Most pet-travel tables on the internet are copied from relocation companies. This one is copied from governments — and where the government could not be read, we say so instead of filling the gap. On 27 July 2026 we went to the official veterinary or border authority for 16 destinations. Twelve answered. Five did not, and one answered only partly. Every row below links to the page it came from.
What actually catches people out
- The clocks run from odd starting points. Japan’s 180 days runs from the blood sampling date, not the vaccination. The EU’s 90-day wait runs to the date the certificate is issued, not the date you fly — and that certificate then expires in 10 days. Get either wrong by a day and the trip does not happen.
- Two countries refuse healthy, fully documented animals on non-medical grounds. Switzerland bans the import of dogs with docked ears or tails outright. New Zealand bans five breeds and types under the Dog Control Act. Great Britain refuses Dangerous Dogs Act types without a pre-existing exemption certificate.
- Canada’s hardest rule is a definition. CFIA counts adoption, fostering, rescue, breeding and showing as commercial — and commercial dogs from 90+ high-risk countries have been banned outright since 28 September 2022. A rescue is not a paperwork problem there; it is a prohibition.
- Worming is a timed procedure, not a box to tick. Great Britain records the date and the hour; Norway allows 24 to 120 hours and forbids you from doing it yourself.
- In Australia, one administrative step is worth twenty days of quarantine. If an official government vet verifies your dog’s microchip before the rabies blood sample is drawn, post-entry quarantine at Mickleham drops from a minimum of 30 days to a minimum of 10. Same dog, same tests, same paperwork otherwise — and you pay for the difference.
- The cheapest-looking destination can be the most expensive. Thirty days of Singapore quarantine from a Schedule III country is S$1,650-1,920 before licences, inspection or transport — and the slot must be reserved before the import licence is issued.
The rules, destination by destination (verified 27 July 2026)
| Destination | Microchip | Rabies vaccination | Antibody titre test | Permit / certificate | Parasite treatment | Quarantine | Routes, breeds, age | The trap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| European Union [official] | Required, ISO chip (tattoo only if applied before 3 Jul 2011); must be implanted before or on the vaccination date | From 12 weeks old; valid from 21 days after the course completes | Only from countries not listed in Reg. (EU) 2026/636. Sample at least 30 days after vaccination, result at least 0.5 IU/ml, and taken not less than 90 days before the certificate is issued | EU Animal Health Certificate (Annex III, Reg. (EU) 2026/705) + owner’s written declaration. Valid 10 days to the border check | Dogs only, and only for Finland, Ireland, Malta, Northern Ireland and Norway: praziquantel 24-120 hours before entry | None if compliant | Must arrive at a designated travellers’ point of entry; max 5 animals; owner must travel within 5 days of the pet | The 90-day clock runs to the certificate issue date, and the certificate then lasts only 10 days |
| United Kingdom (GB) [official] | Required, before the rabies vaccination | Travel at least 21 full days after the first vaccination | Only from unlisted countries. At least 30 days after vaccination, at least 0.5 IU/ml, then wait 3 months from the blood draw | GB pet health certificate, or a pet passport depending on origin | Dogs: praziquantel no less than 24h and no more than 120h before entry, recorded with date and time. Not needed from FI, IE, NI, MT, NO | Up to 4 months if you get the rules wrong – or refused entry if you came by sea | Pets must fly as cargo unless it is a chartered private plane or an assistance dog. Approved routes only. Banned breeds refused without a pre-existing Certificate of Exemption | The tapeworm window is enforced to the hour – arrive an hour early and it is void |
| United States [official] | Required for all dogs, and it must be implanted before the rabies vaccine or the vaccine is invalid | Not required from rabies-free/low-risk countries; required if the dog has been in a high-risk country in the past 6 months | Foreign-vaccinated dogs from high-risk countries only: drawn at least 30 days after the first valid vaccination and at least 28 days before entry, CDC-approved lab | CDC Dog Import Form (free, online). High-risk routes also need a Certification of Foreign Rabies Vaccination and Microchip, or of US-issued vaccination | No requirement | No routine quarantine, but foreign-vaccinated dogs from high-risk countries must hold a reservation at a CDC-registered animal care facility | Dog must be at least 6 months old. High-risk arrivals must land at an airport with a CDC-registered facility. Unreadable microchip = returned at the importer’s expense | The 6-month look-back: a holiday or even a transit through a high-risk country makes your dog high-risk |
