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Vermont has not found CWD, and tests deer to keep checking

Vermont CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules

Vermont has never detected CWD and does not require or pay for testing, a hunter who wants a deer tested contacts the department and covers the cost, and deer or elk from any state or province that has had CWD may enter Vermont only as boneless labeled meat, a headless hide or cape, a clean skull cap with antlers, bare antlers, a finished taxidermy head, or clean upper canine teeth.

Not required
Is a sample required
a test is offered on any deer
Restricted
Carrying a carcass in
No whole carcass from an affected state
See the agency
What the test costs
no turnaround published
Not reported
Found in wild deer
no zone drawn
The answer

Is CWD testing required in Vermont

Voluntary, offered statewide

Vermont reports no detection in wild deer, and Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department sets no requirement to submit a sample. A test is offered on any deer a hunter brings in.

How to submit
Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department takes submissions through the route set out on its own sampling page.

If you harvest a deer that you suspect may have CWD contact the department or your local warden for information on how to get the deer tested.
Q&A on Chronic Wasting Disease, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
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Driving a deer into Vermont

What may be carried across the Vermont line

This is the rule a hunter is most likely to miss, because it is written by the state being entered rather than the state the animal was taken in. Reading the regulations of the state hunted in cover to cover does not surface it. Nationally, 42 of the 50 states restrict what crosses and 27 refuse an intact carcass from anywhere at all.

No whole carcass from an affected stateWhether the drive is legal turns on where the animal was taken rather than on how it was packed.

An intact carcass may not be carried into Vermont from a state or province where the disease has been found. An animal from anywhere else falls outside the rule.

Deer or elk and their parts may not be brought into Vermont from any state or Canadian province that has had CWD, or from a captive hunt or farm facility, except as boneless cut and labeled meat, a hide or cape with no head attached, a clean skull cap with antlers, bare antlers, a finished taxidermy head, or upper canine teeth with no tissue attached.

What Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department admits, in its own categories:

  • all meat that is boneless and cut up, packaged and labeled with hunting license information and not mixed with other deer or elk during processing
  • hides or cape with no part of the head attached
  • clean skull-cap with antlers attached
  • antlers with no other meat or tissue attached
  • finished taxidermy heads
  • upper canine teeth with no tissue attached
Importing or possessing legally taken deer or elk, or parts of deer or elk, from states and Canadian provinces that have had Chronic Wasting Disease, or from captive hunt or farm facilities is illegal except for:
Big Game Taken Outside Vermont, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
Where the state stands

CWD in Vermont: status, zones and baiting

Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department reports no detection of the disease in Vermont's wild deer herd.

Baiting and feeding
Baiting and feeding banned statewide
To date, Chronic Wasting Disease has not been detected in any deer populations within Vermont.
Chronic Wasting Disease, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

Vermont draws no management or surveillance zone, which means its rules apply the same way in every county. Several states added a first zone within a season of a first detection, so a zone boundary is the part of a state's rules most likely to change.

A green steel dumpster stencilled DEER CARCASS mounted on a single axle trailer in a sandy pine clearing, with a hoist gantry beside it and a pile of soil behind
The disposal end of the same trip, parked in a pine flatwood with a gantry to hang a deer from. Forty one states publish a rule about what happens to the bones and the head after the meat comes off, and in most of them it reads the same way: landfill, or back on the property where the deer was taken, and nowhere else. It is the part of the law that applies whether or not anybody ever asks for a test. “Deer carcass disposal”, The Bushranger, CC BY-SA 4.0

Vermont CWD questions

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CWD rules in other states

CWD rules in every stateHow the 50 states differ on sampling, cost and what crosses a state line.Venomous snakes by stateWhich species a state actually has, and where the range maps put them.Burn permits by stateWhether a permit is needed today, and who issues it.Firewood permitsWhat a cord off public land costs, and which forests still sell one.Vermont tick activityThe weather driven tick index for Vermont, updated daily.

Vermont read September 23, 2026 from Chronic Wasting Disease, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, linked above. Carcass rules, zone boundaries and sampling requirements change between one season’s regulations and the next, and a state can add a rule mid season after a new detection, so the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.