Bringing Your Pet to Canada

The quarantine exemption in CFIA’s document is written for pet dogs, and the part covering domestic cats requires a certificate while staying silent on quarantine. The rabies certificate must be in English or French, identify your pet, and be signed by a licensed veterinarian. A mismatch can mean re vaccination orders or refused entry, which is exactly what our document check prevents.

Before booking anything, we confirm what applies to your pet directly against the CFIA import reference rules, so nothing in your plan is based on outdated summaries.

Beyond the certificate, moving to Canada with a pet turns on four things: whether CFIA counts the animal as a pet, how it is booked onto the flight, how it is collected when it lands, and whether its breed may enter the province it is going to.

CFIA’s travelling with a pet page, read 15 September 2026, says only dogs, cats and ferrets qualify as pets, and that its import requirements cover an animal entering Canada permanently as much as one visiting. Its dog travel page, read 16 September 2026, adds that what a dog needs depends on the country it comes from, its age, the purpose of the import and whether it travels with its owner. The Import Reference Document also sets a commercial puppy under eight months outside its section on dogs, admitting one only under paragraph 12(1)(a) of the Health of Animals Regulations, so a family pet and a puppy imported commercially follow different rules.

How the pet flies decides who can book it. In the cabin or as checked baggage it travels on your own reservation, while Air Canada Cargo’s before you book page for dogs and cats, read 15 September 2026, requires a registered IPATA, IATA or ATA agent for a cargo booking on its international and US routes. Our guide to flying with a pet from Canada sets out the cabin, checked baggage and cargo rules of each airline in full.

At the airport, a pet that flew in the cabin or in checked baggage lands with you, while a shipment is collected from the airline’s freight side, a step that falls to the agent on those Air Canada bookings. The rabies certificate is checked either way, and the border inspection fee, with who collects it, is on the cost page linked above.

Then the province. WestJet’s pets page, read 15 September 2026, lists the Pit Bull Terrier, American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and Staffordshire Bull Terrier as restricted for travel into or through Ontario, which reaches a connection at Toronto Pearson as well as a move into the province itself. Our guide to banned and restricted dog breeds by country sets out Ontario’s own statute.

Coming by road from the United States, the certificate is the same one, and our US site’s guide to driving a dog across the border covers the crossing itself.