Your pet to South Africa: the two-month permit

Within the EU taking a pet along is a vet's appointment; to South Africa it is a project of two to three months with a permit, windows and an eleven-hour flight. Properly arranged it goes without a hitch — and the place where it goes wrong is surprisingly banal. This article sets out the chain.

The permit: two months in advance

Every dog and cat needs an import permit from the South African agriculture ministry, and you apply for it at least two months before departure — the permit states the definitive conditions and has its own validity period, so plan it in conjunction with the flight date. Almost everyone has the application and the transport handled by a specialised pet relocation agent; that costs money, but this chain is too precise to improvise correctly in one go.

The windows: chip, rabies and the certificate

The order matters. First the ISO chip — it has to be inserted before the rabies vaccination, otherwise the vaccination doesn't count. Then the rabies vaccination: at least thirty days and at most twelve months old at the time of import. And just before departure the veterinary health certificate, signed off by the NVWA, with the original documents in hand on arrival — no copies.

With those papers in order there is no quarantine for dogs and cats from the Netherlands. Without them — or with a defect — the animal can still be placed in quarantine on arrival, at your expense.

The number one cause of failure: the chip number

Not the vaccinations, not the permit — the chip number is where files run aground: one digit's difference between the passport, the permit and the health certificate, and the chain no longer adds up. Have the vet read the chip again for every document and type the number in rather than copy it over, and check it yourself three times. It is two minutes' work against weeks of misery.

The journey and the arrival

The animal flies as cargo on the direct connection, in an IATA-approved kennel that it should be allowed to get to know well in advance. Book via the agent, avoid the hottest months for flat-nosed breeds, and arrange the arrival so that you — or the agent — are there at customs clearance with the originals. After that, what applies everywhere applies: a garden is easier to get used to than a flight, and within a week the animal is the only member of the family without homesickness.