To export a dog from South Korea isn’t the easiest of tasks. It was pretty hard to find out any information regarding this online. I did manage to find an e-mail address for the quarantine section at Incheon airport. However, they only dealt with the import of dogs. They passed me to the baggage department at Incheon. But they just sent me a generic copy and paste of information which didn’t really tell me a lot.
I joined a well known travel with pets Facebook page for Korea. But that was also quite fruitless. They just wanted to sell you their packages to pay them to answer basic questions.
As we were going to Japan, we knew we needed to fill in form RE (the re entry form) or AC (if you are travelling there for the first time). This had to be done by a normal vet and then endorsed by Government agency vet. But I’d also briefly heard about a health certificate required to leave the country too. Eventually I found this page which seemed to have all of the information on.
The contact numbers required are – Export inquiries 032-740-2660~1 & Import related inquiries 032-740-2671.
I e-mailed about 15 vets and all said they couldn’t do either form. We were beginning to lose hope. I finally found 2 vets who said they could do both forms. One said they’d charge 100,000 kwn (US$115) and the other said 200,000 kwn (US$155). Neither were particularly convenient to where I was staying and would involve a 1.5 hour each way journey. However, when I arrived in Korea and tried to contact them to make an appointment, both stopped replying to me. Uh oh! To be honest I was beginning to lose hope of what we were going to do.
Bundang Vet
We spent our first week in Bundang, around Jeong-ja area and one afternoon we walked past The Class Animal Center. We told the receptionist what we were after (thanks Google translate!) and she went to get a vet who came out to see us. He spoke great English thankfully. He asked us exactly what we needed as he hadn’t done an animal export before.
We showed him the page we found with the information on (which I linked above) from the QIA website. he said he would give them a call and see if he could provide me with what I needed. We waited for quite some time but he came back and said they had given him all the information he needed (including what I needed to enter Japan). They had also sent him the health certificate form that he would need to fill out in order for us to get an export permit to leave South Korea. Thank goodness!!!
We made an appointment to go back later that day with all our papers (rabies vaccines, titer test results, import permit from Japan and form RE for Japan) & Wylie.
When we went back they took Wylie away for his inspection and took all the documents from us. It took absolutely ages. I had already pre filled in all of the information on the RE form for Japan so that just needed a signature.
Eventually the vet came back with both from RE signed and a health certificate. He asked us to carefully check the information. Unfortunately he had spelt my name wrong. We knew it had to match exactly my passport so he had to go away and do it again. As we were already running late, we said we would come back the next day to collect.
When we collected the next day may name was still spelt wrong 🙁 So we had to wait for another 30 minutes or so for it to be corrected. It is vitally important that all information matches exactly what is on your documents.
Rabies Vaccines & Titer Test
As our rabies vaccines and titer test were not done in South Korea, the vet was not allowed to enter the details onto the health certificate. As he couldn’t verify their authenticity. So on the health certificate the only information was Wylie’s basics (name, breed, date of birth, microchip number) and confirmation that he was deemed fit to fly and free of disease.
However, for the export certificate at the airport, you need to take with you your rabies vaccine certificate and titer test results. I find it a bit strange that you need to prove rabies vaccine & titer test to leave, since I didn’t need either of those to enter (since I came from Japan). But we had them so it wasn’t a problem.
I was a bit worried as the last rabies vaccine was in Japanese and not signed by the vet (only stamped). But this didn’t cause any issue. The main thing they want to see is that they are originals of the documents.
Export Certificate
On the day of our flight we headed to the airport early. Our flight was at 3pm but we arrived at Incheon at around 11am. The quarantine section for exports is only open from 9am – 6pm and has a 1 hour lunch break from 12pm – 1pm. So we wanted to make sure we didn’t get caught over lunch.
We went to terminal 1 and it was really easy to find. There’s a map on the Incheon airport website;
We handed over all of the documents we had to the inspector;
- Health certificate from Bundang vet
- Form RE signed by Bundang vet
- Rabies vaccine booklet
- Original titer test result
- Import permit from Japan
There was no one else waiting so we got seen straight away. We had to pay a fee of 10,000 KWN (US$8) before he would do anything and this had to be paid by credit card. He took the papers and spent about 15 minutes inputting the information into the system. He then handed us an export certificate for us to check the details on. Once we confirmed everything was OK he printed off the official one and gave us an original and a copy to give to the check in agent. Then we were free to go check in. The whole process took about 30 minutes so we had plenty of time to spare before we could check in.
Conclusion
Thankfully all went smoothly and we made it back to Japan in one piece. If you want to see how to import a dog to Japan, come check out my import page here.
If you’ve got any experience to export a dog from South Korea let me know in the comments below. Maybe you have a good vet who can do the paperwork you can recommend?
The information contained in this post is my personal experience and may differ depending on your circumstances and where you are flying to. It’s always best to check directly with the government authorities before flying. Both in the departure and destination countries. They are the only ones who will be able to give you 100% accurate information based on your individual circumstances.
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Woof woof, Wylie x