The pet export permit in Pakistan, step by step (2026)

Every pet leaving Pakistan needs a government export health certificate. Most guides online still name the wrong agency — the Animal Quarantine Department (AQD) was merged into NAFSA, the National Food Safety and Animal & Plant Health Regulatory Authority, in 2025, and certificates now flow through the Pakistan Single Window (PSW) digital portal. Here is the current process.

Before the permit: what must already be done

1. ISO microchip implanted — and implanted before the rabies vaccination, or several destinations treat the vaccination as invalid.
2. Rabies vaccination at least 21–30 days before travel (destination-dependent), recorded against the microchip number.
3. Destination requirements met — titer test for the UK/US/EU/Australia, import permit for the UAE, and so on. The export certificate does not replace any of these.

The export certificate itself

1. A registered vet issues a health certificate shortly before travel — validity is short (days, not weeks), so it is timed against the flight.
2. The export application goes through the Pakistan Single Window (psw.gov.pk), where NAFSA processes animal export certification digitally.
3. A quarantine inspection at the NAFSA office (offices sit at Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad airports) confirms the animal matches the paperwork. The quarantine certificate is also short-lived — roughly a week — so it, too, is choreographed against departure.
4. The airline checks all of it at cargo acceptance or check-in, together with an IATA-compliant crate. Crate rejection at the counter is one of the most common ways a move fails on the day.

Where DIY moves go wrong

• Vaccinating before the microchip, invalidating the vaccine record.
• Getting certificates too early, so they expire before the flight.
• Verbal airline approvals that evaporate at check-in — get it in writing.
• Following pre-2025 guides that send you to the wrong agency.

The sequencing is the hard part: three documents with different validity windows, one government portal, one airline, and a fixed flight date. That choreography is exactly what we do.