Bringing your dog or cat to Great Britain.

The two things that decide a UK move with a pet. Lead time is short, often just a few weeks, and it is set almost entirely by the 21-day wait after the rabies shot. If your pet is already microchipped and current on rabies, the paperwork and endorsement can be done in around a month. Cost is moderate but front-loaded by the flight: pets travelling from the US to Britain almost always fly as manifest cargo rather than in the cabin, and that air transport, plus the vet work and the APHIS endorsement, is where the money goes.

There is no rabies blood test on this route, which is exactly why it is so much faster than Japan or Australia. The US is on Britain's list of countries whose pets can enter without a titer or quarantine, provided the steps are done correctly and in order.

Great Britain means England, Scotland and Wales. Do these in sequence; the order is what keeps your pet out of quarantine.

1. Microchip first. Your pet needs an ISO microchip, implanted before, or at the same visit as, the rabies vaccination. A rabies shot given before the chip does not count and has to be redone.
2. Rabies vaccination, then wait 21 full days. After the microchip, your pet gets a rabies shot, and you must wait at least 21 full days after the first vaccination before travelling. This sets the minimum entry age for a puppy at 15 weeks.
3. Tapeworm treatment, dogs only. A vet must treat your dog for tapeworm with a product effective against Echinococcus multilocularis, no less than 24 hours and no more than 120 hours, that is 1 to 5 days, before you arrive in Britain, and record the date and time. Cats do not need this.
4. GB pet health certificate, endorsed by APHIS. A USDA-accredited vet completes the Great Britain pet health certificate close to travel, and USDA APHIS endorses it. Your pet must arrive within 10 days of that endorsement.
5. Travel by an approved route and carrier. Book an approved route into an approved UK airport, where the pet is received; Heathrow has an Animal Reception Centre. On most flights the pet travels as manifest cargo, not in the cabin.

This catches people who expect to fly with a small dog or cat under the seat. Britain does not allow pets to arrive in the aircraft cabin on ordinary commercial flights; they must come in as registered manifest cargo through an approved route, with assistance dogs the main exception. That means an airline-approved crate, a cargo booking, and a handling fee at the animal reception centre, which together are the largest part of the bill.

The upside is that there is no rabies titer, no waiting for lab results, and no quarantine when the paperwork is right. The APHIS endorsement fee itself is modest, since no laboratory test is involved on this route.

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.

The return trip is straightforward. Britain is rabies-free, so a dog flying home from the UK is on the CDC easy path, usually just a free CDC form receipt with no titer and no quarantine. The details are in our guide to bringing a dog into the US.

To see how the UK compares with other destinations on lead time and cost, see traveling with a pet.

If you are taking a pet to United Kingdom 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 United Kingdom

The little money things nobody warns you about.

• Tipping in the UKThe UK tips more than most of Europe but far less than the US. The main thing to watch is the discretionary service charge already on restaurant bills, which is optional. Here is what you actually owe.
• Do US citizens need an ETA for the UK?Short answer: yes, now you do, and it even applies to a layover. The UK ETA is not a visa, and it is quick and cheap, but only from the official source. Here is what it costs and how to get it right.
• Do I need cash in the UK, or can I use cards?Short answer: you can do the whole trip without cash. Contactless runs everything, including all of London's transport, and many places no longer take notes at all. Here is how to pay, and the couple of things to get right.
• Can tourists get a VAT refund in the UK?Short answer: no, not in England, Scotland or Wales. This is the opposite of what most European trips teach you, and it catches shoppers out at Heathrow. Here is what changed, and the only two ways left to shop tax-free.
• Staying connected in the UK.The UK is easy: coverage is excellent almost everywhere, including on the Underground now. The only real decision is how you pay for data, and for most US travelers an eSIM is far cheaper than the carrier day pass. Here is the math.
• London taxis, Uber, and the Heathrow transfer.London gives you real choice: a hailable black cab or a pre-booked Uber. But the money is made or lost on the airport run, where the train quietly beats a cab by fifty pounds or more. Here is how it all compares.