Where the financial risk actually sits

Last verified: 2026-08-25

The answer

This site does not sell insurance, does not recommend an insurer, and has no authoritative source for what any insurance policy actually covers — insurance is a private commercial product, and no government publishes rules for it the way DAFF publishes import rules.

What DAFF, CFIA and the carriers do publish is the opposite: a series of plain statements about what they are not responsible for, and who pays when something goes wrong. Read together, those statements are a map of exactly where your financial exposure sits. This page assembles that map. What you do with it — buy insurance, self-insure, or accept the risk — is your decision; this page only makes the shape of the risk visible.

Seven places the department says the cost is yours

1. The flight itself

You can use any airline to transport your dog to Australia, at the airline operator’s discretion. … We are not responsible for your dog while they are under the care of the aircraft operator. You must pay all transport costs for your dog.

Once your animal is in the carrier’s care, the government has explicitly stepped back. If something goes wrong in transit, this is carrier liability territory, not government liability.

2. A transhipment stop

It is your responsibility as the importer to contact the competent authority in the country of transhipment. You will need to find out: whether they allow animals to tranship; whether they have a facility to hold animals during transhipment; how long the animals can be held; if additional conditions apply.

If your route involves changing aircraft anywhere, the department has told you plainly that finding out the local rules — and any resulting cost or delay — is on you, not on them.

3. Emergency veterinary care during quarantine

The Post Entry Quarantine facility does not have onsite veterinary facilities. We will contact you or your authorised agent if urgent care is required, to authorise the transportation of your animal to the emergency veterinary hospital. … The person in charge is responsible for any costs associated with the emergency veterinary hospital.

This is a real, specific, foreseeable cost with no cap stated anywhere. See inside quarantine for the full context.

4. The quarantine account itself

You must pay for all quarantine costs. You must pay your account in full before your animal is released from quarantine.

Covered in detail on what it costs — the department’s own estimate is AUD 3,114 to 4,234, and that is before any of the emergencies or extensions this page is about.

5. A shared charter’s longest quarantine

If cats and dogs travel together, they may all need to complete the longest quarantine period required for any cat or dog on the flight. … Any extra time spent in quarantine will be at your expense.

If you charter with other animals, someone else’s paperwork problem can become your bill. See private and chartered flights.

6. Non-compliance with permit conditions

If you fail to comply with your permit conditions, your cat may be: held longer in post entry quarantine; subject to additional testing; exported; euthanised. You will be liable for any costs involved.

This is the sharpest sentence in the entire register. It states the worst outcome directly, and attaches the cost of it to you regardless of which of the four outcomes applies.

7. A rejected or erroneous permit application

An import permit will not be issued until payment is cleared. … The fee is non-refundable once you submit your application.

Covered on what it costs: AUD 626 for the first animal, gone the moment you submit, whatever happens next.

What happens after release is also on you

You are responsible for meeting local requirements for cats in Australia. Contact your local Australian council or government. … We are not involved in local council and national microchip registration databases.

The department’s authority ends at release. Everything after — registration, desexing, local compliance — is state and territory law, covered on after-arrival state rules.

If you decide to look at insurance

Every item above is something a policy either would or would not cover, and the difference matters more than the premium. Take this list to an insurer and ask, item by item:

1. Does it cover emergency veterinary treatment during post-entry quarantine, given the facility has no vet on site and the transport to an outside hospital is separate again?
2. Does it cover an extended quarantine stay, and does “extended” include a stay caused by another animal on a shared charter?
3. Does it cover costs arising from a permit non-compliance finding, or does every policy exclude losses caused by the policyholder’s own paperwork?
4. Does it cover the non-refundable permit fee if the application is rejected for an error?
5. Does it cover anything at all while the animal is in the aircraft operator’s care — the exact window the department has said is not its responsibility?
6. Is cover valid for the entire published timeline — many pet-travel policies are written for a single trip of weeks, not the six-to-twelve-month preparation and quarantine window this pathway actually takes.

A policy that is silent on several of these is not necessarily bad — but you should know which ones before you pay for it, not after you need it.

What this page does not tell you

• Whether you should buy insurance, or what it costs. That is a decision this site cannot make for you.
• Any specific insurer or policy. None is named, and none is recommended.
• What a standard pet-travel policy typically excludes. No authority publishes this; ask the insurer directly, using the six questions above.
• Carrier-specific liability terms. Each airline’s conditions of carriage are separate from the government statements quoted here and are not covered on this site.
• Home-country veterinary or travel insurance that might already cover part of this — check your existing policies before assuming you have none.