Your pet to Norway: the tapeworm treatment and six banned breeds

Yes, your dog or cat may come to Norway, and the paperwork looks like that for any EU destination: a chip, an EU pet passport and a valid rabies vaccination. What makes Norway different is one rule at Mattilsynet: a dog must be treated against the fox tapeworm between 24 and 120 hours before arrival, by an authorised vet in the country the dog travels from, and it must be recorded in the passport. That four-day window fixes your departure date. The trap is the breed: six breeds are banned, including every crossbreed containing such a breed, and in case of doubt you must prove the ancestry.

What must every animal have?

Dogs, cats and ferrets share the same basic requirements. Mattilsynet lists them:

Requirement	What exactly it says
Chip	a microchip meeting ISO standard 11784, using HDX or FDX-B technology
Passport	an EU pet passport, issued by an authorised vet in the EU/EEA and signed by you as the owner
Rabies	the animal is at least 12 weeks old at vaccination, is chipped before the vaccination, and the first vaccination is only valid after 21 days
Number	at most five animals, and only your own
Border	the red zone at customs: show the animals and the documents

A booster given while the previous one is still valid is valid at once; if you let the previous one lapse, the 21-day wait starts again. If you arrive by plane, the red zone always applies, because customs cannot tell which country you are coming from.

What is the ormekur, and when exactly?

The ormekur is a treatment against Echinococcus multilocularis, the fox tapeworm, with an approved product containing for example praziquantel. For the dog the parasite is usually harmless; for humans an infection can in the worst case be fatal, and that is why Norway keeps it out. The rules, as Mattilsynet clarified them on 3 February 2026:

• the treatment takes place between 24 and 120 hours before the dog enters Norway;
• it is carried out by an authorised vet in the country the dog travels from, and so never in Norway before a round trip; if you have it done in the Netherlands, count the whole drive to the Norwegian border within the 120 hours;
• the vet records the treatment in the EU pet passport.

In practice: if you cross the border on a Saturday, the vet appointment is on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, and not on the Saturday morning itself (then the 24 hours are not complete). Cats and ferrets do not need this treatment. Whoever later wants to cross the border often with the dog can switch to the 28-day rule: an ongoing treatment with at most 28 days in between, always starting with two treatments, and the vet records the time.

The window of 24 to 120 hours is not a guideline but an entry requirement. If the treatment is wrong, or missing from the passport, Mattilsynet says what happens: you return with the animal to the country you came from, or you pay for boarding in kennels until it is in order. So plan the vet around the travel date, not the other way round.

Which breeds may I not bring?

Norway bans keeping, breeding and importing six breeds: the pit bull terrier, the American Staffordshire terrier, the fila brasileiro, the tosa inu, the dogo argentino and the Czechoslovakian wolfdog. Wolf-dog hybrids are also regarded as dangerous. The ban applies to every crossbreed in which one of these breeds occurs in any proportion. Police and customs may, on suspicion, require you to document the breed or type; if doubt remains, the police can have the animal put down or sent out of the country. Whoever has a crossbreed whose ancestry is not on paper is therefore taking a risk that cannot be undone. The Dog Act falls under the police, not Mattilsynet; questions about a specific animal go there.

How does this fit into the move?

The animals travel with you in the car, and you declare them in the same red zone where you declare your household goods. If you travel by ferry, count the hours at sea within the 120-hour window. An animal bought or received abroad and worth more than the tax-free traveller's allowance is also subject to VAT; for your own dog or cat that does not apply. If you drive via Sweden, you may only use the green zone with a dog that has been in Sweden alone; a dog coming from the Netherlands is declared in the red zone. Mattilsynet also recommends an extra treatment once the dog is in Norway, if it may have been exposed to infection between the treatment and the border. How this fits into the rest of the move is in the step-by-step plan for Norway.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 3 of 5 of the journey, step 3.3: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Norway or go straight to step 3.3 in the open plan.