Pet Transport from Mauritius to India

India treats pet imports as restricted trade with one exemption, and which side you fall on decides your timeline. If you are relocating to India after two or more continuous years abroad, you may bring up to two cats or dogs as passenger baggage with no import licence, under the customs baggage rules. That covers most families moving home from a posting in Mauritius.

Everyone else, including anyone shipping the pet unaccompanied or moving a third animal, needs a DGFT authorisation through Form ANF 2M. Its facilitation committee meets monthly, so allow about two months.

Both routes then pass through the same gate. The AQCS Advance NOC is applied for at least seven working days before embarkation with the health certificate, vaccination and microchip records, ticket and passport copies, and is issued within one working day at no cost. Airlines will not lift the animal without it, so it is not a formality to leave until the airport.

One detail catches people repeatedly: the owner’s name on the health certificate must match the name on the air ticket exactly. Book the flight first, then have the certificate drawn up.

India only admits dogs and cats at six cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata, where the AQCS quarantine stations sit. On most corridors that forces awkward routing. Not here.

Mauritius has nonstop service to Mumbai (Air Mauritius and Air India), Delhi and Chennai (Air Mauritius) and Bengaluru (IndiGo). Every one of those is an approved entry city, so no domestic onward leg is ever required, and there is no risk of landing your pet somewhere it cannot legally clear.

Air Mauritius is the natural carrier and its rules are clear enough: no cabin carriage, hold travel either as checked baggage with prior reservation or as cargo, and a requirement to notify the airline at the time of booking. Animals of unusual size, along with reptiles and rodents, must go as cargo. The airline flags special conditions for bulldogs, bull terriers and Burmese cats without spelling them out, so ask if your pet is one of those. Cargo is priced on the combined weight of animal, container and food.

For the Bengaluru nonstop, IndiGo handles international animals through its cargo division rather than the passenger cabin. Air India’s current pet policy could not be confirmed, so treat the second Mumbai option as one to verify rather than assume.

Exports run through the Trade Unit (Export) of the Division of Veterinary Services at Agricultural Services, Reduit, which inspects live animals before certification and issues international veterinary certificates to the importing country’s model. That is the unit that will produce your AQCS-format certificate.

What it does not publish is a form reference, a lead time or a fee schedule. There is no way to plan the Mauritian half of this move from a website, so contact the Trade Unit early and let its answer shape your dates. That is a genuine unknown rather than a formality, and it is the one part of this route worth starting sooner than feels necessary.