Animal Health Certificate / Pet Passport

With an address in France you should have no problem, without an address it might be harder. If you can report back I am sure others will be grateful to you. 

  I am very interested in the outcome of this discussion as my dog is now the owner of a Spainish passport due to theft of his and our original UK passport. We would love to resume travels to France and Spain in the future.

Our collie has a pet passport issued in Southern Ireland Can we use that for her if going abroad,

Based on the discussion with my vet, I’m fairly sure that if you have a Pet Passport which was issued in an EU country, then it continues to be valid and an AHC would not be required (although I guess that  it might need to show an EU address).

Either way, UK vets are not allowed to write in EU passports, so the rabies booster would need to be done by an EU vet in an EU country.  

The exception is Northern Ireland - I believe that under current regs, you will need an AHC for a pet to travel from GB to NI …. however, if you live in NI, you can get an EU pet passport which is valid throughout the EU and the UK   

Complicated, isn’t it?  If my cunning plan works and I manage to get French dogizenship for Ted the labradoodle, I’ll post here first 🇫🇷

My next challenge is to source a stock of food for Ted - I normally take enough for the whole trip, but that’s now outlawed 🐾😢🐾

 

I spoke directly to the government pet passport dept. Yes there is one.

They have confirmed that an EU pet passport will be acceptable for travel to Europe.
We tried to get one but it’s not possible without a European postal address. 

They also confirmed that whilst a Uk pet passport is no longer accepted in Europe it would be ok to return to the Uk. 

we are in France now the irony of the whole pet health certificate is the vet asked us to bring the dog’s passport as proof of vaccine.

the whole thing is a mess. Add the cost of COVID tests and going abroad is an expensive prospect this year.

We've just been trying to get an AHC for our dog, and if you need one be warned, it may be difficult and expensive.

Our own vets have decided not to issue them, at least during August - don't know what will happen after that. We contacted several other local vets, and most said either they don't do them at all or they only do them for existing customers.

We did eventually find one who would do it, but they were going to charge £280. As we're only going for a week that seemed excessive, so we've reluctantly resorted to leaving the dog with friends.

This is probably an issue because, as a previous poster mentioned, doing the AHC means a ton of paperwork for the vet. And with all the people getting pets during lockdown, no doubt they're under pressure anyway.

We used to travel to Europe with the dog several times a year, but it doesn't seem like that's going to be viable any longer. Unless things improve, she'll only get to come if we're going for a longer visit.

Wildwoods, if you manage to work it with an EU pet passport we'd love to know - our daughter lives in France so we do have an address we could use!

And about dog food - if I've understood the rules properly, meat based products can't be taken to France but fish based ones can. There's a salmon based dry food that our dog loves, so that's what will go with us if and when we can take her.

People using the ferries from Portsmouth might like to contact a company called Passpets at Havant nearby.They are offering Animal Health Certificates for £99 - details on line under Passpets name. It seems you send dog details to them in advance and you then have an appointment with them on your way to the ferry.

I am only the messenger - I know nothing about them.

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Having been charged £180 for the health certificate in England we are going to have our dog “seen” in Spain. The vet in Empuria Brava charges 100€ for the passport plus the rabies jab - he was quite happy to put a uk address on the documentation and said that residency in Spain wasn’t required. As we make 2 trips to Spain annually it looks as if our vet will loose a customer (except for emergencies).

NB  It may not be so easy.  French vets have been issued with instructions not to issue pet passports to any pet which hasn't been in France for at least three months.  Some vets are still issuing them, but many are not, so 'shop around' would be my advice.  If you run into difficulties you may be able to get around it, by saying 'This time we are on holiday but going back and applying for a visa so that we can stay up to six months in the future' (but don't say I mentioned it!)!  

Once you've got the passport you need to ensure that ALL future rabies boosters are done in the EU, as a UK vet can no longer update the pet passport rabies section.  Other annual boosters should be recorded on a vaccination card, rather than in the passport as previously.