This post will focus on how to import a dog to Spain without an EU pet passport. If you have an up to date EU pet passport, it’s very easy to enter Spain. However, when you live outside of the EU or your most recent rabies vaccine was not done in EU, you may not have a valid EU pet passport. Only EU vets can enter rabies vaccines into an EU pet passport. Whilst I do have an EU pet passport, my last rabies vaccine was done in Thailand, so the EU pet passport was no longer valid.
The Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentacion (MAPA) website has a lot of useful information about travelling to & from Spain. It splits the information into sections depending on where you are coming from or where you are going.
Requirements
The website states, ‘In those cases where there is no European pet passport, the animals must be accompanied by;
– An animal health certificate, which must be signed by an official veterinarian of the third country, and presented at least in Spanish;
– and a declaration, both in accordance with EU models, and
– Certified copy (see FAQs) of the identification and vaccination data of the animal/animals.’
In order to qualify for entry the pet must;
– Be identified with a microchip, or tattoo (if done before 03/07/2011)
– Be vaccinated against rabies with a valid vaccine at the time of travel.
– If you come from a country not listed in Annex II to Regulation 577/2013, the pet must have undergone a serological test for rabies (see paragraph 4) in an approved laboratory.
Our first issue was that, living in Japan, the Government vet at the airport provides the health certificate. They confirmed they would not be able to complete the form in Spanish. In the end, I realised there wasn’t much that needed translating. So I simply used Google translate on the areas that could be translated.
I sent this to animal quarantine in Spain, who confirmed it was OK and the Government Vet in Japan confirmed they were happy to sign this, after the approval from the Spanish equivalent that the contents were fine.
Model certificate and declaration in Spanish/English:
This is the link to the blank certificate & declaration that you need to complete : Model of certificate (Valid from 01/11/2019).
Another snag was that they ask for the batch number of the vaccine to be included in the health certificate. Japan Government Vet would not include the batch number of the vaccine in the health certificate, since it was not included in our import documents when we arrived into Japan. The only way they would include a batch number was if we revaccinated in Japan. Which we didn’t want to do as I still had 3 months left until my next vaccine due date.
A quick e-mail to Madrid quarantine, and they confirmed as long as we carried our original vet certificate with the sticker & batch number on, this would be OK.
Certified copy of the identification and vaccination data of the animal/animals
The final snag we hit was getting a certified copy of the vaccines & ID details. Japan Government vet would not certify the vaccine certificate since my last rabies vaccine was done in Thailand. Even though they accepted this was a valid vaccine since they let me in the country with it, they would not certify it.
Again, I e-mailed the animal quarantine in Madrid. They were always super helpful. They confirmed that as long as I was travelling with the original vaccine book, then I didn’t need a certified copy. I always thought you had to travel with the originals to be honest. So I was surprised when they said many people don’t, hence the requirement for the certified copy.
So with that, we were good to go. We got the health certificate done by the Japan Government Vet a couple of days before our flight and sent it to Madrid to confirm everything was fine before our flight. We were given the green light and we were good to fly.
Arrival in Spain
We arrived into Madrid airport and after collecting our bags we headed to customs. There was no special animal section like there is in Asian airports. Instead it was just normal customs. They took our papers, and quickly checked through them. They handed over the microchip scanner to read the microchip and then they passed the papers all back to us and said we were free to go. There was nothing to pay.
It is worth noting that if you plan to move around Europe, you need them to stamp the health certificate confirming the documents were checked on arrival. They didn’t do this as standard for us, we had to ask. So make sure you remember this. If you don’t have this stamped, you could get stopped when moving through EU as it may look like your papers weren’t checked upon arrival.
We are now free to enjoy our time in Spain with lots of paella and Sangria!
We’ve travelled to many countries now so have lots of experience in importing and exporting to and from various countries. If you are planning on doing more travel, check out my import/export page for more handy tips.
Woof woof, Wylie x
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