Everything you need to know about traveling with your pet
Questions real travellers asked us, answered from the official source.
We build travel plans for dogs and cats, and we do not build them for birds. That is a real limit and it is better said plainly than discovered halfway through a checklist.
The reason is not that bird travel is impossible — it is that the rules are shaped differently. Dog and cat movement is governed by rabies, which gives a small number of well-documented steps that generalise across borders. Bird movement is governed by avian influenza and by CITES, which means the answer depends on the species, on whether it is captive-bred, and on an outbreak map that changes month to month. A plan built on the dog-and-cat template would look authoritative and be wrong.
What holds regardless, and is worth starting from: identify the exact species including its Latin name, because CITES listings are per-species and a common name can cover several. Contact the destination's veterinary authority directly rather than relying on any third party, including us. Ask specifically whether an import permit is required, whether quarantine applies, and whether your airline carries live birds at all — many do not, and that alone can decide the route.
IATA's live-animals programme covers species beyond cats and dogs, and its country and airline procedure pages are the right starting point for what a carrier will accept.
If you have a bird, a reptile or a rodent, we would rather tell you we do not cover it than hand you a confident plan for a different animal.
The hold your pet flies in is not the cargo bay luggage goes to. It is a separate compartment that is heated, pressurised and ventilated, and IATA's own guidance says that cats and dogs "actually travel better this way because it is quieter and they will rest in a darkened environment" than in a busy cabin.
Two things genuinely put an animal at risk, and neither of them is the flight itself.
The first is heat combined with a flat face. IATA says plainly that transporting snub-nosed dogs — boxers, pugs, bulldogs, Pekinese — in hot weather "is not recommended", because those breeds cannot maintain a normal body temperature in the heat. This is why many airlines embargo flat-faced breeds in the hold above a certain ground temperature, or in summer entirely.
The second is the ground. The tarmac and the holding area are where an animal waits without cabin air conditioning, so a long layover in a hot climate is more exposure than the flight either side of it. A direct flight, or one connecting through a cool airport, is worth more than any crate upgrade.
What follows from that: book the coolest flight you can get rather than the most convenient one, prefer a direct routing, and if your dog is flat-faced treat summer travel in the hold as a decision that needs your vet's opinion, not a booking detail.
There is an actual formula, and it is the one airlines check against. IATA's container requirements size the crate from four measurements of your animal, not from its weight:
A = nose to the base of the tail. B = ground to the elbow joint. C = across the shoulders, or the widest point. D = top of the head or ear tip to the floor, whichever is higher, standing naturally.
Then: length = A + ½B, width = C x 2, height = D plus the height of the bedding. Snub-nosed breeds need a container 10% larger than the formula gives.
The rule those numbers exist to satisfy is the one a check-in agent applies by eye: the animal must be able to turn around normally while standing, stand and sit erect, and lie in a natural position. A crate that meets the formula and fails that test in front of an agent still fails.
Measure the animal you are travelling with, not the breed average, and measure standing rather than in the crate. If you are between sizes, go up — the cost of an oversized crate is a baggage fee, and the cost of an undersized one is being refused at the desk on the day.
There is no single price, and anyone quoting one without knowing the route is guessing. What we can give you is the shape of the bill, so you can tell a fair quote from a bad one.
Five costs, in roughly the order you pay them. The vet work: microchip, rabies vaccination, and — where the destination requires it — a blood titre, which is usually the most expensive single item and the one with the longest lead time. The official health certificate, plus the government endorsement of it, which is a separate fee from the vet's. The crate, sized to the airline's formula rather than to the pet. The carriage itself, which is where the range is widest: a cabin pet is typically a flat fee, while a pet in the hold is priced as cargo and can be several times that. And on arrival, any quarantine or handling charge the destination levies.
The single biggest lever is cabin versus hold, and it is not usually your choice — IATA notes that only small dogs and cats can go in the cabin, and that some airlines will not allow even those. The second biggest is whether you do it yourself or use a relocation company, which bundles all of the above and adds a margin for handling the complexity.
Two things worth knowing before you accept a quote. Ask which of the five costs above it actually includes, because "all-in" often excludes the vet work. And get the crate dimensions confirmed against the airline's own formula before you buy, since an oversized crate can change the freight class and the price with it.
We do not hold verified fee data for every airline and route yet, so where your plan shows a fee it is cited, and where it does not we would rather say nothing than estimate.
Crate training is the single highest-return thing you can do for a flight, and it is the one most people skip because it has no receipt.
IATA puts it plainly: animals "behave perfectly fine when accustomed to the kennel or crate they are transported in", and describes this as a responsibility that "is often overlooked". The difference is not the crate. It is whether the animal has met it before the day.
