Pet passport vs AHC

sydnsue

sydnsue

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I see many people are getting EU pet passports while in EU to avoid the need for an AHC next time they travel, but surely an AHC is still required according to the regulations. Here is an extract from the regs:

"With a few exceptions, your pet can travel with you to another EU country or from a non-EU country to an EU country if it has:
  • a valid European pet passport, when travelling from an EU country or Northern Ireland to another EU country or Northern Ireland or an EU animal health certificate, when travelling from a non-EU country."
Surely as the UK is a non-EU country, we still need the AHC.
 
My sister has 3 dogs and all of them now have E.U. passports and that is all she needs to travel with them to their place in France via MH. No ahc required
 
SimonM said:
My sister has 3 dogs and all of them now have E.U. passports and that is all she needs to travel with them to their place in France via MH. No ahc required
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That’s key I think, an address in the issuing country? We went Monday to local vet to sort out EU pooch passport, we actually should have done this in our arrival, as a new passport can take time to be issued. Will be sorted on our next trip over.
 
The DEFRA site says -

You can only use a pet passport if the country you’re travelling to accepts passports for pets coming from Great Britain. The passport must have been issued in one of the following places:

Then it lists more.

Two things.

First, a lot of animals have already been imported from the EU and have EU passports.

Second, the passport is not evidence of nationality, residence or citizenship. It is purely a record of rabies vaccination linked to the dog's chip for identity.
 
We have just been to the vet to get her rabies jabbed. I asked him about this and he stated that an AHC is definitely required every time.
 
That's partly true, probably to the extent of his knowledge. Without an EU Pet Passport (which you can't get on mainland UK) you would need an AHC for each trip.

But for anyone who is able to get an EU Pet Passport, these are being accepted for travel (subject of course to them having been completed correctly).

They are harder to get in some countries than others but that's due to microchip registration rather than the passport itself.
 
runnach said:
an address in the issuing country?
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Sort of. France for example requires the chip to be registered to a French address, and the dog to be resident there for (I can't remember how many) months per year. That's about the chip rather than the passport, but it's a necessary part of the whole process so ends up at the same stumbling block.

Some other countries don't need that.
 
I paid the equivalent of £41.65 for a 3 year rabies booster and passport in April.

That leads me to an important point - subsequent rabies boosters can only be recorded in the PP by an EU vet, otherwise its invalidated. Some vets (especially further south) only do yearly rabies vaccines. So it's worth trying to get a 3 year one unless you holiday at the same time every year.
 
Jo001 said:
Sort of. France for example requires the chip to be registered to a French address, and the dog to be resident there for (I can't remember how many) months per year. That's about the chip rather than the passport, but it's a necessary part of the whole process so ends up at the same stumbling block.

Some other countries don't need that.
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When we visited local vet, she explained the process, they, the vet, do the relevant paperwork, which is then sent elsewhere for registration. She says this what takes the time, not the vet part.

She said when the initial changes came around, it was a paper nightmare, but much slicker now. And of course, when new passport is issued, makes sure there are no errors, as she said, some folks could not return home, or return home without their pet due error/s within new passport.
 
Drover said:
Sorry , your vet is wrong. If you have a EU issued up to date pet passport you dont need anything else to leave the UK.
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When all this nonsense started I made enquiries with more than one vet .
Basically they were either ignorant of the procedures or wilfully handing out wrong information .
I'd like to think the former .
Many (most ?) vets don't have a lot of experience with animals going abroad. Tedious amount of paperwork but at (in many cases) £250 a pop not a bad little earner
 
The clue is or, surely, in the regs shown earlier!!?
 
sydnsue said:
I see many people are getting EU pet passports while in EU to avoid the need for an AHC next time they travel, but surely an AHC is still required according to the regulations. Here is an extract from the regs:

"With a few exceptions, your pet can travel with you to another EU country or from a non-EU country to an EU country if it has:
  • a valid European pet passport, when travelling from an EU country or Northern Ireland to another EU country or Northern Ireland or an EU animal health certificate, when travelling from a non-EU country."
Surely as the UK is a non-EU country, we still need the AHC.
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The regs are all in relation to the UK. Travel back and forth with our dogs regularly and rescue dogs who are being removed in uk ... all on Greek pet passports. Interestingly, a French vet said on 19.06 when we crossed with 4 dogs, that the AHC takes longer for them for worming record.

Just waiting for 2 rescue dogs to be dropped off that I'm driving back from Crete ... will go through passports with an eagle eye to make sure all correct.
 
We obtained EU passports earlier this year via a friend in Spain. They were all completed correctly but no address details were filled in. On the way home, we stopped at a French vet for the pre-UK examination and worming. She said that the passports were all in order but noted that there was no address in them. She said that this wasn't mandatory but suggested that it might avoid any future concerns if we did put something in there. We came back into the UK without address entries and had no issues.
We've subsequently been abroad again solely using the Spanish passports and again, there were no issues in either direction.
So, in conclusion, you definitely don't need and AHC if you have an EU passport.

(PS. Our Spanish friend has agreed that we can use his address, so these have now been added!)
 
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