Bringing your dog or cat to Mexico.

Mexico is refreshingly light on entry rules. Since 16 December 2019, a health certificate is no longer required for dogs and cats traveling from the US. You take your pet to the border or airport, and officials from SENASICA, Mexico's agricultural health authority, carry out a physical inspection at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Office (known by its Spanish initials, OISA).

At that inspection they confirm three things: your pet shows no signs of infectious or contagious disease, it is free of external parasites such as fleas and ticks, and it has no fresh or healing wounds. If parasites are found, you will need to have them treated at your own cost before the pet is released. There is no quarantine and no waiting period for a healthy animal that passes inspection.

Mexico does not require you to present a rabies certificate or vaccination record to SENASICA for a US-origin pet. In practice, though, you should travel with a current rabies vaccination certificate and a record of recent internal and external parasite treatment. Airlines almost always ask for proof of rabies vaccination before they will board your pet, and having clean records on hand makes the SENASICA inspection faster. Treat these as things you will want in your folder, not optional extras.

A few practical limits: the simple personal-pet process covers up to three animals per person. Bring more and Mexican customs may treat it as a commercial shipment with extra rules. Your pet's carrier must arrive clean, with no bedding, toys, or edible products inside, as officials may require these be removed and destroyed. Only the food needed for the day of arrival is allowed.

Land crossings are common and simple, especially for people driving into Baja California, Sonora, or other northern states. The SENASICA inspection is the same at a land border as at an airport, and driving avoids airline cargo fees and crate rules entirely, which is why the all-in cost can be as low as a couple hundred dollars.

Flying adds cost and logistics. Pets too large for the cabin fly as cargo, which is the single biggest expense on this route and pushes a fly-in move well above the drive-in figure. Check your airline's specific pet policy early, since cabin size limits, cargo booking windows, and seasonal embargoes vary by carrier.

No insurance product reimburses quarantine boarding anywhere, so if you later move on to a destination that requires it, budget that as an out-of-pocket cost. Nationwide is the one US pet insurer that reimburses vet care at any licensed vet worldwide, and even it excludes boarding.

US pet insurance is written around a pet that lives in the US. Most policies carry a policy territory, typically the US and sometimes Canada or Puerto Rico, and even the ones that reimburse vet care worldwide generally require your primary residence to stay in the US. So a policy may well pay a vet bill on a trip abroad and still lapse the day the move becomes permanent. Read your own policy's territory and residency wording before you assume it travels with you, and for a permanent move plan on taking out local pet insurance in your new country.

As a rough sanity check on any quote, and this is our read of current market pricing rather than an official figure: a standard international pet move tends to run about $1,500 to $6,000. Full-service door-to-door typically costs 30 to 50 percent more than a transport-only booking where you handle the vet work and paperwork yourself.

The costs people forget are the small ones. USDA APHIS charges a user fee to endorse an export health certificate, currently $101 where no test verification is needed, $160 for a certificate covering one or two tests, and $206 for three to six tests, with rabies vaccination not counted in that tally. These rates rose on 10 January 2025, the first APHIS fee adjustment since 2012. Add an airline-compliant crate (roughly $50 to $400), the travel vet visits themselves, boarding on a layover, and summer heat surcharges.

Pet shipping attracts scammers, so verify any company before you send money. IPATA, the International Pet and Animal Transportation Association, is a trade association: its members ship under their own company names, IPATA itself does not ship pets, and there is no legitimate shipper with "ipata" in its name. Scammers clone real shippers' sites, logos and testimonials, so check the company in the member directory at ipata.org rather than trusting a logo on a website. Treat these as red flags: a quote dramatically below every other quote, a domain registered less than six months ago, email coming from a gmail address rather than the company domain, and any request to pay by Western Union or MoneyGram.

This is the part that surprises people. Entering Mexico is easy, but bringing a dog back to the US has become the harder leg. As of 22 November 2024, Mexico is considered affected by New World screwworm, so every dog entering or re-entering the US after time in Mexico must meet APHIS screwworm-freedom certification requirements. That is on top of the standard CDC rules for dogs: a completed CDC Dog Import Form, a microchip readable by a universal scanner, a minimum age of 6 months, and a healthy appearance on arrival.

Because Mexico is not high-risk for dog rabies, US-vaccinated dogs returning from Mexico avoid the strictest CDC titer-and-quarantine path, and the CDC form receipt can cover multiple entries for up to 6 months as long as the pet stays within the US, Mexico, and Canada. Cats have it far easier in both directions: no CDC import form, no microchip mandate, and no screwworm certificate. If you are moving a dog, plan the screwworm certification before you travel home, not at the border. Our guide to bringing a dog into the US covers the return in detail, and for how Mexico compares with other destinations on effort and cost, see traveling with a pet.

If you are taking a pet to Mexico for a trip rather than moving for good, the expensive surprise is a vet bill abroad. Faye sells travel insurance with an optional pet add-on that covers veterinary fees for a pet travelling with you, plus some kennel costs if your own return is delayed. Be clear on what it is not: it is a travel policy, so it does not cover a permanent relocation, loss or injury during pet shipping, or quarantine fees. Nothing on the market covers mandatory quarantine.

Common questions

Quick answers.

More on Mexico

The little money things nobody warns you about.

• Do I need the FMM tourist card for Mexico, and what is Visitax?Short answer: if you fly in, the tourist card is already in your ticket, so you do nothing separate. The one fee that is genuinely on you is Visitax, but only if you are headed to Cancun or the Riviera Maya. Here is what you actually owe.
• Do I need cash in Mexico, or can I use cards?Short answer: cards for the big things, pesos for the small ones. The mistake that costs tourists most is paying in dollars instead of pesos. Here is how to pay well and get cash safely.
• Uber and DiDi in Mexico, and the Cancun airport catchIn most of Mexico an app makes the whole thing easy, but the airports are where it gets complicated, and Cancun is its own world. Here is which app to install, what the Mexico City airport rules actually are, and how to leave Cancun airport without getting stung.
• Tipping in MexicoMexico has a genuine tipping culture, la propina, and it works a lot like home but with a few important differences: the amounts are a little lower, cash in pesos is strongly preferred, and tourist resorts sometimes slip a service charge onto the bill before you add one yourself.
• What does seeing a doctor cost in Mexico?Good news for the small stuff: routine care in Mexico is fast, walk-in, and inexpensive, often just a few dollars. The part worth planning for is the rare, expensive emergency, where a private hospital asks for a deposit before it will treat you.
• What does renting a car in Mexico really cost?Booking a car in Mexico is where a great-looking rate turns into a surprise at the counter. The reason is one mandatory insurance that almost never shows up in the online price, and that your US coverage does not satisfy.
• What do attractions really cost in Mexico?Two things catch visitors out at Mexico's big attractions: the headline sites often charge more than one fee at more than one window, and almost everything wants pesos in cash. Here is what the gate actually costs.
• When is Mexico cheapest, and when do prices spike?The same hotel in Cancun can cost twice as much in January as in June. When you go changes the price more than almost anything else, so here is the calendar in money terms, including one domestic surge most foreign visitors never see coming.
• What does an all-inclusive really cost in Mexico?All-inclusive covers the basics well, but it is not everything, and a few costs are added at the front desk rather than shown when you book. Here is what the package leaves out, so the final bill does not surprise you.
• Common money scams in Mexico, and what they cost youMexico is safe for the great majority of visitors, and almost none of this is dramatic. These are ordinary money traps, overcharges and pressure tactics aimed at tourists, and a few simple habits defuse nearly all of them. Here is each one, what it costs, and how to sidestep it.