelidae “except Mustela putorius furo” — see our ferret legal states table.)

South Carolina’s 2018 law covers great apes only

South Carolina’s exotic-animal statute makes it “unlawful for a person to import into, possess, keep, purchase, have custody or control of, breed, or sell within this State, by any means, a large wild cat, non-native bear, or great ape, including transactions conducted via the Internet.” The covered primate group is defined as “Hominidae — all great apes; to include all species of chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.” The word “monkey” does not appear anywhere in the chapter. Owners in lawful possession before 1 January 2018 were grandfathered.

Tennessee puts monkeys in the class that needs no permit at all

Tennessee’s five-class wildlife system at T.C.A. § 70-4-403 is usually reported as “Tennessee bans primates,” which is half right. Class I — restricted to zoos, circuses and commercial propagators — is defined to include “Primates — Gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, gibbons, siamangs, mandrills, drills, baboons, Gelada baboons.” But Class III, which “requires no permits except those required by the department of agriculture,” contains item (M): “Primates not otherwise listed.” A capuchin is Class III in Tennessee. A baboon is Class I.

Missouri is a registration state, not a free state

Missouri appears on permissive lists because it issues no exotic-pet permit. It does something else instead. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 578.023 makes it an offence to keep a “nonhuman primate” — the statute names it directly, alongside lions, tigers and bears — anywhere other than a zoo, circus, research laboratory, veterinary hospital or animal refuge unless the keeper has registered the animal with the local law enforcement agency in the county. No fee, no inspection, but a real and enforceable duty that “no permit required” lists never mention.

Ohio bans primates but expressly exempts lemurs

Ohio’s post-Zanesville law defines “dangerous wild animal” at Ohio Rev. Code § 935.01(C)(19) as “Nonhuman primates other than lemurs and the nonhuman primates specified in division (C)(20)” — and then (C)(20) separately enumerates a long list of New World monkeys (tamarins, night monkeys, titi monkeys, muriquis, Goeldi’s monkeys, sakis, uakaris, spider monkeys, woolly monkeys, howler monkeys), which are therefore also dangerous wild animals. § 935.02 is blunt: “No person shall possess a dangerous wild animal on or after January 1, 2014.” Lemurs are the one primate group the definition drops out, in both directions.

Idaho’s rule permits four species — and gets two of their scientific names backwards

Idaho is the most misreported state on this topic, and its rule contains a drafting error worth reading for yourself. IDAPA 02.04.27.407, titled “Deleterious Exotic Animals — Mammals: Non-Human Primates,” provides: “All non-human primates must be possessed on a facility that is AZA accredited. The following primate species are exempt from this rule:” and then lists four — Capuchin (Cebus spp), Marmoset (Saimiri spp), Spider Monkeys (Atleles spp), and Squirrel Monkeys (Callithrix, Cebuella, Callibella, and Mico spp).

Two of those are swapped: Saimiri is the squirrel monkey genus, and Callithrix, Cebuella, Callibella and Mico are marmoset genera. Atleles is a misspelling of Ateles. The practical effect is the same four kinds of small monkey either way, but anyone quoting Idaho’s rule as authority should quote it accurately — and anyone relying on the common names alone should be aware the Latin does not match them.

Monkey laws by state — all 50 states and D.C.

Read the status column together with the note: several states are legal for a marmoset and closed for a macaque, and the note is where that lives.

Why the ape/monkey split matters more than the state line

Group the pinned rows by what they regulate rather than by state and a clearer pattern appears than any map shows.

States that ban the whole order in one clause — Pennsylvania (“The order Primates. All families of nonhuman primates”), Kentucky (“Primates, nonhuman (Order Primates)”), Washington (“Order primates, all nonhuman primate species”), Wyoming (“All members of the order nonhuman primates”), Hawaii, Colorado and Arizona — leave no room for the “but mine is only a marmoset” argument. Iowa, Illinois, Maryland and Minnesota get to the same place by listing the families or the common names exhaustively; Illinois’ definition even reaches the aye-aye and the tarsier.

States that ban only the big ones — Texas (four named species), South Carolina (Hominidae), Tennessee (Class I), Georgia and Mississippi (Pongidae plus Macaca), Florida (Class I) — reflect a public-safety judgment about bite force and adult size rather than a view about primates in general. In those states the question “is a monkey legal here” has no single answer, which is precisely why single-answer lists are unreliable.

And one state exempts by species. Idaho’s four-species exemption (capuchin, marmoset, spider monkey, squirrel monkey) is the only rule of its kind we found: a state that regulates all primates to AZA facilities and then names four small monkeys as the exception.

