Animal Health Certificate Costs.
Contents
Disclaimer - This article contains no affiliate or advertising links and we haven't been paid to write it.
The "Too Long; Didn't Read" Summary
We saved £146 on the price of an Animal Health Certificate by going to PassPets in Havant. It's definitely worth shopping around if you're looking to take a pet abroad.
Why We Needed One
We decided it would be nice to take Lumi on a holiday to Belgium and this would be her first time leaving the United Kingdom and also our first time taking a dog abroad.
There are a few rules you need to follow when taking a dog out of the country and this includes getting your dog a rabies vaccination, a tapeworm treatment before returning and an Animal Health Certificate.
The gov.uk website has the full details for what is required so I won't repeat them here but it's worth talking about the cost of getting the health certificate.
Animal Health Certificates were introduced in 2021 and you can no longer get the Pet Passports that existed before Brexit from UK vets.
Pricing At Our Regular Vet
Lumi's regular vet practice charge £245 for one of these certificates. Yes, two hundred and forty five pounds! Needless to say, we did some further research and discovered that the price of an Animal Health Certificate can vary wildly.
The "Cheaper" Alternative
Having looked online, we found that there are now a number of vets and websites that offer Animal Health Certificates at the cheaper price of £99. OK, even at £99 it's not exactly cheap for a piece of paper that was looked at for all of 5 minutes at the train terminals but it's at least better than the £245 alternative.
We used the Havant branch of PassPets. Our regular vet e-mailed Lumi's medical history to PassPets (for free believe it or not) as this showed Lumi had the required rabies vaccination. It was then a case of going to Havant so that the PassPets vet could scan Lumi's microchip and sign the certificate.
Havant is about a 50 minute drive from our home but the saving of £146 and the fact that Lumi could walk some of the Hayling Island coastline made it a worthwhile trip.
We'd definitely recommend PassPets if you can get to one of their branches.
PassPets and Other Options
As mentioned above, we used PassPets. There are a couple of other options if you want to get an Animal Health Certificate en-route to Dover or Folkestone but please do check recent reviews on Google & Trustpilot. There are a number of other options across the country now so be sure to do a search for more local ones to your location. The details were correct as of June 2024 and are for a standard certificate for 1 dog.
PassPets
https://www.passpets.co.uk
Locations - Havant, New Malden & Bristol
Cost - £99
Notes - Well reviewed. We used them and would do so again.
Abbeywell Vets / AHC Online
https://animalhealthcertificate.online
Location - Folkestone
Cost - £99
Notes - Well reviewed.
Easy Pet Travel
https://www.animalhealthcertificates.com
Location - Ashford
Cost - £99
Notes - Well reviewed.
Facebook Groups
There are also 2 groups on Facebook that are dedicated to Animal Health Certificates. I haven't joined them personally as the process was relatively straightforward at PassPets. The groups are called -