Is It Legal to Own a Flying Squirrel? State-by-State Guide

A flying squirrel doesn't look like a legally complicated pet, but relative to its size, it's legally more complicated than almost any other exotic pet, because it's native across most of the eastern and central US, so most states regulate it as protected wildlife rather than as exotic-pet-trade stock.

This guide now reflects all 52 jurisdictions on our map: every state, the District of Columbia and New York City. That took longer than it does for an exotic, because this species has to be checked against each state's native-wildlife statute individually rather than against a single exotic-pet list, and the two rules often sit in different chapters written by different agencies.

Where Flying Squirrels Stand

The Four Clean States

Nine states are a clean yes, and the four originals are worth reading in detail because each gets there differently. Massachusetts, New Jersey, Tennessee and Florida are the states where a flying squirrel is simply legal, no permit and no conditions. Massachusetts names the Southern Flying Squirrel directly on its exemption list, the one squirrel species on it. New Jersey's exempt list names the flying squirrel too, alongside red squirrel, chipmunk, hamster, gerbil, and guinea pig. Tennessee classes squirrels and chipmunks as Class III wildlife needing no TWRA possession permit, as long as the animal was legally sourced rather than taken from the wild. Texas is the one to read carefully, because the two rules people usually check there both come back clean and neither is the right one. The closed statutory definition of fur-bearing animal doesn't include squirrels of any kind, and flying squirrels aren't on the state's dangerous wild animal list either. What does reach them is the nongame rule: 31 TAC 65.331(d) names the eastern flying squirrel, Glaucomys volans, which means a Texas keeper needs no permit for up to 25 of them and may not sell, offer for sale, exchange, or barter one at any number. The cap follows captive-bred animals as well as wild-caught ones, because 31 TAC 65.325(a) says nongame wildlife includes captive-bred nongame wildlife.

Permit States Where "Permit" Doesn't Mean What You Think

Florida looked like the one permit state with a real personal-pet path, and on a closer read it is not a permit state at all. Flying squirrels would default to Class III wildlife, which needs a free personal use license, except that 68A-6.003(14) removes 22 categories from the permit scheme before the class lists ever apply, and (14)(g) is "Squirrels; chipmunks". FWC repeats the same list on its own personal pet page. So nothing is required to keep one, and the sourcing point still stands separately: FWC will not permit an injured, orphaned or abandoned native animal as a pet under any category, so the animal has to come from a lawful captive-bred source.

Illinois is the state that section is really about. Its Wildlife Code names Glaucomys volans on the protected species list and makes possession unlawful except as the Act provides, which reads like the institutional-only states below until you get to the permit section. 520 ILCS 5/3.23 offers a Class A Noncommercial game breeder permit to "any person desiring to possess, propagate, hold in captivity but not offer for sale any species protected by this Act," for $10 a year, expiring every March 31. No educational program requirement, no exhibition condition, no institutional status. The protection is species-specific rather than origin-specific, so a captive-bred animal bought out of state still needs it once it's in Illinois. It is not, though, the cheapest permit on this map. West Virginia has that: W. Va. Code § 20-2-51 lets the DNR director "issue a permit to a person to keep and maintain in captivity as a pet, a wild animal or wild bird that has been acquired from a commercial dealer or during the legal open season," and sets the fee at two dollars. That section was written in 1961 and has never been amended, which is how a state ends up with a statute that says the word "pet" out loud while its neighbors are still arguing about whether an exhibition license counts.

Georgia and North Carolina are a different story. Both states license native wildlife, including the flying squirrel, but both statutes say so explicitly: Georgia limits its wildlife licenses to "scientific, educational, or public exhibition purposes," and North Carolina's captivity-license law disqualifies an animal "acquired unlawfully or merely as a pet" in so many words. A permit category exists on paper in both states, but it isn't one an ordinary pet owner can use.

Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Maryland, Arizona, and Vermont regulate it under similar native-wildlife permit schemes, most of them rehabilitation, education, or exhibition permits rather than personal pet licenses. Indiana names Glaucomys volans directly as a Class I wild animal requiring a permit, though whether that tier is issued for personal ownership wasn't confirmed in what we reviewed, and Arizona's restricted-wildlife rule reaches the whole squirrel family Sciuridae by name, the same entry that catches the prairie dog.

Hawaii, Alabama, and California

Hawaii is the cleanest ban in the research. Its prohibited-animal list bans the entire squirrel family, Sciuridae, and the only exceptions are two unrelated tree squirrel species for government zoo exhibition and marmots for university research. The flying squirrel isn't one of the named exceptions, so unlike most of the other banned states here, there isn't even a research or exhibition permit route.

Alabama's restriction is about origin: its rule bars importing several wild species, wild rodent among them, into the state from outside Alabama's borders, so a flying squirrel brought in from elsewhere falls under that wild-rodent category. California restricts most of the rodent order to begin with, carving out only a short list of domesticated species like hamsters, rats, mice, guinea pigs, and chinchillas, and flying squirrels aren't on that exception list.

The Takeaway

Across all 52 jurisdictions, a pet flying squirrel is a clean legal yes in nine: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Tennessee, Florida, Minnesota, Idaho, Washington, North Dakota and South Dakota. Four more are yes with a string attached rather than a permit: Texas caps you at 25 and forbids selling them, South Carolina and Arkansas turn on where the individual animal came from, and Missouri routes it through Class I wildlife. Nineteen require a permit, and in several of them, North Carolina especially, the permit exists for rehabilitators and exhibitors rather than pet owners. Utah presumes it prohibited until the division assesses it. New York is the one we still cannot resolve on paper.

That leaves eighteen bans, and they are worth separating, because they are not all the same kind of no. Hawaii's is total, with no pathway at all. Montana names Glaucomys volans by binomial, the only state on this map to prohibit it that specifically. Kansas gets there through three regulations that each close a different door. Georgia puts it on a list of natives that may not be held as a pet regardless of origin or morphology. And New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine and the District all reach the same outcome without a ban at all, simply by never building a category an individual keeper can apply under.

The pattern underneath is the one to carry to any native mammal. Where a state is a yes, it is usually because the animal fell outside a definition, not because anyone decided it should be allowed. Where it is a no, it is usually because a native-wildlife rule caught it, and the exotic-pet list everybody quotes never mentioned it at all. As always, city and county ordinances can add restrictions a state-level list will not show. The exotic pet legal hub holds the broader framework, and the prairie dog legal guide covers the other native rodent that most states regulate the same way.

To see this at a glance, our interactive map of flying squirrel laws shades every state we've checked, legal, permit, or banned, and clicking a state gives you the rule it comes from. The Flying Squirrel encyclopedia profile has the native range that explains why wildlife law applies here in the first place.

Sources & Further Reading