| Canada [official] | Not stated as a requirement on the CFIA page | Dogs cannot be effectively vaccinated before 12 weeks; status must be on the vet certificate | Not stated as a requirement for personal pets | Veterinary certificate of health confirming vaccination, age and parasite testing. CFIA routes you through its AIRS tool rather than a static list | Not stated | No routine quarantine for personal pets | Commercial dogs from high-risk countries are banned outright since 28 Sep 2022 – and CFIA counts adoption, fostering, rescue, breeding and show as commercial | The definition, not the test: a rescue dog from any of 90+ listed countries simply cannot come |
| Australia [official] | Required, readable by an ISO-compatible reader. The identity must be verified by an official government vet at least 180 days before export, before the blood draw | Required, by a government-approved vet in an approved country. Wait 3-4 weeks between the vaccination and the RNATT blood sample | Rabies Neutralising Antibody Titre test (RNATT). The dog must also have lived in an approved country for at least 180 days before export, counted from the date the sample reaches the laboratory | Import permit required and paid for – and you must complete all rabies requirements before you apply. Quarantine is booked after the permit is granted | General health checks and treatments by an approved vet before export | Mickleham post-entry quarantine, Victoria: minimum 30 days – cut to minimum 10 days only if an official government vet verified the dog’s identity before the RNATT blood draw | Must be imported directly from an approved country. Not more than 30 days pregnant and not nursing. Some pure-bred and hybrid breeds prohibited (Home Affairs). Dogs under 6 months need identity verified before you start | One administrative step – the pre-RNATT identity check – is worth 20 days of quarantine. Miss it and you pay for 30 days instead of 10. Allow at least 6 months overall |
| New Zealand [official] | ISO 11784 / 11785 recommended – and the chip must be scanned and verified by an official vet at least 6 months before shipment | Category 3 countries: at least 12 weeks old, and a primary vaccination must be given not less than 6 months before shipment | Category 3: not less than 3 and not more than 12 months before shipment, at least 0.5 IU/mL | Import permit required (s24D) for category 2 and 3 countries | Internal: twice – within 30 days of shipment and again within 5 days, at least 14 days apart. External (dogs): continuous tick/flea cover to shipment | Minimum 10 days at the transitional facility named on the permit | Air arrivals only at Auckland or Christchurch, then straight to quarantine. Minimum age 9 months from category 3 countries. Banned: Brazilian Fila, Dogo Argentino, Japanese Tosa, Perro de Presa Canario, American Pit Bull Terrier type. Not more than 42 days pregnant | The 6-month official microchip scan has no clinical purpose, cannot be back-dated, and missing it costs you six months |
| Japan [official] | Required, ISO 11784/11785 15-digit, implanted before the first rabies vaccination. Chips starting 900202, 900113 or 900115 are not accepted | Two vaccinations at least 30 days apart; at least 91 days old at the first. Inactivated or recombinant only – RNA vaccines are rejected | At least 0.5 IU/ml, drawn after the second vaccination at a MAFF-designated lab. Result valid 2 years | Form AC, issued by the exporting country’s government vet. Advance notification at least 40 days before arrival | Not stated | Up to 180 days at your expense if non-compliant; quick clearance if compliant | Must arrive 180 days after the blood sampling date. Limited list of approved airports and seaports | Two 180-day clocks people confuse: the wait runs from the blood draw, not the vaccination |
| Switzerland [official] | Required, immediately before the rabies vaccination | From 12 weeks old; valid 21 days later | Required from high-rabies-risk countries, designated lab, with a long waiting period the FSVO does not quantify | EU-model health certificate (Reg. 2026/705) from non-EU countries; EU pet passport from the EU. Direct flights from high-risk countries also need an FSVO import licence | Not stated | Not stated | Max 5 pets per private vehicle. From high-risk countries, animals under 7 months are not permitted. Dogs with docked ears or tails are banned outright | The docked-ear/cropped-tail ban – perfectly legal paperwork, refused at the border on cosmetic grounds |
