Flying a Pet From Canada to the United States

Flying a pet from Canada to the United States has an easy half and a hard half, and they are not the ones people expect.

The government half is genuinely simple. Canada asks for nothing on the way out. The United States asks for one free online form, a readable microchip and a dog at least six months old. That is the whole federal requirement for an animal that has only been in Canada.

The airline half is where moves come apart. Whether your pet travels in the cabin, in the baggage compartment or as cargo decides the crate, the cost, the season you can fly in, and in one case who is even allowed to make the booking. Those four things are connected, and choosing the flight first is how people end up unpicking all of it.

Start here, because it saves a phone call and an unnecessary vet appointment. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency states it plainly: “The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has no role in the export of dogs and cats to the United States of America (USA).”

No export certificate, no CFIA endorsement, no government fee, no appointment to book. Every requirement on this route belongs either to a United States agency or to the airline.

The CDC rewrote its dog import rules with effect from 1 August 2024, and they sort the world into countries at high risk for dog rabies and everywhere else. Canada is not on the high-risk list, which was last updated in April 2026.

For a dog that has only been in Canada or another rabies-free or low-risk country in the past six months, the CDC is unusually direct: “the only required documentation for dogs entering or returning to the United States that have been only in dog rabies-free or low-risk countries in the past 6 months is the CDC Dog Import Form.”

Alongside the form, three conditions attach to the animal. It must appear healthy on arrival. It must be at least six months old at time of entry. And it must have a microchip that can be detected with a universal scanner.

The form is free, completed online, one per dog. The receipt is valid for that dog to enter the United States multiple times from the same country within six months of issue, and can be printed or shown on a phone.

The six month age minimum is worth stating separately because it has no exception. A puppy under six months does not fly to the United States, whatever the purpose of the trip and whoever is carrying it.

Cats are simpler still. USDA APHIS “does not have any animal health requirements related to bringing (importing) a pet cat into the United States from a foreign country”, and the CDC recommends rabies vaccination for cats without requiring it. A cat is still subject to inspection and can be refused if it shows evidence of a zoonotic disease.

None of that is the airline’s requirement, and the airline can and does ask for more.

The form itself is straightforward. Two of its properties are not obvious, and both matter more to Canadian owners than to anyone else.

The first is useful. On the low-risk route the receipt is valid for six months and can be used for more than one entry, so a dog that crosses regularly does not need a new submission every trip. The condition is the country of departure printed on the receipt. As long as the dog keeps leaving from Canada, one receipt covers the season. Take the same dog on a single trip to France and depart from there, and that receipt no longer describes the journey, so a new one is needed listing France.

The second is the trap, and it turns on a word that reads differently from Ottawa than from Washington. CDC splits dogs into US-vaccinated and foreign-vaccinated, and a rabies vaccine given by a Canadian veterinarian is a foreign vaccination. That makes no difference at all while the dog has only been in Canada and other low-risk countries, which is the ordinary case and stays on the simple route.

It makes a great deal of difference if the dog has been in a country on CDC’s high-risk list at any point in the previous six months. A Canadian dog in that position is a foreign-vaccinated dog from a high-risk country, which is the heaviest of the three routes. It needs a Certification of Foreign Rabies Vaccination and Microchip form endorsed by an official government veterinarian, a valid rabies serology titer from a CDC-approved laboratory, and a reservation at a CDC-registered animal care facility, with the flight booked to arrive at the airport where that facility is. Without a valid titer the reservation has to include a 28 day quarantine.

So the question to answer before booking is not where the dog lives or where it was vaccinated. It is where the dog has physically been in the past six months. A family returning to Canada from a posting and then continuing to the United States within that window is on the high-risk route even though the last leg starts in Toronto.

Our guide to banned and restricted dog breeds by country covers the other rule that can stop a US move before the paperwork starts.

Everything else on this route follows from which of these three your animal fits into.

In the cabin: a cat or small dog in a soft-sided carrier under the seat in front of you. Cheapest by a wide margin, and the animal stays with you. The limit is the carrier, not the animal’s temperament, and it is measured against the underseat space of the specific aircraft.

