Where is the Madagascar hissing cockroach legal?

Except as provided in this subsection, a person shall not import into the District, possess, display, offer for sale, trade, barter, exchange, or adoption, or give as a household pet, any living member of the animal kingdom, including those born or raised in captivity, except the following: (A) Domestic dogs, excluding hybrids with wolves, coyotes, or jackals; (B) Domestic cats, excluding hybrids with ocelots or margays; (C) Domesticated rodents and rabbits; (D) Captive-bred species of common cage birds, including chickens; (E) Non-venomous snakes, fish, and turtles, traditionally kept in the home for pleasure rather than for commercial purposes; (F) Ferrets; and (G) Racing pigeons, when kept in compliance with permit requirements.

The seven permitted categories contain no invertebrate, which is what already bars the tarantula and the giant millipede here, and (j)(1) reaches "any living member of the animal kingdom" in terms. The clause is a bar with seven exceptions and no permit behind it: subsections (j)(2) to (j)(5) reach public zoos, federally licensed exhibitors, rehabilitators, veterinarians, shelters, and goats and sheep brought in to eat grass. There is no route for a private keeper.

How this rule works: A closed list and one of the shortest in the country. Subsection (j)(1) bars importing, possessing, displaying, selling, trading or giving as a household pet "any living member of the animal kingdom, including those born or raised in captivity", except seven categories: domestic dogs, domestic cats, domesticated rodents and rabbits, captive-bred common cage birds, non-venomous snakes and fish and turtles, ferrets, and racing pigeons. No lizard, no amphibian and no invertebrate fits any of them. Read from the D.C. Code rather than from a reproduction: the seven categories and their exact wording are what every cell in this jurisdiction turns on.

The introduction into Hawaii of live animals or live non-domestic animals as defined in this chapter is only allowed: (1) For those animals on the list designated as conditionally approved and dated November 28, 2006, or on the list designated as restricted entry, dated September 25, 2018

Hawaii runs an inverted rule, and this is the clause that creates it. Introduction is allowed only for animals on the conditionally approved or restricted lists, so an animal on none of them is barred by default rather than left unregulated. Hawaii's insect entries across all three lists are a short list of named species, the mealworm, the pomace fly, the honey bee, a green bottle blow fly, a parasitic wasp and a few butterflies. The Madagascar hissing cockroach is on none of them, and on an island chain that quarantines insects harder than anywhere else in the country that absence is decisive. Absence from the lists here is a ban, not a gap.

How this rule works: The rule text the three species lists hang off, and the part that explains why Hawaii answers differently from everywhere else. Two things matter. § 4-71-6.5 allows introduction only for animals on the conditionally approved or restricted lists, which is what makes an unlisted animal barred by default rather than unregulated. And § 4-71-2 defines a set of domestic animals, the European rabbit among them, then says that as used in the chapter the word animal means non-domestic animal, so the lists never reach those species at all.

A person may not import into the state, possess, or sell any exotic wildlife unless: (a) the importation, possession, or sale of the exotic wildlife is allowed by law or commission rule

Montana is a white list and an insect is inside it. § 87-5-702(12)(a) defines wildlife as "any wild mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, mollusk, crustacean, or other wild animal", and the catch-all reaches an arthropod; § 87-5-702(3) makes anything not native to Montana exotic wildlife; and § 87-5-705(1) then bars possessing it unless a law or commission rule allows it. Nothing does. The statutory noncontrolled list at § 87-5-706 runs birds, gallinaceous birds, fish, snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, caecilians and salamanders and contains no invertebrate. ARM 12.6.2205 clears two scorpions and a hermit crab and no insect, ARM 12.6.2208 classifies one shrimp as controlled, and ARM 12.6.2215 prohibits a crayfish and three molluscs. So the cockroach falls where the tarantula and the giant millipede already sit on this map, banned by absence. Montana is the state where clearing the emperor scorpion by name and stopping there decides every other arthropod.

How this rule works: Montana runs a white list, which is unusual. § 87-5-705(1) says a person may not import, possess or sell any exotic wildlife unless it is allowed by law or commission rule, so an animal that appears on none of the three lists is not permitted rather than unregulated. § 87-5-706 is the statutory noncontrolled list and § 87-5-702 puts rodents, cats, dogs and Eurasian ferrets outside the scheme as domestic animals.

All species not specifically listed under the categories of non-controlled, prohibited, or controlled shall be designated as prohibited.