| Norway [official] | Required, ISO 11784 with HDX or FDX-B, before the rabies vaccination | From 12 weeks old; valid from 21 days after the course completes | From unlisted third countries: at least 30 days after vaccination and not less than 3 months before entry, at least 0.5 IU/ml | EU-model animal health certificate or EU pet passport. Notify Mattilsynet at least 48 hours before arrival | Dogs: praziquantel or epsiprantel 24-120 hours before entry, by a vet – owners may not do it themselves. Exempt from IE, NI, MT, FI | Not published – treat as unstated rather than none | Third-country arrivals only via Oslo Airport or Storskog. Banned: Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Fila Brasileiro, Tosa Inu, Dogo Argentino, Czechoslovakian Wolfdog and wolf hybrids. Ex-strays need 6 months of documented ownership | A 96-hour worming window that you are not allowed to administer yourself |
| Singapore [official] | Required, ISO 11784 or 11785 Annex A | Not required from Schedule I (AU, NZ, IE, UK). Required for Schedule II and III | Schedule II and III: at least 0.5 IU/ml, sampled at least 28 days after vaccination and not less than 90 days and not more than 12 months before export | Import licence S$50 (or S$100 express), valid 90 days; dog licence via PALS first; inspection appointment booked at least 5 days ahead or S$133/hour | Internal and external treatments both 2-7 days before export, plus core vaccinations at least 14 days before | Schedule I none; Schedule II at least 10 days; Schedule III at least 30 days at S$26-35/day plus S$29/day collar tag | Air arrivals via Changi CAPQ; land via Tuas. In-cabin only in a rigid IATA crate – soft bags are not allowed. Bans include Pit Bull types, Akita, Boerboel, Tosa – and 1st to 4th generation Bengal and Savannah cats | A Schedule III move costs S$1,650-1,920 in quarantine alone, and the slot must be booked before the licence is issued |
| Brazil [official] | Not an entry condition (required only for Brazil’s own pet passport) | Animals over 90 days must arrive vaccinated; after a first vaccination you may only depart 21 days later | Not required | Certificado Veterinario Internacional (CVI) – new mandatory model since 6 Sep 2025 under Portaria MAPA 741/2024. A CVI issued abroad is valid 60 days | Broad-spectrum internal and external treatment within 15 days before the CVI is issued | None published for dogs and cats | Cleared through VIGIAGRO units – check the unit’s opening hours before you book the flight. Puppies under 90 days may enter unvaccinated if the origin authority certifies age and no local rabies case in 90 days | Treat first, certify second, fly third – the parasite treatment must already sit inside the 15 days before the CVI date |
Free to reuse with attribution to A.I.T. Multiverse Research. Rules change constantly — this page is re-verified quarterly, and every cell carries the official page it came from.
The five we could not verify — and why that matters
We do not publish a rule we have not read on the authority’s own site. For these five destinations, that authority still could not be read on 27 July 2026 — we tried both an automated fetch and a live browser:
| Destination | What happened |
|---|---|
| United Arab Emirates | The official pet-travel page on u.ae now returns 404, and every MOCCAE service page is blocked by a web application firewall. Only the existence of an “Import live animals and birds” permit service is confirmed. |
| South Korea | The quarantine agency’s domain does not resolve; its successor site blocks automated access site-wide; the agriculture ministry’s English site carries no pet-import content. |
| Mexico | SENASICA publishes only on gob.mx, which returned 403 on every path we tried. |
| South Africa | The department’s site served news content with no reachable navigation; every sub-path failed. The veterinary import permit — the central South African requirement — could not be read. |
| Turkey | The ministry’s reachable veterinary pages cover commercial animal products and livestock only. No companion-animal entry page exists in the official navigation we could reach. |
What changed in 2025 and 2026
Four of these regimes moved in the last eighteen months, and two more change again before April 2027. If you are working from a guide written in 2024, at least four rows above are already wrong.