Buy the crate early — you need it anyway to check the size against the airline's formula — and make it furniture rather than equipment. Leave it open in a room the animal already uses, feed meals inside it, put in bedding that smells of home. Build up from minutes to hours, and include at least one stretch with the door closed while you are out of the room, because that is the part of the real journey nothing else rehearses.
Do a car trip in it if you can. A crate that is only ever stationary has not been tested against motion, noise or being carried.
If your flight is in under two weeks, do the compressed version rather than nothing: meals inside it every day, and one long stretch with the door shut. Even a fortnight of association beats a crate that is unfamiliar at check-in.
The step people miss is that your vet signing the certificate and the USDA endorsing it are two different events, with a queue in between. The clock most destinations measure is not the one you think: for the countries that require government endorsement, the validity window runs from the ENDORSEMENT date to the date your pet arrives at the destination border — not from your vet appointment, and not from your departure.
That gap is where flights get missed. You see your vet, assume the timer started, and several days of the window are gone before the paperwork is even submitted for endorsement.
Two things make it safe:
Ask your vet to submit through VEHCS, APHIS's electronic system for issuing and endorsing export health certificates. It is the fastest route, and a paper-only submission adds mailing time in both directions on top of the review itself.
Confirm with your vet, at the appointment, on what day they will submit — not just that they will. The common failure is not a slow USDA; it is a certificate sitting on a desk between the appointment and the submission.
If you are flying somewhere that endorses electronically and your itinerary connects overnight, remember your ARRIVAL date is what the border reads. A flight leaving on the last valid day can land on the first invalid one.
Work backwards from the border, not forwards from the flight. Almost every pet-travel disaster is a timing failure, not a paperwork one.
The order that actually governs the trip is: microchip first, then rabies vaccination, then any blood test the destination requires, then the health certificate, then the flight. Each step is only valid if the one before it already happened — a rabies shot given before the microchip does not count for most countries, and a titre drawn before the vaccination is worthless. IATA's own pre-booking checklist asks the same questions in the same order: where is the pet going, is the journey being broken, what size is the animal, and what container does it need.
Three things to settle in week one, because they have the longest lead times. The destination's rules, which decide everything else. Whether your pet can fly in the cabin or must go in the hold — IATA notes that only small dogs and cats can go in the cabin, and that some airlines will not allow even those. And whether an appointment with an official, government-endorsed vet is available when you need it, which in some countries is weeks out.
Buy the crate early rather than last, both because it has to match the airline's size formula and because the animal needs time to live in it. IATA is direct that animals "behave perfectly fine when accustomed to the kennel or crate they are transported in", and calls that the responsibility most often overlooked.
Then book the flight. Doing it in the other order is how people end up moving a date they already paid for.
Which rules apply depends on two things: whether your dog has been in a high-risk country for dog rabies in the last six months, and where it was vaccinated.
Every dog entering or returning to the US needs a CDC Dog Import Form receipt, must appear healthy on arrival, must have a microchip, and must be at least six months old. A dog that has been only in rabies-free or low-risk countries for the last six months needs nothing beyond that, and may enter at any port — airport, seaport or land border.
A dog that has been in any high-risk country in the last six months splits two ways.
With a valid Certification of U.S.-issued Rabies Vaccination form endorsed by USDA, it may still enter at any port of entry. The port has to match the one on the Dog Import Form receipt.
With a Certification of Foreign Rabies Vaccination and Microchip instead, it may only enter at a US airport that has a CDC-registered animal care facility, and it needs a reservation there. A land border crossing is not available to a foreign-vaccinated dog that has been in a high-risk country. A foreign-vaccinated dog without a valid rabies serology titer faces a 28-day quarantine, which CDC will shorten only in defined circumstances — and not for a dog imported for rescue, resale, adoption or transfer of ownership.
The practical consequence is that the US-issued vaccination certificate is worth arranging before you leave, because it is what keeps every port of entry open and keeps the quarantine question from arising at all.
A layover is an airline question before it is a border question, and the two get confused constantly.
If you stay airside and do not clear customs, you are not importing your pet into the transit country, so its import rules generally do not apply. What does apply is the airline's own procedure. IATA's guidance treats a break in the journey as a planning decision you make before booking — "do you intend to break the journey, or stopover at an intermediate station?" sits in its own pre-booking checklist, alongside the destination and the container.
What actually goes wrong at a layover is handling, not paperwork. IATA notes that airlines "have specific procedures in place for the acceptance, handling and delivery of your animal" and that "the environmental needs of the animals are duly considered during loading, off-loading or at a transit stop" — which is precisely the moment your pet is off the aircraft and out of cabin air. A long stop in a hot climate is more exposure than either flight around it.
