Domestic Health Certificates
Are you traveling domestically within the USA? As a federally accredited veterinarian practice, we can issue travel certificates for your healthy pet so they can travel with you.
Overview
If you are planning on traveling by plane, boat, or car with your pet to another state, your pet may require a domestic health certificate.
As a federally accredited veterinarian practice, we can issue travel health certificates (Certificate of Veterinary Inspection) for your healthy cat, dog, or other animal so that they may travel with you.
Why does my pet need a certificate to travel?
Health certificates are federal documents that indicate your pet is healthy to travel and won’t pose a health risk to other pets or people.
Animal health requirements may differ state to state; even airlines may have their own pet travel requirements. Check with your airline and the states you’re traveling to see if they require a health certificate. We highly recommend checking:
USDA | APHIS United States Department of Agriculture
When should I start the process?
Since animal health requirements may differ between states and airlines, we encourage you to contact our accredited veterinary practice to obtain a health certificate as soon as your travel dates are solidified.
Certificates must be issued within 10 days of travel. It is important to note that a pet must be at least eight weeks old and fully weaned before traveling. Again, we highly recommend looking at the APHIS website for specific information. The process should be started early to allow time for meeting requirements.
How can I obtain a domestic health certificate?
First, check with your airline and destination states to see if a travel health certificate is required.
If a certificate is required, your pet must have a passing health exam and up to date rabies vaccinations to travel. If all of these requirements are met, we will issue a travel certificate for your pet.
We will work with you to determine your needs, based on your travel destination. Since requirements differ by each state and airline, we encourage you to gather information as early as possible.
We will perform a health exam to determine if your pet has any sign of disease or health risks that could pass along to others while traveling. We will also ensure that your pet has all required vaccinations to travel. Once all requirements are met, we will issue a certificate indicating that your pet has been cleared to travel.
Thank you for choosing SouthCare Animal Medical Center as your USDA APHIS accredited veterinary facility. Moving or traveling with your pet can be complex as well as stressful and there may be animal health requirements specific for your destination. Our travel specialist can help you make sure that your pet meets the governmental regulatory demands that are constantly changing to travel internationally.
Factors to consider may include meeting the rigorous time frames for obtaining a health certificate, updating vaccinations, diagnostic testing, or administration of medications and treatments. For this reason, we request that you work closely with us during this important process. You may be required to attend up to 2 thirty-minute sessions with our specialist prior to your pet's visit to review the required steps, verify the accuracy of the documents involved and obtain all the information needed. Please see below the elements that you and the travel specialist will be reviewing during each consultation:
First Travel Specialist Consultation (Consultation Fee $73.10)
Explain the process of taking pets outside of the United States
Collect previous medical records
Review Details of Trip (Departure, Destinations, Requirements)
Examine Printed Health Certificate for the specific destination
Discuss Medical Requirements for Travel to specific destinations and schedule appointments if needed.
Provide USDA Checklist
Obtain information from airline to determine what requirements they may have, if any.
Review the USDA endorsement process for certification of prepared documents and fees (at least $38.00 per pet depending on if testing is needed in addition to endorsement).
Review the process of mailing the health certificate and documents via FEDEX to the USDA office at pet owner's expense. (For in-person certificate endorsement an appointment is required)