| Where | What changed | When |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | The whole legal architecture was replaced. Non-commercial pet movement now runs on Delegated Reg. (EU) 2026/131 with the certificate model at Annex III to Implementing Reg. (EU) 2026/705. Certificates on the old model stay valid only if issued before 1 October 2026. | in force 2026 |
| New Zealand | The Cats and Dogs 2026 Import Health Standard came into force, adding the official 6-month microchip verification. Nine-month transition: the new ID checks bite from 1 October 2026 and everything from 1 April 2027. | 1 Jul 2026 |
| United Kingdom | The Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Act 2025 received Royal Assent. Its first regulations must ban importing animals under 6 months, more than 42 days pregnant, or mutilated, and cut the non-commercial limit to five per vehicle or three per person. The commencing regulations were not yet in force when we checked — legislated, not live. | 2 Dec 2025 |
| United States | The USDA-endorsed export health certificate route closed: it is accepted only if issued no later than 31 July 2025. After that the CDC’s own form is mandatory and must be USDA-endorsed before the dog leaves the country — you cannot fix it from abroad. High-risk country list last refreshed 15 April 2026. | 31 Jul 2025 |
| Brazil | A new mandatory international veterinary certificate model took effect under Portaria MAPA 741/2024. | 6 Sep 2025 |
| Singapore | Current veterinary condition documents for all three country schedules were reissued. | 1 Apr 2026 |
How to read this page
Three numbers decide almost every pet move, and they are not the ones people look up first. The earliest date you may fly is set by the longest chain: microchip, then vaccination, then a waiting period, then a blood test, then another waiting period. The paperwork window is usually short — ten days in the EU, thirty days for some US forms — so the certificate is the last thing you get, not the first. The arrival constraint decides whether your pet can be with you at all: Great Britain and New Zealand make cabin arrival impossible in practice, and Singapore rejects the soft carrier most owners already own.
Work backwards from your flight date through all three. If the answer is negative, the flight is the thing that has to move.
Related: which airlines actually allow pets in the cabin and what a dog costs per year in 16 countries.
Questions people ask
Which country is hardest to bring a pet into?
Japan and New Zealand, for different reasons. Japan requires two rabies vaccinations 30 days apart, a titre test after the second, then a wait of 180 days from the blood sampling date, plus notification at least 40 days before arrival – roughly 9 to 10 months from a standing start, and up to 180 days of detention at your expense if you get it wrong. New Zealand now also requires an official vet to scan the microchip at least six months before shipment, then a minimum 10 days in quarantine, with arrival only at Auckland or Christchurch.
Can my pet fly in the cabin to the UK?
No. The UK government states that pets have to travel as cargo on a plane unless you are flying on a chartered private plane or travelling with a guide or assistance dog. This is a government rule, not an airline choice, which is why even airlines that allow cabin pets switch to cargo for UK arrivals.
How long before travel do I need to start?
It depends entirely on whether a titre test is required. Into the EU or Norway from an unlisted country you need the microchip, then the vaccination from 12 weeks, then 30 days, then the blood draw, then 3 months – roughly seven months minimum. Into Japan, about 9 to 10 months. Into New Zealand from a category 3 country, at least six months and the animal must be 9 months old at shipment. Within the EU with a valid passport, 21 days after a first vaccination.
Is a microchip always required?
Nearly always, and the order matters more than the chip. The EU, UK, US, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and Singapore all require the microchip to be implanted before the rabies vaccination – if it is done afterwards, the vaccination is invalid and has to be repeated. Japan additionally rejects chips whose codes begin 900202, 900113 or 900115.
What is a rabies titre test and when do I need one?
It is a blood test proving the vaccination actually produced antibodies, and the threshold is the same nearly everywhere: at least 0.5 IU/ml. You need it when travelling from a country the destination does not treat as low-risk. What differs is the waiting period afterwards: 3 months for the UK and Norway, 90 days before certificate issue for the EU, 90 days before export for Singapore, 180 days for Japan, and 28 days before entry for the US high-risk route.
Can I bring a rescue dog?
Check the destination’s definition before anything else. Canada classes dogs intended for adoption, fostering, transfer, breeding or show as commercial, and commercial dogs from more than 90 high-risk countries have been prohibited since 28 September 2022. Norway requires six months of documented ownership for former strays. These are not paperwork hurdles – they are prohibitions.
Are any breeds banned?
Yes, and the lists differ. New Zealand bans Brazilian Fila, Dogo Argentino, Japanese Tosa, Perro de Presa Canario and American Pit Bull Terrier type. Norway bans Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Fila Brasileiro, Tosa Inu, Dogo Argentino and Czechoslovakian Wolfdog. Singapore bans a longer dog list and also first to fourth generation Bengal and Savannah cats. Great Britain refuses Dangerous Dogs Act types without a pre-existing Certificate of Exemption. Switzerland bans any dog with docked ears or a docked tail, regardless of breed.
Why does this page leave some countries blank?
Because we could not read the government’s own page. On 27 July 2026 the official authorities for the UAE, South Korea, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey were unreachable – 404s, firewalls, DNS failures and blanket blocks on automated access. We would rather show you a gap than repeat a figure we cannot trace to its source. For those five, contact the embassy or national veterinary authority directly.
