Pick a route and see, in one screen, exactly what your dog or cat needs to leave or enter the UAE — the permits, the vaccines, the rabies titer wait, the quarantine, the crate rules. Built by ISS Relocations from the destination countries' own official guidance, so you can plan a real timeline instead of guessing one.
Every destination layers its own rules on top of this same eight-step backbone. Knowing the backbone first makes the country-specific checklist above much easier to read.
Work backwards from the travel date. If your destination needs a rabies antibody titre test (FAVN/RNATT), this single step decides your whole timeline — it can add three to seven months, so it has to be identified in week one, not week ten.
An ISO 11784/11785 microchip must be scanned and recorded before the rabies vaccine is given. Vaccinating first invalidates the shot for export purposes in almost every country on this checker.
Blood is drawn at least 30 days after vaccination and sent to an approved laboratory. Most destinations then impose their own separate waiting period counted from the sample date — not the result date.
Apply through the UAE Ministry of Climate Change & Environment two to three weeks before travel for an export permit, or before booking for an import permit. Destination-side permits (USDA, DAFF/BICON, DGFT) are applied for separately and in parallel.
Issued by an accredited vet, typically within 10 days of departure, and endorsed by the exporting country's competent authority. Book this appointment last, once every other requirement is already met.
An IATA-compliant crate, sized correctly and introduced to the pet weeks in advance so travel day isn't the first time they've been inside it.
Pets leaving or entering the UAE travel as manifested cargo, not checked baggage or cabin (service dogs excepted). Gulf summer heat routinely triggers airline live-animal embargoes — flexibility on dates between roughly April and September helps.
Where quarantine applies, it is fixed by the destination regardless of how well-prepared the paperwork is — it is a function of the country's rabies-risk classification of the UAE, not of ISS's or your preparation.
Every route on this checker requires an IATA-compliant travel crate. The standard is the same worldwide; only individual airlines' extra margins and breed embargoes change route to route.
The sizing test IATA actually applies isn't a formula — it's whether the animal can stand at full height, turn a full circle, and lie flat. The "+10cm to nose-to-tail length" rule of thumb is a shortcut for that test, and airlines may ask for more.
A rabies antibody titre test — called FAVN in most of the world and RNATT in Australia and New Zealand's paperwork — is a blood test proving a pet's rabies vaccination actually produced immunity, not just proof that a vaccine was administered. It's required whenever the UAE is treated as a rabies-elevated-risk origin by the destination, which today includes the United States, mainland EU countries, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and, in most cases, South Africa.
The test itself is quick; the waiting periods around it are what stretch a relocation timeline. Blood is drawn no sooner than 30 days after vaccination and sent to an approved laboratory — CDC-approved for the US, an EU-approved lab for the UK/EU/Ireland, a WOAH reference lab for Singapore. Most destinations then impose a further wait measured from the sample date: three months for the UK, EU and Ireland; effectively six months (180 days of residency counted from the sample's lab arrival) for Australia. Start this test too late and no amount of urgency fixes it — the calendar is the constraint, not the paperwork.
ISS Relocations' pet desk runs the exact-date version of this checklist for your route, books the crate, and handles the MOCCAE and airline paperwork end to end.
Every requirement above is drawn from the destination's own government authority or civil aviation/IATA guidance, checked in September 2026. Rules on this page change without notice on the government side — this tool is a planning aid, not a substitute for confirming your specific case with the authority or airline before you book travel or a flight date.