Pet Shipping Insurance in Canada: What an Airline Actually Owes You

Ask a Canadian airline what happens if your dog does not arrive and you will get a careful answer, because the honest one is set by law rather than by the airline. Knowing which law, and which clock starts when, is worth more than any policy you could buy on the way to the airport.

The short answer has three parts. Canada applies the same lost and damaged baggage liability rules to domestic flights as to international ones, so there is only one number to learn. That number was revised at the end of 2024 and an older one is still widely quoted. And unlike most places, if the airline says no you have somewhere to take it.

This is the part that surprises people who have read American advice. In the United States a domestic flight falls outside the Montreal Convention entirely and runs on a separate federal regulation. Canada did not go that way.

The Canadian Transportation Agency puts it plainly: the Air Passenger Protection Regulations “apply the same rules and liability limits for lost and damaged baggage for domestic services”. So a flight from Halifax to Calgary and a flight from Toronto to Frankfurt are governed by the same ceiling. Delay is the one place the two part company, and that is dealt with further down.

That is genuinely simpler, and it is the single most useful thing to know before you start comparing quotes. You do not need to work out which regime your itinerary falls under. You need one number and one set of deadlines.

The current limit is 1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger for baggage. The SDR is an International Monetary Fund accounting unit rather than a currency, and it is converted at the rate on the day a claim is settled, which is why carriers publish an SDR figure and not a dollar one. Air Canada’s own conditions of carriage state the same number: liability “is limited to 1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger”.

Now the trap. These limits are revised every five years, and the current figure has only applied since 28 December 2024. The previous revision, effective 28 December 2019, set 1,288 SDR, and that older number is still sitting in a good deal of published guidance, including some government material that has not been refreshed.

Checking it yourself takes a minute and is worth doing before any conversation about money. The Canadian Transportation Agency publishes the limits of liability for passengers and goods, and the figure on that page is the one in force. The two most recent revisions took effect at the end of 2019 and the end of 2024, which is the five year cycle these limits run on, so the figure has a shelf life and so does any article quoting it.

The practical difference is a few hundred dollars, which matters when it is the whole of what you can recover. If a page quotes 1,288 SDR or a round figure near CAD $2,300, it is working from the 2019 revision. Check the date on anything that gives you a number, including this page, and check it again after the next revision falls due.

Liability limits get all the attention and deadlines do the actual damage, because a limit you missed the window to claim under is worth nothing at all.

Three timeframes are worth writing down before you fly.

One of those three is narrower than it looks. The Agency’s baggage guide is precise about the split: airlines on domestic flights are liable for lost and damaged baggage as though the Montreal Convention applied, but for delayed baggage “the applicable limits of liability and related terms and conditions are those set out by airlines in their domestic tariffs”. A delay inside Canada is therefore governed by the carrier’s own document rather than by the Convention, and the guidance is to claim as soon as possible and no later than whatever window that tariff sets.

There is also a point where a delay stops being a delay. The Agency states that baggage delayed for 21 days is considered lost, which moves the claim onto the lost baggage rules and their ceiling. Nobody with an animal missing is going to wait three weeks to act, but the date still matters, because it is the one the airline will work from.

The warning attached to all of this is the Agency’s own: the airline “could deny your claim if you do not submit a claim within these time limits”. The seven day clock is the one to watch, because it runs from when you receive the baggage rather than from when you notice the damage. A container opened at home the next morning is already two days into it.

Deadlines are met with paperwork, and the first piece of it is created at the airport rather than afterwards.

The Agency lists what a passenger needs when a baggage complaint reaches it: proof that you contacted the airline in writing, the ticket confirmation, the booking number, the flight itinerary, and a Property Irregularity Report or incident report. Where something is damaged it also lists a damaged property report, an itemized list of what is missing with values, and receipts for anything you had to replace.

Two of those decide whether the rest is worth filing. The Property Irregularity Report is raised with the carrier before you leave, so with an animal it belongs to the moment of collection rather than to the drive home. And the written contact is the record: a conversation at a service desk leaves nothing to submit later, however sympathetic the person behind it was.

In practice that is a short list you can work through while you are still in the building.

Here is the part that has no American equivalent, and it is the reason a Canadian move is a slightly better position to be in.

If you cannot resolve the matter with the airline, the Canadian Transportation Agency will take the complaint. Its own guidance is that “in the event of an air travel-related dispute that cannot be resolved directly by a passenger and an airline, the passenger can make a complaint to the CTA”.

That changes the shape of a conversation with an airline. The sequence is: claim with the carrier, wait out the 30 days, and if the answer is unsatisfactory, escalate rather than give up. Knowing the escalation exists is most of its value, because a first refusal is only final if it is treated as final.

The ceiling is not fixed. A passenger can declare a higher value before the flight and pay for it.

The CTA describes the mechanism and adds two Canadian details worth knowing before you rely on it. A passenger may request a special declaration of interest before transport where baggage is worth more than the limit; airlines may charge a fee for that service; and airlines “can refuse to carry items exceeding specified values”.

So it is a request rather than a right, it costs something, and it can be declined. It is still the only lever that moves the number, and it has to be pulled before departure rather than after. Ask at booking, not at the counter, and get the answer in writing.

An animal travelling on its own is a freight booking rather than baggage, and freight is capped differently: 26 SDR per kilogram of the shipment.

The weight that counts is what goes on the scale at acceptance, animal and container together, so a combined 30 kilograms produces a ceiling of 780 SDR. For most dogs that lands below the baggage figure. If you are weighing accompanied travel against an unaccompanied shipment, and that choice is usually made on price and routing alone, the ceiling is a third consideration that rarely gets raised.

