Dog Travel :
US to the EU
All you need to know about flying to Europe with your dog!
Lisbon, Portugal
Alice and I spent July and August of 2019 in Portugal, which was her first time traveling to Europe! We have returned to Europe three times since. When I first considered spending my entire summer abroad, I knew I had to bring Alice with me. I was so surprised when, after doing some research and talking to my vet, I discovered it was actually quite a simple process to bring a dog to the European Union from the United States! Here’s what you need to know…
Your dog must be micro-chipped and have an up-to-date rabies vaccination. The microchip must be ISO-compliant. If your dog got the microchip in the United States, it is probably ISO-compliant - your vet can check to make sure. Alice has a PetLink microchip, which is acceptable! The rabies vaccination must be given more than 21 days before your dog enters the EU. The rules for rabies vaccines are different for young puppies, though.
***Important Update*** At the end of 2022, the EU edited their requirements for rabies vaccination. Your dog must receive a “primary” rabies vaccination that is only valid for one year. A second vaccine must be given before that year is up! Only then will three-year rabies vaccines be accepted. Europe does one-year vaccinations for rabies whereas we do three-year vaccinations in the States, so this seems to be related to that discrepancy. I am so lucky that my veterinarian caught this before my trip to Austria in April! Alice’s previous rabies vaccine had been March 17th, 2022, which would not have been acceptable because she has always had three-year vaccines. She got another vaccine on March 1st, 2023 (within a year of her “primary” in 2022), which means three-year vaccines will be fine from now on. Moral of the story: always double-, triple-, and quadruple- check the regulations through the USDA website within the couple of months before you travel!
Ten days (or fewer) before your arrival in the EU, your pup needs an appointment with a USDA-accredited veterinarian where they will fill out the necessary paperwork for your journey. Not all veterinarians in the US are qualified to do this. At our vet, Gotham Veterinary Center, only two of the six doctors could sign the paperwork for Alice, so make sure you get an appointment early and confirm that your veterinarian is qualified! Our vet knew exactly what was required when we told her (months ahead of time) that we were traveling to Portugal.
When we arrived for our appointment, she already had the paperwork printed and mostly filled out. After the appointment was completed, the paperwork had to be mailed to APHIS. In New York, that meant it had to be mailed to Albany, then mailed back to me. To ensure that we received the paperwork back from Albany in time, I paid extra for overnight shipping and provided a two-day shipping return envelope for them. If your state’s APHIS location is not nearby, I recommend seeing your veterinarian 9 or 10 days before your EU arrival date to make sure all of this paperwork gets back to you in plenty of time! When traveling between countries within the Schengen area of Europe, they are really only interested in proof or rabies vaccination. Make sure you bring the signed rabies certificate from your vet! I also always have my veterinarian’s office email me Alice’s complete records before I travel, just in case I need them.
You can find more information on the USDA website!
Alice has flown internationally on Delta, United, and Austrian Airlines. For all three, I had to show her paperwork at check-in. When you arrive in Europe, after collecting any checked baggage, someone from the customs office will check your dog’s paperwork. We’ve flown into Lisbon, Barcelona, Vienna, and Milan. In Lisbon and Barcelona, this took about five minutes. In Vienna and Milan, it took maybe thirty seconds (in Milan, they didn’t even scan for Alice’s microchip).
Returning to the States has been incosistent. From Portugal, we flew back through Boston Logan Airport and had to go to a separate customs area from baggage claim. Even though I was the only person there with two employees, everything seemed to take such a long time - keep this in mind if you have a connecting flight coming back into the US! They looked through Alice’s paperwork (the same documents we had used to enter in Lisbon), but were mostly interested in the rabies vaccine information. When flying back through JFK or Newport, no one asked about Alice when we went through customs, so I didn’t show any paperwork.
Find more information about returning to the United States with a dog on the CDC website!
Overall, the process of obtaining the necessary documentation and getting Alice through each airport was quite simple and straightforward! We are currently working on getting an EU Pet Passport, because that will be easier (and less expensive) moving forward. Stay tuned for information on that journey!
