Is It Legal to Own a Garter Snake? State-by-State Guide

The garter snake is probably the single most-caught wild animal of American childhood, the snake nearly every kid has picked up in a backyard or a vacant lot at some point. That familiarity is exactly what makes its legal status counterintuitive. Because it's native almost everywhere, most states don't regulate it as an ordinary pet-trade reptile at all. They regulate it as wildlife, and that often comes with more paperwork than an imported ball python or corn snake ever needs. New York is the extreme case: the state's own guidance says its native-species law "does not differentiate between wild-caught and captive-bred animals," so even one bought at a pet store needs a permit.

Where Garter Snakes Stand

New York: Captive-Bred Doesn't Matter

The States That Go Further

Delaware, Georgia, and Rhode Island don't just require paperwork, they leave ordinary pet ownership without a real path at all. Delaware's native-wildlife rules forbid keeping a Delaware-native reptile as a pet outright, with a narrow exception only for a captive-bred, aberrantly-colored animal held under permit, not a normal wild-type garter snake. Georgia bars possession of nongame wildlife outside a short exempted list that names venomous snakes but not harmless native colubrids, and the state's own guidance says this holds regardless of the animal's origin or morphology, meaning captive breeding doesn't create the exception it does almost everywhere else. Rhode Island's regulation names sixteen groups of pet-trade snakes that can be kept without a permit, and Thamnophis isn't among them, with native-snake possession stated to be restricted to institutions. Hawaii is the simplest and broadest of all: it bans every species of snake statewide, no carve-out for anything, garter snake included.

Where a Permit Gets You There

Three states require a permit rather than closing the door entirely. Arkansas and Maine both clear long lists of pet-trade colubrid genera by name, but neither list actually includes Thamnophis, so a garter snake in either state needs a separate captive-wildlife permit instead. Missouri reaches the same result through a more direct native-species rule, classifying native reptiles as a permitted tier rather than an unrestricted one, and the garter snake qualifies as native there. Two states get grouped with them and shouldn't be. Tennessee sorts its wildlife into three classes, and Class II, the permit tier, covers "native species, except those listed in other classes." Every nonvenomous reptile is listed in another class, at Class III subdivision (3)(A), and Class III "requires no permits except those required by the department of agriculture." Being native is what would put a garter snake in the permit tier, and being a nonvenomous reptile is what pulls it back out again, so Tennessee asks for nothing. Maryland is the other one, and it shouldn't be grouped with them either: COMAR 08.03.11 sorts its native herptiles into three tiers, and the eastern gartersnake is on the most permissive one, where four animals per person need no permit at all. What the cap does not care about is where the animal came from, since the same subsection applies it to snakes obtained from the wild, produced in captivity, or bought lawfully outside Maryland. The permit is what lifts the cap or allows breeding and sale, not what allows keeping one. Oregon and Wisconsin fall somewhere in between: Oregon's clearance for garter snakes and similar colubrids is written for nonnative individuals, leaving the state's own native garter snakes to fall under a general nongame-wildlife holding-permit rule once three or more are kept, while Wisconsin allows keeping up to five of each non-protected native species without a permit, garter snakes included, but bars buying or selling native reptiles within the state, so a Wisconsin pet has to come from lawful collecting rather than a shop.

The Two States That Used to Be a Question Mark

Vermont and New Mexico were both open questions until their species lists came to hand, and they landed at opposite ends.

Vermont runs a three-list scheme in which colubrids are unrestricted as a whole family, and then its Restricted Wild Animal List claws back the entire genus Thamnophis by name. That puts every garter snake and ribbon snake in the permit tier, and Regulation 881 closes that door for pet owners by barring the Commissioner from issuing a possession permit for a wild animal except for bona fide scientific or educational purposes. So Vermont belongs with Delaware, Georgia and Rhode Island: the paperwork exists, but not for you.

New Mexico went the other way. Its Director's Species Importation List sorts roughly 1,300 animals into four groups, and both the eastern and the red-sided garter snake sit in group I, the semi-domesticated tier that needs no importation permit at all. The one garter snake the state does restrict is the San Francisco garter snake, which is federally endangered and lands in group IV. So New Mexico is simply a legal state for this species, and the danger-group framework that made it look forbidding turns out to be the thing that clears it.

