Pet passports - What are they and can you use them for pet travel?

uly 27th, 2009
By Pet Relocation, admin

When humans travel internationally, they get a passport issued, so it makes sense that pets would need one too. However, there is a lot of confusion about pet passports, particularly in the US.

The pet passport concept was started for moving pets to the UK to simplify the process of importing pets from different countries with history of rabies. The passport itself comes in multiple forms, sometimes a pink piece of paper and sometimes a small blue booklet. It contains the microchip number of the animal, the certification that it has had a rabies vaccination, and needs to be signed by an officially approved veterinarian. The pet passport is technically exclusively valid for pet travel to the EU and the UK -- however some countries will accept the vaccination records in the passport as the first vaccination documentation.

There are many unofficial versions of pet passports available for sale on the internet and in pet stores. A good example is this Pocket Reference Journal found here. It's important to note that these are not acceptable for international travel. They are merely made to be an unofficial record of your pet's vaccination history and to be a convenient place to store everything.

Bottom line: If you're moving pets to the UK or EU, a pet passport able to be a tool in moving your pets. However, having completely of your first documentation able to replace the pet passport -- in different words you don't must have a little blue book. For completely different countries, having your pet's first documentation (rabies certificates, vaccination records, blood tests, etc.) will be sufficient.