Canadian Pet Travel: Getting Approval from the CFIA
If you’re looking to travel internationally with a pet from Canada, you’ll need to get familiar with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). This may seem odd since you certainly wouldn’t classify your pet as food, but I guess the Canadian government decided to add the importation and exportation of live animals to the CFIA’s duties without making any distinction between animals for consumption and family pets. Anyways, that’s just a guess and thankfully the CFIA’s history isn’t important to getting your pet out of the country.
Any travel plans involving your pet must be made well in advance or else you risk your pet being denied entry, being forced into quarantine, or you may even need to cancel your trip. The CFIA requirements generally remain the same, but there may be extra steps depending on which country you plan to visit.
For example, some countries may require specific pet vaccinations, a rabies titre test, arrival through specific airports, import certificates, or advanced notice of your travel dates. When determining the requirements that need to be met, consult the destination country’s official government travel website as opposed to blindly trusting online travel blogs which can sometimes be outdated.
Once you know what needs to be done to get your pet into another country, you’ll want to start booking appointments. You’ll need to book a vet appointment along with an appointment with the CFIA. It is highly recommended that you book an appointment with the CFIA more than a month in advance as they can be very busy. The appointment must also be on a date that’s within 10 days before your departure or else the forms will not be valid.
The vet appointment that you booked is required to complete the export forms that are required by the CFIA. At a minimum, you will need to fill out the Non-commercial movement of five or less dogs, cats, or ferrets form. Some countries may require you to have a version completed in their primary language or will ask for additional import/export forms to be completed. To visit France, we needed the form to be in English and French but didn’t require any other documents.
The export form will mostly be completed by your veterinarian of choice and you can complete your pet’s health check at the same time. We found it cost around $170 to get two cats checked and both forms filled out. The forms should be completed on the same day as your visit, but sometimes it can take up to two days. Also make sure to double check that the vet has used blue ink and signed every page before going home.
If you are requesting for the forms to be completed from a vet that does not have access to your pet’s records, you will need to provide them with the following information or ask your usual vet to forward them the information:
Owner information
Pet details - name, species, birthday, breed, distinguishing features
Microchip information
Pet vaccination details - type, date of vaccination, validity period
Along with the vet-certified documents, you also need to prepare proof that your pet will be traveling with you in the form of a boarding pass or flight ticket. If you are travelling to the EU, then you can also follow the CFIA’s official EU checklist to ensure that you have the appropriate documents in order.
Remember, if you are missing any of this information or if you try to provide pet documents that are not signed by a licensed vet, it is very likely you will be rejected by the CFIA as they are very strict with the rules and will not make any exceptions.
As a word of warning, you also need to be extra careful about when vaccines are being administered to your pet. For example, we ran into trouble when we realized one of the cats received a rabies booster vaccination a mere two days after the expiration date of the first primary vaccine. Since it was two days late, the primary booster was deemed null and the booster became the new primary vaccine. Unfortunately, we had chosen to get the three-year vaccination for the booster, as is common in Canada, but many countries actually don’t recognize the three-year vaccination as being legitimate if it is the primary vaccine. Just be careful as the wrong type of vaccine or even just a few days can lead to major complications!
Once you’ve acquired all the necessary documents, your CFIA appointment should be pretty straightforward. The process for us went as follows:
Drive to the CFIA office with the required documents. Your pet doesn’t need to be present for this.
Present your documents to the CFIA agent and wait to see if you need to sign anything or provide additional information
Once they have your paperwork, you’ll probably need to wait anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to hear back from them. We received a phone call once everything was ready to go.
You will either be told you are missing documents or that your pets have been approved for travel. If you are approved, you will need to pay the $20 endorsement fee before they hand back all your documents with the special red stamp of approval. These documents will essentially act as your pet’s passport, so make sure to treat them with care!
As mentioned, the documents you receive need to be stamped with approval within 10 days of your departure. You can continue to use the pet “passport” if you plan to visit multiple countries in the same trip even after the 10 day period, but you will need to repeat the entire process if you return home and wish to travel again. Don’t forget that even if you have the endorsement, you must also meet the unique requirements of each country to ensure your pet is allowed within the country and doesn’t get quarantined.
Here is a parting message from Reinhardt: BN MMMMMMMMMM
