A lady on the mumsnet.com website requires urgent advice about importing cats from Poland to the UK. But one the cats (a mother) originally came from Ukraine and the other is a kitten born to the mother in Poland. She is putting up a Ukrainian family. They’ve been in the country for 4 months and they had planned to bring their cat to the UK. While their cat was in Poland on transit to the UK, she had kittens. One of the Ukrainian family members has gone back to Poland to pick up the mother cat and a kitten and they’re not clear how to do it under existing regulations.
The cats have pet passports but she asked whether she can bring the mother and her kitten to the UK on their passports or is there more to do? Will the cats have to go into quarantine? The acclaimed EU ‘pet passport’ is not a passport on its own to free pet travel into the UK under these circumstances. There is more to do.
Delving into this problem more or less for the first time, it is clearly a complete nightmare to try and work out what to do next. The problem is that the UK has left the European Union which itself causes great complications in importing cats from the European Union. Poland, as you know, as in the European Union. And there’s rabies in Ukraine but not in the UK. That’s a complication.
The advice on the UK government website is pretty good but it is very complicated. And I think the advice reproduced below is the relevant advice in this instance.
If you are from Ukraine and are seeking refuge in the UK, you can bring your pet dog, cat or ferret without it going into quarantine or isolation if it has:
- been microchipped
- been vaccinated against rabies and had a blood test 30 days later to confirm the vaccine worked, and waited 3 months after the blood test to travel to the UK
- a GB pet health certificate
- had tapeworm treatment (dogs only) between 24 hours (one day) and 120 hours (5 days) before travel
If your pet does not have a GB pet health certificate but does have an EU pet passport, call the Animal and Plant Health Agency on +44 3000 200 301 for advice.
You will need a licence to bring your pet to the UK if your pet:
- does not meet all these requirements
- meets these requirements, but you do not have proof that it does.
The key, as I see it, is to try and contact the Animal and Plant Health Agency on the telephone number provided. Bearing in mind that Britain is broken and the various organisations are very hard to contact, I wouldn’t expect great success.
But this woman’s problems are complicated by the fact that the cat originally came from Ukraine and is entering the UK via Poland. And then of course she gave birth to kittens. There are several layers of complications as I see it which requires a telephone call really to try and work your way through these issues to find a resolution.
Below are some more articles on this topic which I hope help a little bit. They provide some background information.
Relaxation of rules taking animals from Ukraine into adjacent and EU countries (March 2022)
It’s wonderful that it offers the chance to visit nearby countries and interact with intriguing individuals. Recently, I’ve had to travel much for work. I take multiple flights each month. It is crucial for me to fly comfortably as a result. And for me, the best solution was to book inexpensive visite site https://voyagu.com/destinations/business-class-flights-to-europe-united-kingdom-edinburgh/ . I use it frequently because it was ideal for me in all respects.