Veterinary Certificate or EU Pet Passport

Veterinary Certificate

• You require a veterinary certificate for pets (form E9.207).
• The certificate must be filled out by an “official veterinarian”, which is to say a state-certified veterinarian who is qualified to issue export certificates.
• If the country lacks official veterinarians, you must instead use a certified veterinarian and then get the certificate stamped by that country’s central veterinary authority. Contact the authority in the country from which you will be travelling in good time, and ask for written information about how you should go about doing this.
• In order for the veterinarian to complete the veterinary certificate, you must present certain certificates. This includes certificates regarding ID marking/microchipping, rabies vaccination, blood tests for rabies antibodies (from certain countries) and a pet owner’s declaration. These papers must then be attached to the veterinary certificate, forming a single booklet. All pages must be numbered (for example, 1 (6) to indicate page one of a total of six pages) and the reference number displayed on the upper right of the veterinary certificate must be written on each page. Finally, the veterinarian must stamp and sign all the pages.
• Once the certificate has been stamped by the official veterinarian or by the central veterinary authority of the country from which you are travelling, you have ten days to travel with your animal to an EU Entry Point.
  
• The veterinary certificate is valid for travel within the EU for up to four months from the date of the animal’s entry into the EU, or until the rabies vaccination indicated in the certificate expires (whichever occurs first).

EU Pet Passport

• If you are returning to the EU with an animal that already possesses an EU pet passport with a valid rabies vaccine as well as an approved blood test result (from certain countries), then you do not require a veterinary certificate.
• If the vaccination in the EU pet passport expires while you and your animal are abroad, you must instead use a veterinary certificate upon entry, because veterinarians practising outside the EU are not permitted to record information in the EU pet passport.