Pet export certificates

Get your pet’s export certificate apostilled in time to travel

FCDO apostille for non-EU pet travel — turned around in as little as a day, with the route and price confirmed before you commit.

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Your pet’s export certificate comes with a clock on it. The vet’s examination opens a short window — often just days — and the certificate must be legalised and returned to you before that window closes.

We handle the FCDO apostille for you, quickly enough to fit the deadline, and we’ll tell you up front whether your certificate can go straight to the FCDO or needs a certification step first.

Either way, you’ll know the route, the price and the timing before you commit.

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Travelling to the EU? You probably don’t need an apostille at all — here’s why.

Start here:

Pet travel to the EU needs no apostille — this page is for everywhere else

If you’re taking a dog, cat or ferret to the EU, you almost certainly don’t need an apostille, and you don’t need us.

Travel from Great Britain to the EU now runs on an Animal Health Certificate, issued by an official vet and accepted directly at the border.

There’s nothing to legalise. The certificate stands on its own and is valid for ten days from the date your vet issues it, so the thing to watch is your travel date, not paperwork from us.

This page is for the other journeys: the ones outside the EU, where the destination asks for a legalised Export Health Certificate before it will let your pet in.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Egypt all fall into this group, and each has its own requirements in addition to the apostille.

If that’s the trip you’re making, the rest of this page walks you through exactly what your certificate needs and how fast we can turn it around.

The clock:

Your vet’s examination starts the countdown

The pressure on a pet export certificate doesn’t come from the apostille. It comes from the examination behind it.

Most export health certificates are issued only after the vet has examined your pet within a set number of hours before travel, and the certificate itself stays valid for a short, fixed period — often around a week.

That’s the real window, and everything else must fit inside it.

So, the question that matters isn’t “can this be apostilled” — it’s “can it be apostilled and back with me before the certificate expires.” That’s the part we’re built for.

Once your certificate is signed and with us, the apostille can be turned around in as little as a day, and for genuinely tight timings there’s a same-day route.

The trick is simply to start early: book your vet appointment, know your travel date, and send the certificate to us the moment it’s signed, rather than the night before you fly.

If your timing is already tight, tell us when you reach out. We’ll be straight with you about whether the deadline is workable and which speed you’ll need, before you pay for anything.

Getting it apostilled:

An original, wet-ink-sealed certificate goes straight to apostille

Most official pet export certificates can be apostilled directly, with no certification step in between — which makes them faster and cheaper to legalise than people expect.

The condition is specific, though, so it’s worth checking yours against it before you send anything.

For the direct route, your certificate must be all three of these:

1
Official. It’s an export health certificate issued through DEFRA/APHA — the official government certificate completed by an Official Veterinarian, not a letter or health note written on a private practice’s own paper.
2
Wet ink sealed. The vet’s stamp and signature are applied in actual ink, by hand. A printed, scanned or photocopied crest doesn’t qualify — the FCDO needs to see the genuine wet-ink mark on the page.
3
The original. It must be the original signed certificate itself, not a printout, a scan, or a copy. This is the one most people get caught by, so it’s worth saying plainly: send us the original document the vet signed, not a print-at-home version.

If it falls short on any of them — a printout, a copy, or a certificate from a private vet rather than the official DEFRA form — it isn’t a dead end.

It just takes one extra step: a UK solicitor certifies it first, and then it’s apostilled on the solicitor’s signature. That adds a little to the cost and timeline, as laid out in the pricing below.

When you send your certificate over, we’ll confirm which route it qualifies for before quoting, so there are no surprises.

Pricing:

Three speeds, priced by how fast you need it

What you’ll pay comes down to two things: how your certificate reaches us, and how quickly you need it back.

An original, wet-ink-sealed DEFRA certificate goes straight to the FCDO, which is the cheapest route.

Anything that needs a solicitor’s certification first costs a little more. Beyond that, you’re simply choosing your speed.

Your certificate	3–4 days	Next-day	Same-day
Original, wet-ink-sealed official DEFRA certificate → straight to the FCDO, no certification (next-day cut-off: in by 10:00 am)	£87	£97	£280
Printout, copy, or private-vet document → solicitor certifies it first (next-day cut-off: in by 9:30am)	£120	£135	£280

The same day is the restricted FCDO route. It must be pre-approved by the FCDO the day before, so it can’t be arranged on the day itself. Your certificate needs to reach us by 9:00 am and come back around 3:30 pm.
One certificate, one charge. A pet export certificate often runs to several pages — that’s still one document and one fee, not a charge per page.
Outside the Hague Convention? Saudi Arabia is a member, so an apostille alone is enough. The UAE, Qatar and Egypt are not, so those destinations need embassy attestation after the apostille.