This is the strictest invertebrate answer on the map and it comes out of four provisions rather than one. RSA 207:1, XXXV defines wildlife to include invertebrates by name, so an insect is inside Fis 800. Fis 804.02, the non-controlled possession list, contains no invertebrate. Table 800.2, the controlled table, runs amphibians, reptiles, fish, birds and mammals and stops. Fis 804.03(b)(1) does have an invertebrates heading, and it names five aquatic nuisance species, which shows the Department writes invertebrate entries when it means to. Fis 804.04(b) then makes everything unlisted prohibited, and Fis 804.03(a) says no permit shall be issued for anything prohibited under it. The waiver at Fis 802.05 that would otherwise cover an unlisted species is closed to private keepers by subsection (c), which withholds it from permittee categories 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 and leaves only exhibitors. So a Madagascar hissing cockroach, a tarantula and a pet millipede are all barred in New Hampshire with no route for an individual. Recorded banned rather than unclear because the closing clause is express and the waiver exclusion is express.

How this rule works: Readopted in full by Document #14558, effective 21 April 2026. Four buckets and a closing rule. Fis 804.02 is the non-controlled possession list, Fis 804.03 the prohibited list, Fis 804.05 with Table 800.2 the controlled table, and Fis 804.04(b) then says "All species not specifically listed under the categories of non-controlled, prohibited, or controlled shall be designated as prohibited." Fis 803 runs the same three-way split for importation against Table 800.1. The number beside a species in either table is the permittee category from Fis 802.01: 1 is an individual, 5 an exhibitor, so a species marked 5 alone cannot be held privately. Fis 802.05 is the waiver for unlisted species and subsection (c) closes it to categories 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7, which leaves only exhibitors.

It is unlawful to introduce, multiply, possess, move, or release any arthropod, plant pest, biological control agent, noxious weed, or invasive plant regulated by the Department or the USDA except under permit issued by the Department unless a federal permit, PPQ 526, has been issued by the USDA with concurrence by the Department. No permit shall be issued nor concurrence with a federal permit, PPQ 526 made unless the Department has determined that the arthropod, plant pest, biological control agent, noxious weed, or invasive plant can be contained to prevent escape into the environment or that it will not pose a threat to agriculture, beneficial organisms, or the environment or become a public nuisance.

Florida answers this animal through its agriculture department, not FWC, and the wildlife chapters give no hint of it. 5B-57.004(1) makes it unlawful to possess any arthropod "regulated by the Department or the USDA" without a permit from the Division of Plant Industry, unless a federal PPQ 526 has already issued with the Department's concurrence. Gromphadorhina portentosa moves interstate under exactly that federal permit, which is what brings it inside the sentence. The permit standard is containment: the Department must find the animal can be contained to prevent escape into the environment, which in practice means secure enclosure rather than a fee. Nothing in Chapter 68-5 or Chapter 68A-6 names it, so an entry resting on those chapters alone would read this as unrestricted. The same reasoning reaches it as reaches the millipede, and for the same reason: it is the federal plant-pest status that does the work, not anything Florida wrote about the species.

How this rule works: The rule that catches invertebrates in Florida, and it belongs to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services rather than to FWC, which is why reading only the wildlife chapters gets this wrong. It makes it unlawful to possess "any arthropod ... regulated by the Department or the USDA" without a state permit, unless a federal PPQ 526 has issued with the Department's concurrence. The test is therefore federal as much as state: an arthropod USDA treats as a plant pest is caught, and one it does not is not. That splits the four invertebrates on this map, since the giant African millipede and the Madagascar hissing cockroach are both moved under PPQ 526 and a tarantula and a scorpion are not plant pests at all. Permits turn on containment: the Department must find the animal can be contained to prevent escape.

Invertebrate species listed as approved may be imported, possessed, sold, purchased, exchanged, transported, or released in Oregon without a permit from the Department. This applies only to stock collected within the continental United States. ... Madagascar hissing cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa (education, pet). ... Live invertebrates not on the list of approved invertebrates in any life stage may not be imported, possessed, sold, purchased, exchanged, transported, or released in the state unless a permit is first obtained from the Department.

Oregon runs two closed lists, and this animal is on the second one. ORS 496.004(19) defines wildlife as fish, shellfish, amphibians, reptiles, feral swine, wild birds and wild mammals, so a terrestrial arthropod is outside the Fish and Wildlife rules entirely; the Department of Agriculture picks it up instead under its plant pest authority. Named to the species and marked for pet use, in a roach section of nearly twenty entries that separates the hissing cockroaches from the pest species listed for education and research only. The condition is a real one and easy to miss: the clearance applies only to stock collected within the continental United States, so an animal imported from abroad needs a Department permit even though the species is approved. Nothing on this list is unregulated; an invertebrate absent from it may not be possessed at all without a permit. Oregon cities and counties may prohibit exotic animals by ordinance on top of state law, so check the municipality as well.

