SkipQuarantine
Taking a dog abroad and back
Will your dog be allowed back in to the United States?
Since 2024, every dog entering the US needs CDC paperwork, and one country on the wrong list anywhere in the trip changes everything. Worse, the one document that saves a high-risk itinerary can only be created before you leave. Get the sequencing right and re-entry is a receipt on your phone. Get it wrong and the airline can refuse boarding for home. Dogs only: cats have no CDC re-entry requirements at all, and we say so for free.
Check my dog's trip for freeFull refund if it doesn't help
The wrong sequence
Denied boarding
Or denied entry with return shipment at your expense, or a 28-day facility quarantine that a blood test would have avoided.
The right sequence
Clean re-entry
A free receipt shown twice, the border cleared the day you land, and the dog rides home with you.
How it works
Describe the trip
Departure, return if booked, and every country in between, layovers included. Two minutes, no account.
Learn your regime, free
We check the itinerary against the CDC's published requirements and show exactly which regime applies, what passes, and what's still unverified.
Get the dated plan
Every step dated to your flights, with the before-departure deadline pinned where it belongs. $19, refunded if it doesn't help.
The document you cannot get later
Since July 31, 2025, the Certification of U.S.-issued Rabies Vaccination cannot be created after your dog leaves the country, and a USDA export health certificate no longer substitutes for it. So if there is any chance the trip touches a country on CDC's high-risk rabies list, even as a layover, the certification has to be USDA-endorsed before departure. Skip it and touch that list, and the way home becomes the foreign-vaccinated path: a government-endorsed certification abroad, a titer or a 28-day quarantine, and arrival restricted to a handful of airports. The checker below reads your itinerary and tells you which regime you are in before you book anything.
The deadline for that certification is your outbound flight, which is usually months before the return. This is the rare pet rule where the clock runs out at the start of the trip.
Check your dog's trip against the CDC's rules, free
The two regimes
Which one applies is decided by the countries your dog touches in the 6 months before entry. Layovers count.
| Regime | What re-entry requires | Federal fees |
|---|---|---|
| Low-risk countries only | CDC Dog Import Form receipt, dog at least 6 months old, readable microchip, healthy on arrival. Any airport works. | Free |
| Any high-risk country | All of the above plus vaccination documents: the US-issued certification endorsed before departure, or the foreign path with a government-endorsed certification, a titer from a CDC-approved lab, and a CDC-registered facility reservation at the arrival airport. | $101 USDA endorsement on the US path; facility fees on the foreign path are set by the facility |
Why people trust this
- Every claim cites the CDC and USDA pages it comes from, and the plan links them at each step. When the CDC revises its high-risk country list, which it does without notice, we re-verify and your plan recomputes.
- If we don't know something, we say so. A country we can't place on the list stays flagged until you confirm it against CDC's own page. Nothing gets quietly marked as fine.
- The honest parts stay free: the checker, the regime answer, and the truth about cats, which is that CDC asks nothing of them.
- The plan exists so the sequencing never bites you: the before-departure deadline, the 28-day clocks, the 30-day window on the foreign certification. Email reminders come before each one. If it still fails you, the $19 comes back.
Common questions
What does my dog need to come back into the United States?
Every dog entering or returning to the US needs a CDC Dog Import Form receipt (free, filed online), must be at least 6 months old on the entry date, must have a microchip a universal scanner can read, and must look healthy on arrival. If the dog has been in a country on CDC's high-risk rabies list during the 6 months before entry, a second regime applies with more documents.
Do cats need CDC paperwork to return to the US?
No. CDC has no re-entry requirements for cats: no import form and no rabies proof. Cats are simply looked over on arrival, and a visibly sick cat can be held for examination. The rules worth checking for a cat are your airline's and your destination state's; Hawaii runs its own program. There is nothing here to sell you for a cat, and we'd rather tell you that now.
What changed on July 31, 2025?
Two things. The Certification of U.S.-issued Rabies Vaccination can no longer be created after the dog has left the US, and USDA export health certificates issued after that date no longer substitute for it. A dog that leaves without the certification and then touches a high-risk country is forced onto the foreign-vaccinated path: a government-endorsed certification abroad, a titer or a 28-day quarantine, and arrival restricted to a CDC-registered facility's airport.
Which countries are high-risk for dog rabies?
CDC publishes the list and revises it without notice; over a hundred countries are on it, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Any country missing from the list is low-risk by definition. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the UK, and all EU countries are off the list, which is why most European and Pacific trips stay in the light regime. Layovers count as presence, so check every stop on the routing.
Is the CDC Dog Import Form really free?
Yes. The form is filed online at no charge, the receipt arrives by email, and it covers multiple entries from the same country for 6 months. The airline asks to see the receipt before boarding, and the border asks again on arrival.
What if I don't know my return date yet?
You can still plan, and you should: the highest-stakes deadline hangs on the outbound flight, since the US-vaccination certification must be USDA-endorsed before the dog departs and cannot be created afterward. The plan runs to a placeholder return six months after departure, the life of the import form receipt, and redraws itself the day you log the real date.
Moving abroad first? The other direction has its own rules.
The outbound leg runs on the destination country's rules. Heading to Britain or the EU with a dog or cat, start with our free checklists: moving your pet to the UK and moving your pet to the EU. Both are complete, free, and built from the primary sources.