Three things to settle with the airline, by name, before you book: whether the animal stays with you or goes to the hold for the second leg, whether a single booking covers both legs (two separate tickets means nobody owns the transfer), and what happens to your pet if the first leg is delayed and the connection is missed.
If you must change airline or terminal at the stop, treat that as a different and much harder trip — and get the answer in writing.
Most of what determines how a long flight goes is decided weeks before it, on the ground.
IATA's own recommendations are unglamorous and specific. Reduce the quantity of food the day before, but give the animal enough water. Walk your dog before leaving for the airport, and again before check-in. Give a light meal about two hours before handing the animal over — in the United States that is not just advice, it is a legal requirement.
The crate is the other half, and it is a habituation problem rather than an equipment one. IATA is blunt about it: animals "behave perfectly fine when accustomed to the kennel or crate they are transported in", and calls this the responsibility that is most often overlooked. A crate a dog met for the first time at the airport is a different experience from one it has been sleeping in for a month.
Identification matters more on a long routing than a short one, because there are more points at which an animal can be separated from its paperwork. IATA recommends a microchip plus two pieces of identification affixed to the collar, one of them permanent.
What none of this fixes is heat, and heat is the risk that actually kills. Choose the coolest flight rather than the most convenient one, prefer a direct routing, and treat a long stop in a hot climate as the most dangerous part of the trip rather than the dullest.
Whether two animals may share one crate is a rule, not a preference, and it turns on weight and relationship.
IATA's guidance: a maximum of two adult animals of comparable size, up to 14 kg each, that are compatible in size and used to cohabiting, may travel in the same container. Anything over 14 kg is crated individually. Weaned puppies or kittens may travel together if they are from the same litter, no older than six months, no more than 14 kg each, and no more than three per container.
Two cautions that matter more than the arithmetic. IATA notes that animals which share the same household may still become stressed and aggressive towards each other when flying — cohabiting at home does not predict cohabiting in a hold. And some national regulations require cats and dogs to be crated individually regardless, unless the consignment is a litter over eight weeks travelling with its mother.
So the safe default for two adult pets is two crates. If you want them together, confirm it with the airline for your specific route before you buy a crate, because the destination's own rule can override the general one.
The answer splits by route, and the split catches almost everybody out, because the one train people picture is the one that says no.
Eurostar's own policy: "Pets are not allowed on trains to and from London, between Brussels or the Netherlands and Lille, or on our Eurostar Sun and Snow routes." So the London–Paris and London–Brussels services — the reason most people ask — do not carry pets at all.
On the rest of the network they do, and cheaply: "Pets are welcome on all our other routes between Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands." A pet under 6 kg travels free provided it is in a carrier no larger than 45 x 30 x 25 cm. A larger dog that will not fit in a carrier needs a ticket at Eurostar's dog fare, a single price of 30 euros.
Assistance animals are a separate rule and are not covered by that ban. Guide and assistance dogs and assistance cats may travel between London St Pancras and Paris, Brussels, Lille, Amsterdam and Rotterdam; Eurostar books a spare seat beside you so the animal has room, with a maximum of four assistance animals per train in total. Between France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany they travel free and need no documentation.
Two things follow. If you are crossing the Channel with a pet, the train is not your route and you need to plan a different crossing. If you are moving between continental cities, the train may well be the cheapest and least stressful leg of the whole journey — and it is one many people never think to price.
The short answer is: talk to your vet first, and expect the answer to be no.
The AVMA's guidance is direct — "Consult your veterinarian before giving your pet any tranquilizers or sedatives. These can increase the risk of heart or respiratory problems and generally are not allowed by airlines." Both halves matter. The medical objection is that sedation depresses breathing and blood pressure in an animal that will spend hours unattended, and the practical one is that a visibly sedated animal can be refused at check-in, which turns a calming decision into a cancelled trip.
The instinct behind the question is usually right even when the answer is not. An anxious dog in a crate is a real problem, and the alternatives are unglamorous: crate acclimatisation over weeks rather than days, a garment or pheromone product, an item that smells of home, and a flight time chosen for temperature rather than convenience.
For a flat-faced breed the calculation is worse rather than better. The AVMA notes that brachycephalic pets "are more at risk than others of overheating or breathing problems during travel — especially air travel", so anything that further depresses breathing compounds the risk it was meant to relieve.
If your vet does prescribe something, get it in writing, tell the airline in advance, and ask specifically what to do if the flight is delayed on the ground.
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