How this rule works: Oregon's second closed list, run by the Department of Agriculture and covering terrestrial invertebrates, which the Fish and Wildlife rules never reach. Subsection (3) bars possessing any live invertebrate not on the list without a Department permit, and subsection (1) limits the clearance to stock collected within the continental United States. The list is long and written to species with the intended use in brackets, and most pet-trade arachnids, myriapods and roaches are on it. It does not apply to marine or aquatic invertebrates.

"Wildlife" means any form of animal life, native or exotic, generally living in a state of nature provided that domestic cervidae as defined in section 25-3701, Idaho Code, shall not be classified as wildlife.

Two readings, both textual, and Idaho has published nothing that chooses between them. Read one way an insect is a form of animal life and therefore wildlife, IDAPA 13.01.10.200.01 bars possessing live wildlife without a Department licence, and the conventional pets definition at 010.06 is a closed enumeration naming mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians and no invertebrate, so an imported cockroach would need a captive possession licence. Read the other way the commission's scheme never reaches a terrestrial invertebrate at all: the eight classes at Idaho Code § 36-201 are vertebrate groups, IDAPA 13.01.06 classifies no invertebrate anywhere, and chapter 13.01.10 opens by excluding crustaceans from its own use of the word. The agriculture side is clean either way, because the invasive insect list at IDAPA 02.06.09.146 is a closed list of three forest pests and names no cockroach. Recorded unclear rather than guessed, on the same footing as New Jersey and New Mexico.

How this rule works: § 36-202(g) defines wildlife as "any form of animal life, native or exotic, generally living in a state of nature", excluding only domestic cervidae. § 36-201 then lists the eight classes the commission may sort wildlife into, all of them vertebrate groups, with predatory wildlife fixed by statute at seven named animals. IDAPA 13.01.06.250 sweeps up the remainder: "Unprotected Wildlife includes all wildlife not classified in the preceding categories."

"Nongame species" means any wildlife for which a legal hunting or trapping season has not been established in New Jersey or which has not been classified as an endangered species by statute or regulation of this State.

The same invertebrate gap as the tarantula and the millipede, with the same two readings and no Division list naming an insect. Gromphadorhina portentosa has an extra layer that New Jersey's wildlife rules do not speak to at all: it is a USDA-regulated organism, so moving one interstate needs a PPQ 526 permit, and several states reach it through their agriculture department rather than their wildlife agency. New Jersey's plant pest rules sit at N.J.A.C. 2:20 under the Department of Agriculture, a separate agency from the one that writes subchapter 4, which is where the answer would be if there is one.

How this rule works: NJDEP's own courtesy copy of the whole of N.J.A.C. 7:25. Subchapter 4 starts at 7:25-4.1 and carries the definitions, the permit requirement at 4.2, the three species lists at 4.3, 4.4 and 4.8, the pet bar at 4.9(a)3 and 4.15(b), and the state endangered list at 4.13. The three list PDFs the Division hands out are extracts of this.

Any species of live non-domesticated animal not currently on the species importation list will be designated group IV until such time as another determination is made by the director.

The Madagascar hissing cockroach is not on the Director's list, and neither is any other terrestrial invertebrate: the roughly 1,300 rows are mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Read literally the default clause would designate it group IV and bar it, since it is a live non-domesticated animal. Read in context that looks wrong, because the rule is titled importation of live non-domesticated animals, birds and fish, its scope speaks of wildlife species, and its machinery is veterinary inspection certificates and disease testing built for vertebrates. The regulation never uses the word invertebrate. Recorded unclear rather than banned, because the definition arguably reaches the animal and plainly was not written with it in mind.

How this rule works: The roughly 1,300 row table that 19.35.7 NMAC points at and that earlier research could not obtain. Every row gives a family, a scientific name, a common name and a roman numeral group. Group I is semi-domesticated and needs no importation permit. Group II is not known to be invasive or dangerous and needs a permit. Group III presents minimal or manageable concerns and needs a permit with specific provisions attached. Group IV is prohibited to the general public. The list is reached from the download page rather than a direct file URL, and the site needs a User-Agent header.