I have a cat (Marble) who usually lives in France and has a valid and current EU pet passport, issued in France. Her rabies vaccinations are in date.
For various reasons, she has been living in the UK for the past year, but I’m planning to take her home to France in a few days (I’m visiting family in the UK at the moment).
The government and EU websites do not give consistent information on the required documentation for my circumstances. Some suggest that the EU pet passport a is the only document required, others say that an Animal Health Certificate is also needed.
Can anyone offer specific, recent advice based, if possible, on actual travel rather than interpreting the red tape?
As long as the rabies vaccination is up to date, all you need is the passport (might be worth making sure all vaccinations are up to date). I dont know how you’re crossing the Channel, but BF has a pet pre-travel check on their website.
Cats dont need worming tablets only dogs.
All pets are suposed to be chipped because thats how they identify them and validate their vaccinations at the border.
Marble is our cat. Fully microchipped, vaccinated and holder of a French-issued EU pet passport.
If we take her from France to the UK, our French vet insists she needs a vet health check and an animal health certificate. Is this the case? In case anyone suggests the visit would be for a worming treatment to be recorded, cats don’t require worming treatment before travel UK-France or France-UK.
My reading of the rules suggests that the valid passport alone will suffice. But will the border officials agree?
When we take our dog to get the pre travel worming treatment the vet always checks her over but there is never any paperwork to that effect. They have never requested we bring the cat in at the same time for any pre travel health check.
Obviously we do have the travel health cert for them both until we can get a passport.
Thats about as accurate as I can be.
Thanks, Mr C. I suspect our case is different as we’re taking a French pet to the UK. It seems as if even the official sources can’t agree. We phoned DEFRA and they said ‘ask your vet’. We asked 2 vets and they gave contradictory answers (complying with either would have resulted in passing money to the vet, funnily enough…).
Yes different Brian but the common areas were pre inspection which we have never had or been asked to do for the cat and is only cursory with the dog being there for the worming tablet.
Definitely says or in respect to travel cert or passport.
Never travelled back to the UK with a cat, but frequently with the dog. The confusion might be the health check (not the UK issued certificate) recorded in the passport routinely for the dog when he has the worming tablet.
Exactly. My understanding is that the health check and attestation in the passport is not required for cats, but the vet says a visit is required in order that the cat be given a worming tablet (which EU and UK pet sites say is not required for cats - just dogs).