As checked baggage: a larger animal in a hard-sided kennel, travelling in the hold on the same flight as its owner, checked in at the passenger counter. Available only when you are on the aircraft too.

As cargo: the animal travels as freight, booked separately from any passenger ticket, dropped off and collected at a cargo facility rather than a check-in desk. This is the route for an animal that is too large for the hold as baggage, is travelling without its owner, or is moving on a date the owner is not flying.

Both major Canadian carriers offer all three. Air Canada runs cabin, baggage compartment and its AC Animals cargo service; WestJet lists in-cabin, checked animals and pets as cargo. Our Canadian airline pet policies guide compares them, and the Air Canada pet policy guide has that carrier’s figures in full.

This is the rule most likely to change your plan, and it sits on a cargo page rather than a passenger one.

Air Canada Cargo states that pets “being booked on International or U.S. routes must be booked through a registered International Pet and Animal Transportation Association (IPATA) agent, an IATA agent, or an Animal transport Association (ATA)” agent. Domestic Canadian shipments are the exception.

Read that carefully, because it applies to exactly this route. If your animal has to move as cargo rather than as cabin or checked baggage, you cannot place the booking yourself. It has to be placed by an agent holding one of those three accreditations, however willing you are to pay and however early you call.

What you get in exchange is real. Air Canada was the first airline in the world awarded IATA’s CEIV Live Animals certification and holds the recertification. Animals fly in pressurised holds, most aircraft have temperature-controlled compartments, and where a route lacks temperature control the booking agent proposes a different routing or date rather than accepting the shipment. Toronto Pearson has a bonded barn, the Air Canada Cargo Pet Stop, for comfort stops and overnight stays, with a separate room for cats and access to veterinary services.

For anything travelling in the hold, the kennel is the thing most likely to fail at the counter, and it fails on details rather than on size.

The specification comes from the IATA Live Animals Regulations and the carriers apply it with local limits on top. Hard-sided, built of rigid plastic, wood or metal with a solid roof. A secure, leak-proof door. Ventilation on more than one side. Functional exterior handles. Live Animal labelling and upright arrows. Absorbent bedding. Food and water dishes fixed inside and reachable without opening the door. Crates made of welded mesh, wire mesh, wicker, cardboard or collapsible material are refused outright, as are doors whose latches are plastic without hardware.

The animal has to be able to stand, turn around and lie down naturally inside it. Air Canada caps the baggage compartment at 292 cm linear, meaning length plus width plus height added together, and 45 kg or 100 lb for pet and kennel combined.

One more thing about crates: buy it early. A dog needs weeks to treat a travel kennel as a familiar place rather than a box it was pushed into on the morning of a flight, and an animal that settles in its crate has an easier journey than one that does not.

Cabin travel runs year-round. Everything in the hold is weather-bound, and the windows are narrower than a flight search suggests.

Air Canada says it “may not always be possible to accommodate your pet when summer temperatures exceed 29.5°C (85°F)”. In winter, from 1 November to 31 March or whenever the temperature is 0°C or below, cats and dogs weighing less than 4.5 kg or 10 lb are not accepted in the baggage compartment of any of its aircraft. From 18 December to 4 January, no pets are accepted as checked baggage at all.

Temperatures are checked at both ends and at any transit point, so a mild morning in Vancouver does not help if the connecting airport is over the line that afternoon. A Phoenix or Las Vegas arrival in July is a different proposition from a Seattle arrival in July, on the same aircraft.

Short and snub-nosed breeds cannot travel in the baggage compartment at all, on the grounds that they “are susceptible to increased risks of heat stroke and breathing problems”. A brachycephalic dog small enough for a compliant cabin carrier can still fly. One too large for a cabin carrier has a genuinely difficult route and needs a conversation months out, not weeks.

Dogs in the rabies-free or low-risk category can enter at any airport, so there is no designated port of entry to route around. You present the CDC Dog Import Form receipt, the dog is looked at, and if it appears healthy and the microchip scans, that is the federal process complete.

An animal arriving as cargo is collected from the cargo facility rather than the baggage hall, which is often a different building and sometimes a different set of opening hours. Confirm the collection point and its hours before the flight, not after it lands.

