Stops on the way: transit versus transhipment

Last verified: 2026-08-26

The answer

Australia treats two kinds of stop very differently, and the distinction is about whether your animal leaves the aircraft.

Transit is the easy case

During transport to Australia, animals may transit in all countries. The plane can touch down in a country, but your animal must stay on the plane, on the international side of the airport.

A technical stop where nothing is unloaded raises no extra requirement.

Transhipment is where itineraries fail

Changing aircraft is permitted only in an approved country, and three conditions apply together: the animal must not leave the international side of the airport, it must stay under the supervision of that country’s competent authority, and it must be held somewhere that restricts contact with other animals.

Then the part people skip:

It is your responsibility as the importer to contact the competent authority in the country of transhipment.

You have to establish four things:

1. whether they allow animals to tranship at all;
2. whether they have a facility to hold animals during transhipment;
3. how long animals can be held;
4. whether additional conditions apply.

Your animal may not be eligible for import if these conditions are not met. An itinerary that transhipped through the wrong airport does not fail at the transfer — it fails on arrival in Melbourne, after the flight.

The welfare problem nobody controls

The department is blunt about the limit of its reach:

We cannot control how long your animal will be held at these destinations.

A transhipment stop is an unknown number of hours in a facility you did not choose, in a climate you did not pick, without you. For a sick or elderly animal that is a reason to pay for a routing with fewer changes — see fitness and welfare.

What this page does not tell you

• Which countries are approved, or which airports have transhipment facilities.
• How to contact a given competent authority, or what they will require.
• Whether a specific itinerary works — that is a question for the carrier and the authorities on the route, before booking.