The identity check that cuts quarantine from 30 days to 10

Last verified: 2026-08-25

The answer

The identity check is optional and recommended, and it reduces the minimum quarantine period for a dog or cat from a Group 3 country from 30 days to 10 days.

Two sequencing rules decide whether you can have it:

1. it must be completed before the RNATT;
2. the identity check and the RNATT cannot be completed in the same visit.

So this is not a step you can add later. Once the RNATT blood sample has been taken, the opportunity has passed for that test cycle — and with it, twenty days of quarantine.

Read that in days and money

Twenty extra days in a government quarantine facility is the single largest avoidable cost in an Australian pet move, and the only thing standing between the two outcomes is one extra veterinary appointment, booked in the right order, months earlier.

If you take one piece of sequencing away from this site, make it this one: book the identity check before you book the blood draw.

Who can do it, and who cannot

Only an official government veterinarian can complete an identity check.

• The check is sent directly to the department. You do not receive a copy and do not need one.
• Pet agents and shippers cannot provide it. If a company offers to handle “the identity check” as part of a package, what they can do is arrange the appointment — the check itself is the government veterinarian’s act.
• No other evidence of identity is accepted. Not a pet passport, not a vaccination card, not a microchip certificate. These are the documents people most often assume will serve, and they do not.

If your pet is already vaccinated

You can still get the identity check before the blood sample for the RNATT. Talk to your veterinarian about the timing — the constraint is the order of the two appointments, not your pet’s vaccination history.

What this page does not tell you

• What the check consists of, or what the veterinarian records during it.
• How to find an official government veterinarian in your country, which runs through your national competent authority. For the United Kingdom specifically, see OV66: what the authorisation is; for the United States, see the USDA-accredited vet and VEHCS.
• What quarantine itself costs or involves at either the 10-day or 30-day length.
• Animals returning to Australia, where an identity check on Australian-issued export certification may be used instead — a different pathway this site does not cover.