Pet Transport from New Zealand to India

The hard part of this move is the flying, not the paperwork.

New Zealand to India is among the longest journeys a pet routinely makes, and everything difficult about it is logistical: sector length, transit hubs, heat at the Indian end, and the fact that no carrier flies it without a connection.

India’s own requirements are comparatively light. No rabies antibody test appears in the AQCS or DGFT rules. No routine quarantine applies to a healthy animal.

Because there is no direct service, your animal will transit, and the transit is where welfare risk concentrates on a sector this long.

The questions worth settling early are which hub the routing uses, how long the animal sits between flights, and whether that hub handles live animals properly rather than merely accepting them. A short connection is not automatically kinder than a long one: a two-hour gap that goes wrong leaves no recovery time, while a longer stop at a hub with a proper animal facility can be the better welfare outcome.

Heat is the other constraint. Indian summer temperatures close hold carriage on many carriers, and the embargo is set by the airline rather than by India. If you are moving between roughly April and September, confirm the carrier’s temperature policy before you fix anything else, because it can stop a fully compliant animal from travelling.

AQCS clears pets at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Kolkata, and nowhere else.

On a routing this long the temptation is to accept whatever itinerary the airline offers. Check the final Indian airport against those six before you book. An animal landing anywhere else cannot be cleared, and the fix at that point is expensive.

If your destination is not one of the six, the animal clears at the nearest that is and continues domestically. Build that extra leg into the plan rather than discovering it after arrival.

India treats pet import as a restricted trade with one exemption.

Transfer of Residence lets an owner relocating after two or more continuous years abroad bring up to two cats or dogs as accompanied baggage with no DGFT licence. Two years in New Zealand and a move to India, and this is your route.

Without it, the DGFT authorisation on Form ANF 2M applies, and its committee meets monthly rather than continuously. That single fact is why two months is the realistic floor for anyone outside the exemption. Get it moving early: on a route where the flying is the difficult part, the paperwork should not be what delays you.