That’s quoted per country — for example, Egypt is £185, including solicitor certification and attestation. Return shipping to these regions is confirmed at the time of order, as courier pricing there can move.

Prices include the FCDO fee and VAT.

Return delivery is added at checkout, and if you’re in London, we can arrange same-day courier — more on that further down.

Not sure which row your certificate falls into?

Send it over, and we’ll confirm the route and price before you commit.

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Sending your documents

Send the original, and it comes back to you apostilled

For the direct route, send us the original certificate your vet signed — the actual wet-ink document, not a scan or a printout.

It travels to the FCDO, comes back with the apostille attached, and returns to you as a single legalised document, ready to travel with your pet. If you have the original, that’s always what we legalise.

If a copy is genuinely all you have, we’re not stuck — a UK FCDO-registered solicitor can certify the copy, and we apostille it on that basis. It’s the certified route rather than the direct one, so it costs a little more and takes an extra step, but it gets you there.

Two practical things that protect your timing: post the original on a tracked service, keep the tracking number, and send it the moment it’s signed rather than holding onto it.

With a short validity window, a day spent in the post is a day off the clock you can’t get back.

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Non-Hague destinations

Some countries add an embassy step after the apostille

For most destinations, the apostille is the finish line. These are Hague Convention countries, which accept it on its own — Saudi Arabia among them.

A few countries sit outside the convention and need one more step: after the apostille, the certificate goes to that country’s embassy in London for attestation.

The UAE, Qatar and Egypt all work this way. It’s priced per country — Egypt, for example, is £185, covering solicitor certification, apostille, and attestation.

One thing to expect: the embassy stage runs to its own timetable and can’t be put on a fixed clock, so for these destinations it pays to start early.

Tell us where your pet’s heading, and we’ll provide a quote for the full price and a realistic timeline.

Return delivery

Choose how your certificate comes back

Once your certificate is apostilled, you choose how it is returned. Collect it from our London office for free, or we’ll post it back on a tracked service — UK or international.

If you’re in London and the timing’s tight, we can arrange a same-day courier, so the certificate reaches you the moment it’s ready.

You’ll pick your return option at checkout. For destinations in the Middle East, courier pricing there can move, so we confirm the exact return cost with you at the time of order rather than quoting a fixed figure.

Before you order

A few things pet owners ask

How do I know if my vet's signature is registered with the FCDO?

You usually can’t check it yourself — there’s no public register to search. The simplest route is to ask your vet directly, but in practice we check for you before anything is submitted. If the signature is registered, your certificate takes the direct route; if it isn’t, we’ll tell you the alternative before you’ve paid for the wrong one.

My vet isn't registered with the FCDO. Does that stop me?

No. It just changes the route. If the signature can’t be verified, a UK solicitor certifies the certificate instead, and it’s apostilled on the solicitor’s signature — the certified route in the pricing above. Your vet doesn’t need to do anything, and you don’t lose time chasing a registration that might take a week or more.

Will the apostille have my vet's name on it, or the solicitor's?

On the direct route, the apostille is issued against your vet’s signature. On the certified route, it’s issued against the solicitor’s — not the vet’s. This matters because a few overseas authorities specifically require the apostille to be tied to the certificate’s own signatory, so if you’ve been told the document must name a particular person, tell us before we start and we’ll make sure the right route is used.

My certificate has a stamp but no signature — is that a problem?

Not at all — a clear, original wet-ink stamp is exactly what the direct route needs. It’s the printed or photocopied version of a stamp that gets certificates rejected, not the absence of a handwritten signature. If you’re unsure whether yours is an original inked stamp or a printed one, send us a photo, and we’ll tell you.

Can you apostille the vaccination record or rabies certificate as well?

Yes. Pets often travel with more than one document, and we can legalise them together. Each additional document is priced on its own, so you’re not paying a single bundled fee — you’ll see exactly what each one costs before you commit.

Ready to start?

Send us your certificate and we’ll confirm the fastest route

The quickest way to begin is to send us a scan of your certificate. We’ll tell you whether it goes straight to the FCDO or needs certification first, which speed fits your travel date, and exactly what it’ll cost — before you commit to anything.

From there it’s simple: post us the original, we apostille it, and it comes back to you ready to travel. If your timing’s tight, say so when you get in touch and we’ll tell you straight away whether the deadline works.