Kansas Caps You at Two, Virginia at One

Kansas was read against K.S.A. 32-1301 for a long time, which is the dangerous regulated animal statute, and it names six big cats, bears and non-native venomous snakes. It answers nothing about a garter snake. The operative pair is K.S.A. 32-1002(a)(2), which makes it unlawful to possess any wildlife "at any time or in any number" unless a law or a regulation of the secretary permits it, and the two regulations that do the permitting. K.A.R. 115-20-3 covers exotic wildlife and defines it at subsection (d) as species "not native or indigenous to Kansas", so a Kansas animal is outside it. Thamnophis sirtalis is an established Kansas taxon on the Kansas Herpetofaunal Atlas, and the only gartersnake Kansas names in regulation is the checkered gartersnake, which K.A.R. 115-15-1 lists as threatened and which is a different animal.

That sends it to K.A.R. 115-20-2, which lets certain Kansas wildlife be taken for personal use on a noncommercial basis, year-round, with reptiles on the list at (b)(13). The part earlier readings missed is the cap at (e): "no more than five reptiles and no more than two individuals of any reptile species per person and/or domicile, whichever is reached first." Domicile is defined at (f) as the address you declare in legal documents to pay taxes, vote, bank and register vehicles and animals, so two keepers under one roof do not get four snakes between them. Taking one from the wild needs a hunting license, but K.A.R. 115-9-7(i) exempts the possession of wildlife legally acquired by the individual, so a bought animal needs no license to keep.

Virginia runs two schemes, and 4VAC15-20-50 decides which one an animal is in. A "nonnative (exotic) animal" is one "not naturally occurring in Virginia, excluding domestic and naturalized species", so the special permit table at 4VAC15-30-40 never reaches an animal Virginia already has. The department’s incorporated 2024 List of Native and Naturalized Fauna of Virginia carries the eastern gartersnake, Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis, with no asterisk, which marks it native rather than naturalized. The old reading here was that no reptile on the permit table is relevant to a garter snake, which was true and was answering the wrong question.

What applies instead is 4VAC15-360-10(A): "it shall be lawful to capture and possess live for private use and not for sale or export no more than one individual of any native or naturalized, as defined in 4VAC15-20-50, species of amphibian or reptile per physical address." One, per address, not per person. That the cap binds a keeper rather than only a collector shows from the other direction: the closed domestic animal list in 4VAC15-20-50 writes an express carve-out for "Domesticated morphs of red cornsnake (Pantherophis guttatus) visibly distinguishable from native red cornsnakes", and that exception would have nothing to do if keeping a Virginia native herp were free.

Neither cap is the harshest thing in either state. Virginia also bars possessing, in any number, the red-eared slider and every reptile and amphibian Species of Greatest Conservation Need in its Wildlife Action Plan, and the common gartersnake is on neither list. Kansas excludes from its takeable list anything named in K.A.R. 115-15-1 or 115-15-2, and this snake is on neither.

The Takeaway

West Virginia belongs with Delaware, Georgia and Rhode Island, and it is the strictest of the four because of how little the rule has to say. W. Va. C.S.R. § 58-73-1.1 reads: "The take or possession of any native West Virginia reptile or amphibian species not listed hereafter is prohibited pursuant to W. Va. Code 20-2-4." Section 4 of that rule then lists what may be taken: ten salamanders for use as fishing bait, two frogs, and two turtles. No snake appears anywhere in it. The department's own summary of the rule opens by saying West Virginia's herp regulations prohibit the possession of 80 species of reptiles and amphibians, and the eastern gartersnake is on its native checklist, so it is one of the 80.

The garter snake's status as the most commonly encountered native snake in the country works against it here: most states regulate it as wildlife first and a pet second, the opposite of how they treat imported colubrids like the corn snake or ball python. New York's captive-bred-doesn't-matter rule is the one every buyer should know before assuming a pet-store purchase settles the question. Delaware, Georgia, Rhode Island, and Hawaii close off ordinary ownership more completely still. Everywhere else, check your state's native-species rules before treating a garter snake like any other beginner pet snake. The exotic pet legal hub holds the federal and state framework those native-species rules sit inside.

To see this at a glance, our interactive map of garter snake laws shades every state that restricts one, and clicking a state gives you the rule it comes from.

Sources & Further Reading