Clearing the federal agencies is not the same as being compliant in the state you are moving to. Each state sets its own entry requirements for dogs and cats and they are not uniform. Many ask for a certificate of veterinary inspection issued within a set window before entry, along with proof of rabies vaccination.

Nobody checks these at the airport, so nothing about the arrival signals that they exist. They surface at a veterinary clinic, a boarding kennel, a rental agreement or after any incident involving the animal. USDA APHIS publishes the requirements state by state, and the state that matters is the one you are living in rather than the one you happened to land in.

This is the practical reason to get a health certificate even though the CDC does not require one on this route. It satisfies most state rules, it is what a US clinic will ask for, and it costs very little compared with sorting it out afterwards from the wrong side of a border.

The government side of this route is close to free. The CDC form costs nothing, CFIA charges nothing on the way out, and the only unavoidable veterinary cost is the microchip if the animal does not already have one.

The airline is the whole bill, and it varies by an order of magnitude across the three options. A cabin booking is a modest one-way fee. The baggage compartment is a few hundred dollars. Cargo is priced on the crate’s dimensional weight and the routing, which is why two quotes for the same dog can differ so much: they are usually assuming different crate sizes.

Our Canada to United States cost page publishes the ranges by option rather than hiding them behind a quote form, and the United States destination guide covers the route in more depth.

If the animal is small enough for the cabin and you are flying anyway, this is one of the cheapest international pet moves there is. If it is not, the honest answer is that it costs real money and the number is driven by the crate.

The work here is deciding the fork correctly and early. We measure the animal and size the crate to IATA specification before any flight is chosen, because the crate sets both the price and which of the three options is even available. We check the operating carrier on every segment, since a codeshare leg can carry no pet at all. We set the date against the winter weight ban, the holiday blackout and the summer temperature limits at both ends. And where the booking has to go through cargo rather than baggage, we say so at the start, because it changes the cost and who is permitted to place it.

Pet Travel Advisors has been arranging pet relocations since 2023. We are licensed and insured, our team holds IATA Live Animals Regulations certificates, and our documentation work follows CFIA and USDA APHIS requirements.

Driving instead? The rules are different and mostly simpler. Our guide to driving to the United States from Canada with a pet covers the land border in both directions.

Federally, one thing: a CDC Dog Import Form receipt. It is free, completed online, one per dog, and valid for multiple entries from the same country within six months. CFIA requires nothing on the Canadian side. Your destination state may ask for a certificate of veterinary inspection, and the airline may ask for a health certificate of its own, so both are worth having.

Not under six months old. The CDC requires a dog to be at least six months old at time of entry, with no exception for a short trip, an accompanied flight or a dog born in the United States.

Dogs do, and it has to be detectable with a universal scanner. Have it scanned by your veterinarian before you book, because a chip that has migrated or failed counts as no chip at all. Canada does not require one on the way home, so this is an American rule that happens to settle identification in both directions.

Not on a United States route. Air Canada Cargo requires those bookings to be placed through an agent registered with IPATA, IATA or the Animal Transportation Association. Only domestic Canadian shipments are exempt. Cabin and checked baggage bookings are made normally, through the airline.

Between 18 December and 4 January, when Air Canada accepts no pets as checked baggage at all. After that, the winter months from 1 November to 31 March, when animals under 4.5 kg are excluded from the baggage compartment, and high summer on any route where the temperature at either end or a transit point exceeds 29.5°C. Cabin travel is unaffected.

Nothing federally. USDA APHIS has no animal health requirements for pet cats entering from a foreign country and the CDC does not require rabies vaccination for them, though it recommends it. Cats are still inspected on arrival, and the destination state may have its own rules.

The requirements and quoted wording come from the CDC’s entry rules for dogs from dog rabies-free or low-risk countries and its Dog Import Form instructions, from USDA APHIS for the cat position and the state entry requirements, and from CFIA for the statement that it has no role on the way out. The carrier rules and quoted wording come from Air Canada’s own pages for pets and from Air Canada Cargo’s AC Animals pages. Air Canada also confirms the CDC rules took effect on 1 August 2024. Figures and rules verified September 2026, and both airline policies and state requirements change without notice, so confirm before you book.