Travel&Passport Tips

A European pet passport (EU PP) is a document, which follows an EU standard model and is essential for travel between EU countries. It contains a description and details of your pet, including its microchip or tattoo code as well as its rabies vaccination record and contact details of the owner and the vet who issued the passport. You can get a Pet passports that is issued for your dog, cat or ferret from any authorised vet (permitted by the relevant authorities to issue pet passports), however be aware that traveling with any other species needs alternative documentation. At best PP is valid for life or until you run out of available pages in your PP and as long as your pets rabies vaccination is in date.

The first rabies vaccination after the microchip is implanted is called the primary vaccination and it should be one year vaccine unless manufacturer specifications permit its use as a primary vaccination. If your pet’s previous rabies vaccination had expired before being re-vaccinated, the next vaccination becomes the primary vaccination. All vaccinations that are administered after the primary vaccination are called booster vaccinations. There is no waiting period after booster vaccinations; as long as the previous vaccination was administered after a microchip was implanted AND the booster vaccination was administered before the previous vaccination had expired. Most people allow ample time to get their pets a passport while abroad.

However different EU countries have different rules on how to obtain a PP passport. Without existing EU PP your only option to leave the UK with your pet is to organise an Animal Health Certificate. The AHC is a document that is issued by an Official Veterinarian (OV) within 10 days of your departure date and is valid for one trip to the EU and up to 4 months only, you can have up to 5 animals on one AHC. Only vets in EU countries can enter rabies vaccination details into an EU pet passport. Any vet in any country can put tapeworm treatment details into a pet passport. And when all the treatment spaces are full, you’ll need to get a new pet passport then. Tapeworm treatment for most EU countries is required to be administered by a vet and stamped on the paperwork 24-120 hours before landing back in the UK. For Ireland, Malta, Norway, Finland and Northern Ireland this must be administered 24-120 hours before you go instead.