Bringing your dog or cat to South Korea.

Unlike Hong Kong or Taiwan, South Korea does not make you obtain an import permit before you travel with a personal pet. Advance notification to the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (APQA) applies only if you are bringing a large number of animals, not a single dog or cat. That removes the biggest piece of paperwork that other Asian destinations impose.

What Korea does require, because it is not on its own rabies-free list, is a rabies-neutralization antibody titer of at least 0.5 IU/ml for pets 90 days and older, done at an approved laboratory. This is the step that sets your lead time, so plan backward from it. The rest is an ISO-compliant microchip, a current rabies vaccination given before travel, and a health certificate completed by a USDA-accredited vet and endorsed by APHIS within 30 days of export.

Here is the payoff for getting it right. When your pet lands, APQA officers at the quarantine station check four things: the ISO microchip, the rabies vaccination, the titer result, and that every document matches (age, microchip number, and dates consistent across all papers). If everything lines up, pets are typically released the same day. Pets enter through Incheon International Airport, where the APQA stations are.

The flip side is that quarantine in Korea is a consequence of non-compliance, not a default. An undetectable microchip, a titer below the threshold or not done, or inconsistent paperwork can mean your pet is detained at the owner's expense until the requirement is met. There is a provision to complete the microchip or titer after arrival if it could not be done beforehand, but that path means quarantine while it is sorted, so the smart move is to finish the titer well before you fly and make sure every document agrees.

If something in your paperwork slips and your pet is held, no insurance product covers that boarding bill. Not pet health insurance, not travel insurance with a pet add-on, not a shipper's protection plan. Nationwide is the one US pet insurer that reimburses vet care at any licensed vet worldwide, and even it excludes boarding, which is what quarantine is. The cheapest insurance here is getting the documents right.

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.

Budget several thousand dollars all in, with air transport the largest line, plus the titer test and the vet work. Because there is no permit fee and, for a compliant pet, no facility quarantine bill, Korea can come in cheaper than the permit-and-quarantine destinations, provided you avoid the non-compliance trap.

The return leg is easy. A dog flying home to the US from South Korea is on the simplest CDC path: typically a CDC Dog Import Form receipt, a microchip, a minimum age of 6 months, and a healthy appearance, with no titer and no quarantine. Cats have no federal requirement. See our guide to bringing a dog into the US, and traveling with a pet for how South Korea compares with other destinations.

Common questions

Quick answers.

More on South Korea

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• Tipping in South KoreaSouth Korea is not a tipping country. At restaurants, cafes and in taxis, no tip is expected, and trying to leave one may be politely refused. Here is what you actually owe.
• Do US citizens need a K-ETA for South Korea?Short answer: not right now. For US travelers the K-ETA is waived through the end of 2026, but there is a free arrival card you still must file, and the K-ETA comes back in 2027. Here is what you actually need, and when.
• Do I need cash in South Korea, or can I use cards?Short answer: mostly cards, a little cash. Korea runs on plastic, so a Visa or Mastercard covers almost everything, but markets and street food still want won. Here is how to pay, get around, and which apps to skip.