Pet passport for a dog or cat in 2026: how to get one, what is inside, what it costs

A pet passport is not a formality or a booklet you get "just in case". Without one a boarding facility will turn your animal away, a border crossing will not happen, an insurer will not take the pet on, and some clinics will not even schedule elective surgery. Yet it takes a single visit to obtain and costs less than one appointment with a vet.

What a veterinary passport is

It is the document that holds the animal's entire medical history: vaccinations, parasite treatments, microchip number, owner details. It is issued once and stays valid for the life of the animal – that is exactly how the state service describes it.

• animal details: species, breed, sex, date of birth, colour, name
• microchip or tattoo number and the date it was implanted
• owner details: full name, address, phone
• vaccination table: date, vaccine name, batch, validity, vet's signature and clinic stamp
• treatments against worms and external parasites

The critical part is the vet's signature and the clinic stamp next to every vaccination. A passport without them is not a document, it is a notebook.

Where to get a pet passport

State veterinary clinic. Passports are issued by the territorial bodies of the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, and the service itself is free of charge – one working day after the animal is examined. The downside is queues and limited opening hours.

Private veterinary clinic. More expensive, but fast and without queues. Most clinics issue the passport on the same day you bring the animal in for its first vaccination.

Through Diia. The state portal lists the issuing of a veterinary and sanitary passport as a service. But the passport is only issued after a clinical examination, so there is no way to avoid the visit to a vet.

Buying a blank form on a marketplace makes no sense: without a vet's entries and stamps it proves nothing.

What a pet passport costs in 2026

At a state veterinary clinic the passport is issued free of charge. At a private clinic the form itself costs 100-250 UAH. In practice, though, it is rarely issued on its own:

So the first trip with a puppy or a kitten comes to roughly 2000-3800 UAH including the passport, the chip and the first vaccine. After that it is just the annual booster.

What to bring with you

• the animal itself – no passport is issued without an examination
• your own ID showing your name and address
• any earlier paperwork: breeder's certificate, old vaccination card, pedigree
• the chip number, if the animal is already chipped

Travelling to the EU: the misunderstanding that ruins trips

This is where owners get it wrong most often, and the mistake costs them the trip.

Ukraine is not on the EU list of "favourable" third countries. That is plain from Regulation (EU) 2026/636, which replaced Regulation 577/2013 on 22 April 2026: Ukraine does not appear in its annexes. The consequence is simple – the rules for us are stricter than the "chip + vaccination + 21 days" that most articles online keep copying from one another.

1. An ISO-standard microchip – mandatory, and it must come first. The chip has to be implanted before the rabies vaccination, otherwise the vaccination does not count.
2. Rabies vaccination. After the primary shot the general EU rule applies: at least 21 days before travel.
3. A rabies antibody titre test – mandatory for Ukraine. Blood is drawn no earlier than 30 days after the vaccination, and the result must be at least 0.5 IU/ml.
4. A waiting period of about three months: at least 90 days must pass between the blood sampling and the date the certificate is issued.
5. An EU veterinary health certificate from a state vet – the passport alone is not enough.

Worth knowing separately: the wartime relaxations are over. Poland ended its special regime for animals from Ukraine back on 27 March 2023.

Planning takeaway: allow at least four months from the first clinic visit. Turning up at the border with a vaccination given yesterday means a guaranteed refusal.

The veterinary law: what changed in 2026

Since 1 March 2026 Ukraine applies the Law "On Veterinary Medicine and Animal Welfare" No. 1206-IX (adopted on 4 February 2021). It replaced the 1992 law and brought Ukrainian rules closer to European ones.

• A standard-format pet passport is mandatory for owners of cats and dogs.
• Microchipping is mandatory for taking an animal abroad and under the rules of individual cities: in Kyiv, for example, a chip is required for registration and a tag.
• Registration in the Unified State Register of Domestic Animals is voluntary.

Formally you can manage with a passport and no chip if you are not going anywhere. In practice the chip solves the one problem that matters – a lost animal without a chip is almost impossible to find.

What to do if you lose the passport

It is reissued by the clinic that created it, because the records stay there. Hence a useful habit: photograph the vaccination spread right after every visit.

Pet passport and pet insurance

One more thing owners tend to discover late: without a pet passport an animal will not be accepted for insurance. Two things are needed to take out a policy – a veterinary and sanitary passport of the standard format and an implanted microchip whose number is entered in that passport. No vaccination certificate and no extra examination are required.

The logic is straightforward: the insurer needs to know exactly which animal it is covering and to see that basic preventive care has been done. The chip is identification, the passport is medical history. Treating an injury costs far more than insuring against it: a single visit to a specialist runs from 550 to 1200 UAH, and surgery easily reaches several thousand.

The short version

• A pet passport is issued once and lasts for the animal's life; free at a state clinic, 100-250 UAH for the form at a private one
• You can get it at a state clinic, a private clinic or through Diia, but a clinical examination is always required
• The first trip with a puppy or kitten, chip and vaccination included, comes to roughly 2000-3800 UAH
• The chip must be implanted before the rabies vaccination, otherwise the vaccination does not count
• For the EU you need a chip, a vaccination, an antibody titre test, about three months of waiting and an EU health certificate – plan four months ahead
• Without a passport and a chip an animal cannot be insured

Sources

1. Law of Ukraine "On Veterinary Medicine and Animal Welfare" No. 1206-IX
2. State Service for Food Safety on the law entering into force
3. Diia online guide: issuing a veterinary and sanitary passport for an animal
4. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/636 – lists of third countries and territories
5. European Commission: Bringing a pet into the EU from a non-EU country
6. Your Europe: Travelling with pets and other animals in the EU

This material is for information only. Check the specific import requirements of your destination country on official sources before you travel.

Frequently asked questions