On a Canadian itinerary that choice is not always yours. Air Canada publishes a linear size ceiling and a combined weight ceiling for the baggage compartment, and an animal and container over either one cannot travel as checked baggage at all. The booking becomes air cargo, which is a different product at a different price, and it is the per kilogram rule rather than the passenger rule that then applies. The figures are on our Air Canada pet policy guide and the way to measure against them is on our crate size guide.

So the container decides the regime. A crate chosen a size up for comfort can move a dog from the 1,519 SDR passenger ceiling onto a per kilogram one that, for that same animal, is lower. The space rules come first and no animal should travel in a container it does not fit, but this is worth knowing before the decision is made on comfort alone.

There is a second obligation that sits alongside the liability limit and is easy to overlook, because it is about fees rather than about damages.

Under the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, where baggage is lost or damaged the airline must reimburse any baggage fees the passenger paid, and the CTA lists standard baggage fees, extra baggage fees and oversized baggage fees among them. That is separate from and additional to the liability payment.

Whether the fee you paid to carry an animal falls into that category is a question for the carrier rather than something the regulations spell out, so put it to them in writing along with everything else. If it does, it is money that does not come out of the liability ceiling, which makes it worth the question.

Everything above is the law of baggage and freight. Whether your particular airline treats a live animal under those rules, and on what terms, is written in that airline’s tariff rather than in the regulations.

Europe has had this question answered. In Case C-218/24, decided 16 October 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that “pets are not excluded from the concept of ’baggage’” and that the baggage liability limit “includes non-material damage as well as material damage”. That is European law and it governs European courts.

For a Canadian booking, the document that answers it is the carrier’s tariff, and the Canadian Transportation Agency states that “every air carrier that offers and/or sells air transportation to, from and within Canada must have a tariff” and that carriers must make it available for public inspection. Ask the airline, in writing, how it treats a live animal for liability purposes on the specific routing you are booking, and keep the reply. That single email is worth more than a general article, this one included.

Pet health insurance and transit liability answer different questions, and buying one thinking you have the other is the common mistake here.

What a health policy is designed to pay for is veterinary care. Whether that extends to an incident during the journey, or to treatment received abroad, depends entirely on the wording your insurer sold you, and it is not something we can read off for you.

Put four questions to them in writing before you travel.

Most of what we do is meant to stop any of this ever mattering, because no ceiling is a substitute for the animal arriving in good order.

In practice: itineraries without tight or unnecessary connections, a container the airline will accept at the counter rather than argue about, documents complete enough that no border holds the animal, and carriers we have watched handle live shipments. Those decisions are what actually determines how the journey goes. A ceiling only becomes relevant once they have not worked.

What no one can do is make a flight risk-free, and you should treat any promise otherwise with suspicion.

Pet Travel Advisors has been moving animals since 2023. We are licensed and insured, our team is certified in the IATA Live Animals Regulations, and the documentation work follows CFIA requirements. If you want the liability position for a specific Canadian routing before you commit, ask and we will set it out.

For lost and damaged baggage, effectively yes. The Canadian Transportation Agency states that the Air Passenger Protection Regulations “apply the same rules and liability limits for lost and damaged baggage for domestic services”. That is the opposite of the United States, where a domestic flight falls outside the Convention and runs under a separate federal regulation. In Canada there is one number to learn rather than two.

The baggage liability limit is 1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger, in force since 28 December 2024. Air Canada’s conditions of carriage state the same figure. An animal shipped unaccompanied as freight is capped differently, at 26 SDR per kilogram of the shipment, so a 30 kilogram animal and crate is capped at 780 SDR. Which of the two applies is decided by Air Canada’s size and weight ceilings for the baggage compartment rather than by you.

Because that was the previous limit, set at the revision effective 28 December 2019. The limits are revised every five years and the current figure has applied since 28 December 2024. Older guidance still carries the 2019 number, including some that has not been refreshed. If a page quotes 1,288 SDR or a round figure near CAD $2,300, check its date.

Shorter than it sounds. For damaged baggage the claim must be submitted within seven days after you receive it. For delayed baggage on an international itinerary, within 21 days after you receive it. A compensation claim with the airline can be made within one year, and the airline then has 30 days to respond by paying or explaining why it will not.

You escalate. The CTA states that where an air travel dispute cannot be resolved directly between a passenger and an airline, the passenger can complain to the CTA. Claim with the carrier first, wait out the 30 days, then take it further. Bring the file with you: the Agency asks for proof that you contacted the airline in writing, the booking and itinerary details, and the Property Irregularity Report or incident report raised at the airport. A first refusal is only final if it is treated as final.

You can ask. A passenger may request a special declaration of interest before transport where the baggage is worth more than the limit. The CTA notes two conditions: airlines may charge a fee for it, and airlines can refuse to carry items exceeding specified values. So it is a request rather than a right, it costs something, and it must be made before departure. Ask at booking and keep the answer in writing.

The document that answers that for your booking is the airline’s tariff, which the Canadian Transportation Agency requires every air carrier serving Canada to have and to make available for public inspection. Europe has ruled on the question: in Case C-218/24, decided 16 October 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that “pets are not excluded from the concept of ‘baggage’”. That is European law. For a Canadian routing, ask the carrier in writing how it treats a live animal for liability purposes and keep the reply.

Figures verified September 2026. These limits are revised every five years, most recently with effect from 28 December 2024.

If you want the liability position for a specific Canadian routing before you commit, tell us what you are moving and where. For what happens at the border once the animal lands, see clearing a pet through Canadian customs.