Moving a pet from the United States to Australia

Last verified: 2026-08-25

The short version

The United States is a Group 3 country — the classification with the full rabies pathway. Whether your pet is a dog or a cat, the shape of the move is the same:

identity check (two vets) → rabies work → RNATT → 180-day wait → import permit → quarantine booking → treatments → travel to Melbourne → 10 or 30 days at Mickleham

Allow at least six months, and realistically closer to a year once you add permit processing and the sequencing at either end. The 180-day wait alone is six months, and it does not start until several steps are already behind you.

Note the official listing: “United States of America (excluding Guam and Hawaii)”. If you are exporting from Guam or Hawaii, this pathway is not yours.

The one thing that makes the US corridor distinctive

The identity check needs two different USDA-accredited veterinarians, at two different clinics.

This is the American implementation of the optional identity check that reduces quarantine from 30 days to 10, and it is more involved than most owners expect:

• Part 1 — an accredited veterinarian completes an identity declaration and photographs your pet together with the microchip scanner showing the number. At least one photo must show both the scanner with the number visible and a significant portion of the animal. Submitted through VEHCS for USDA endorsement, with a user fee.
• Part 2 — a different accredited veterinarian, at a different clinic, repeats the whole thing. Another submission, another fee.
• Part 3 — one of the two veterinarians requests the final USDA identity declaration. USDA compiles it from both declarations and emails it directly to Australia. You proceed only once VEHCS marks it “Completed”, and you keep a copy for the export health certificate.

Two hard timing rules sit inside that:

• Part 3 must be endorsed within three months of the first microchip scanning.
• Blood for the RNATT cannot be drawn until after the date of the second microchip scanning — the same day is allowed, but not before.

Get the order wrong and you are not eligible for the 10-day quarantine. That is the difference between roughly AUD 3,114 and AUD 4,234, and it is decided before the blood draw.

The ordered pathway

1. Microchip — ISO compliant, verified before anything else.
2. Identity check, Parts 1–3 — two accredited vets at different clinics, then the USDA declaration. Before the RNATT.
3. Rabies vaccination — by a USDA-accredited veterinarian, at 84 days of age or later, and kept continuously valid from the RNATT to departure.
4. RNATT blood sample — 3–4 weeks after the primary course, drawn by a USDA-accredited veterinarian who also completes the laboratory submission form.
5. The 180-day wait — counted from the day the sample arrives at the laboratory. No exceptions.
6. RNATT Declaration — endorsed by USDA through VEHCS.
7. Dog-only blood tests — Leishmania, Leptospira and Brucella, with their own rules about which test types count.
8. Import permit — through BICON, after the rabies work is complete. AUD 626 for the first animal; 20–40 business days, sometimes far longer.
9. Quarantine booking — at Mickleham, after the permit is issued.
10. Parasite treatments — external starting at least 30 days before export for dogs and 21 days for cats, internal twice in the final 45 days.
11. Export health certificate — the US-specific one from VEHCS, endorsed by USDA. The certificate inside the Australian permit is not the one to use for a US export.
12. Travel — as manifest cargo, arriving directly into Melbourne.

What the US corridor costs you in effort

Compared with the other two origins this site covers, the American pathway front-loads the work: two clinics, three VEHCS submissions and three user fees before the rabies test can even be drawn. It is also the corridor where the endorsement system is most digital — VEHCS does the work that paper and post do elsewhere, and USDA sends the identity declaration to Australia itself.

What this page does not cover

• Guam and Hawaii, which are excluded from the Group 3 listing for the United States.
• Pets travelling from another country through the United States to Australia, which APHIS covers under separate guidance.
• Airline selection, crates and transit countries — the carrier layer, which is separate from both governments and can refuse an animal both would admit.
• Costs beyond the government’s own estimates, including flights, agents and veterinary fees.