Edison, NJ Animal Ordinances: Pet Limits (2026)

Section 9-11.1, part of Article II's Control and Maintenance of Cats, states plainly that 'no more than five (5) cats may be harbored or maintained within any single-dwelling unit by any owner or owners.' The Code defines 'dwelling unit' at § 9-7 to mean 'any single-family detached dwelling condominium, townhouse, cooperative or residential rental units,' so the cap follows the housing unit rather than the property as a whole; a building with multiple dwelling units could, on the plain text, house up to five cats in each unit. The limit applies regardless of whether the cats are licensed, vaccinated, spayed or neutered, and it applies to any combination of ownership, 'by any owner or owners,' meaning roommates or family members sharing a unit cannot each claim a separate five-cat allowance.

Chapter 9's dog provisions, by contrast, contain no comparable numeric household cap. Article I's control-and-maintenance sections (§§ 9-3.1 through 9-3.6) regulate at-large dogs, leashing, tethering, barking and nuisance, but none of them limits how many licensed dogs a household may keep. A household could therefore lawfully keep more than five dogs, so long as each is individually licensed under § 9-2 and controlled under § 9-3, while the same household is capped at five cats. Any excess of cats above the five-cat limit is itself a violation of § 9-11.1 independent of whether each individual cat is properly licensed under § 9-8.