Bringing your dog to the US from Australia

In short

• Australia is low risk for the CDC. A dog that has only been in Australia or other low-risk countries in the last 6 months needs the free CDC Dog Import Form receipt, and nothing else from the CDC.
• The form asks for no photo, no microchip number and no vet document.
• The hard part is the return: Australia lets dogs in only through a strict process of rabies antibody test, waiting period, import permit and quarantine at Mickleham.
• A stay in Indonesia (Bali) or elsewhere in Southeast Asia changes the CDC pathway.

Before you leave Australia

Your dog must be at least 6 months old when it lands in the US, look healthy and carry a microchip that a universal scanner can read. Ask your vet to scan the chip before you travel and check that the number in the Australian registry has your current details.

The CDC does not ask a dog from Australia for a vaccination certificate or a health certificate. Your airline may. The flight from Australia to the US is long and usually involves a stop, so ask the airline whether it carries dogs in the hold or only as cargo on your route, and what it expects for the crate, the temperature and your dog’s breed. Our airline checklist lists the questions to ask.

The trips that change the rules

The CDC asks where your dog has been during the last 6 months, not only where it flies from. For Australian dogs, the usual surprises are in Asia: Indonesia (including Bali), Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, India and Sri Lanka are on the CDC high-risk list. A dog that stayed there, or cleared customs there during a long layover, follows the high-risk rules.

A high-risk dog vaccinated outside the US needs a titer test (a blood test that measures rabies antibodies), a certification endorsed by an official government veterinarian and a booking at a CDC-registered animal care facility. Australia has one laboratory on the CDC list of approved laboratories, the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP), so a dog living in Australia does not have to send its blood sample abroad. Book the draw early: the blood must be taken at least 30 days after vaccination and at least 28 days before arrival.

Flights to the US

A low-risk dog can enter at any US airport, so Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are all fine as departure points, and so is a connection through another low-risk country. Choose the route around the airline’s pet rules first. If your route stops in Asia or the Gulf, keep your dog airside and with the airline: clearing customs in a high-risk country counts as having been there. See layovers and connections.

The low-risk receipt stays valid for 6 months for multiple entries, as long as your dog always departs from the same country.

Coming back to Australia

Plan this before you leave, not after. Australia has one of the strictest pet import systems in the world, and DAFF (the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) handles dogs coming from the US under its Group 3 process. According to DAFF’s step-by-step page for Group 3 dogs:

1. The dog must have a valid rabies vaccination and an acceptable rabies neutralising antibody titer test (RNATT) of at least 0.5 IU/mL.
2. The blood sample must be taken between 12 months and 180 days before export to Australia. The result is valid for 12 months from the blood sample, and an expired result means a new test and a new 180-day wait.
3. You apply for an import permit through DAFF’s BICON system with the laboratory report and the declaration from the official government vet. DAFF says most permits take between 20 and 40 business days, and some take much longer.
4. You book the Mickleham post-entry quarantine facility in Victoria only once the permit is granted. The minimum stay is 30 days, and an optional identity check done before the RNATT can reduce it to 10 days. DAFF says the identity check cannot happen at the same visit as the blood sample.
5. DAFF recommends allowing at least six months for the whole process.

Some breeds cannot be imported at all, so check DAFF’s page for your dog’s breed and cross.

If you are not certain you will return to Australia with the same dog, speak to DAFF and your vet before you buy the tickets. The rules and fees change, and this page can only point to the source.