What a “permit state” actually means

Eleven states have a permit or registration a private person can in principle obtain, but the mechanisms differ so much that grouping them is almost misleading:

• Registration, no fee, no inspection Missouri (sheriff or police chief) and Arkansas (sheriff, for grandfathered apes).
• A real permit with substantive conditions Florida’s tiered permits, New Jersey’s potentially-dangerous-species permit, North Dakota’s non-traditional livestock licence, New Hampshire’s Fish & Game permit.
• A permit gated by money Mississippi requires liability insurance before issuance, which is the practical barrier rather than the fee.
• A permit that exists on paper Massachusetts and Delaware regulate primates through a general non-exempt/non-native permit whose issuance criteria for pets are not stated in the rule. Treat “permit available” as “ask the agency,” not as “yes.”

For how these systems are structured generally, see our guide to exotic pet permits and licences and the glossary of terms like “inherently dangerous animal” and “restricted species.”

What we could not confirm

Sixteen rows above carry a Verify flag. The five states with no answer at all are:

• Alabama the only readable rule naming primates governs public exhibition, not private possession.
• Nebraska widely reported as permissive; the captive-wildlife rule never names primates and we could not reach the definition that would settle it.
• South Dakota the statutes render as a JavaScript shell with no text; the administrative rules use only generic “non-domestic mammal” language.
• Utah the classification table is incorporated by reference as a PDF, and the wildlife agency’s site refuses automated requests.
• Vermont the legislature’s site was unreachable on every attempt.

The other flagged rows are ones where we could read a framework but not the exact provision that decides a pet case: Alaska, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Oregon. If you know the controlling citation for any of these, send it to us — corrections are published with the source.

Frequently asked questions

Which states allow monkeys with no permit at all?

On the text we could read: Kansas, Nevada, North Carolina (state level), South Carolina (monkeys only), Tennessee (Class III primates), Texas (monkeys only), Virginia and Wisconsin, plus Idaho for its four exempted species and, on an unverified negative finding, Michigan and Oklahoma. Nevada is the only one that names primates on an express “no permit required” list; the rest are negative findings, meaning no state rule reaches them. Local ordinances are a separate question everywhere.

Can I own a chimpanzee anywhere in the US?

Not as a pet, in practice. All chimpanzees have been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act since 14 September 2015, which brings federal permit requirements to sale and interstate movement, and imported primates cannot be kept as pets at all under 42 C.F.R. § 71.53(d)(3). On top of that, chimpanzees are individually named in the strictest tier of most state laws — Florida Class I, Tennessee Class I, Texas’ four-species list, South Carolina’s Hominidae ban.

Are capuchins treated differently from other monkeys?

Frequently, yes — and in both directions. Idaho exempts capuchins by name; Florida puts them in the lightest permit class; Illinois, which otherwise bans every primate, allows a single capuchin for a person with a severe mobility impairment where the animal comes from a licensed non-profit; Maine allows a primate only on a demonstrated need for physical aid. Capuchins are the species the service-animal exceptions were written around.

Does a state “legal” answer mean my city allows it?

No, and this is the most common way people get caught. North Carolina delegates the entire question to counties. Texas lets counties and cities prohibit dangerous wild animals outright. New York State’s rules and New York City’s rules diverge sharply, as we found when mapping ferret law in New York and NYC. Always check the municipal code as well as the state code.

What about lemurs — are they monkeys?

Biologically they are prosimians, not monkeys, and several statutes track that distinction. Ohio expressly excludes lemurs from its dangerous wild animal definition. New York, by contrast, closes the gap deliberately: its list reads “Nonhuman primates and prosimians.” Maryland, Minnesota and Illinois all name lemurs directly. If you are researching a lemur, read the statute’s own words rather than assuming either way.

Sources

Federal: 42 C.F.R. § 71.53 (CDC importation of nonhuman primates); Federal Register record for Listing All Chimpanzees as Endangered Species, 80 FR 34500 (published 16 June 2015, effective 14 September 2015); H.R. 3199, Captive Primate Safety Act of 2025 (introduced 5 May 2025, referred to House Natural Resources).

States: statute and administrative-code text as cited in each row, read from state legislature and agency sites, the Cornell Legal Information Institute state-regulation mirrors, FindLaw’s state code mirrors, the Florida Administrative Code, the D.C. Council code and Michigan State University’s Animal Legal & Historical Center. Every quoted sentence in this page was matched against the fetched document text, not against a search-result snippet.

Method and correction policy: Editorial & Sourcing Policy.

This page states what statutes and regulations say; it is not legal advice, and primate law changes faster than most exotic-pet law. Verify with your state wildlife or agriculture agency and your city or county before acquiring any animal. Last verified 27 July 2026.

More from the species database: ferret legal states, raccoon legal states, skunk legal states, hedgehog legal states. Browse the full exotic pets A–Z or start from your state — including the two biggest, California and Texas.