Pet Transport from Australia to China

Set this route against the same journey from Canada and the difference is stark.

A Canadian dog is coming from a non-designated country. It needs a rabies antibody result above 0.5 IU/ml from a laboratory on China’s own designated list, recorded on the health certificate with the sampling date and the laboratory’s name. Without it, the animal spends thirty days in customs isolation and may only enter through a port equipped to hold it. And because China’s approved-laboratory list is not the same as the EU’s or the UK’s, a titre that satisfies Europe can be refused at the Chinese border.

An Australian dog skips all of that. The requirements are the microchip, the valid rabies vaccination certificate issued by the official animal quarantine authority, the quarantine certificate, and the household arithmetic below.

Two practical consequences. The timeline drops from three or four months to about a month, because there is no blood test to arrange and no laboratory turnaround to wait for. And the risk profile changes: the things that can go wrong on this route are logistical, a missed crate specification or a booking not confirmed, rather than a test result that arrives from the wrong laboratory after you have already committed to a date.

One caution to carry, though. Designated status is set by separate announcement and can move. Confirm Australia is on the current list before booking rather than assuming it from a guide, including this one.

China’s rule is that live animals brought in are limited to one dog or one cat for each person per entry. It has been in force since 1 May 2019 and it is applied literally.

A couple relocating together with two dogs is fine, provided both people arrive on the same entry and each animal is documented against one of them. One person relocating with two dogs is not, and the options are a second traveller, a second trip, or leaving an animal behind temporarily, none of which is pleasant to discover late.

The airline rules stack on top rather than replacing it. China Southern takes one pet as checked baggage to 32kg combined in a cage no larger than 90 x 60 x 66cm, with the application made at booking and at least 72 hours before departure, and caps some flights at three animals in total. China Eastern allows one small animal per passenger on international flights and pushes anything whose three dimensions sum above 203cm into freight.

So the count that matters is the tighter of the two: what China will admit per person, and what the aircraft will carry that day.

Australian export is straightforward by comparison with Australian import. A veterinary examination and health certificate, then endorsement by an official government veterinarian to the destination’s model, carrying the microchip number and the rabies vaccination details.

Qantas moves animals as manifested freight rather than as accompanied baggage, booked through its freight arm rather than alongside your ticket, so build that into the plan as a separate booking with its own lead time. The Chinese carriers put pets in the hold and nowhere else on international sectors, whatever you may have read about cabin pets on Chinese airlines: those products are domestic routes only.

The thing worth saying plainly, because families relocating on two or three year postings rarely think about it at the start, is that the return journey is a completely different proposition. Australia’s import regime is among the strictest in the world, and a pet coming back from China, which is not an approved country, would face the full non-approved pathway: residence in an approved country for at least 180 days before export, a rabies titre with its own 180-day clock, an import permit through BICON, a booked place at the Mickleham quarantine facility and a stay of at least ten days on arrival.

None of that affects your outbound move. It affects whether you take the dog at all, and it is better weighed now than in three years’ time.