From the 1st January 2021, UK Pet Passports are no longer valid for travel to the EU or NI – you now require an Animal Health Certificate for travel. This document is used to prove that your pet meets the requirements for travel such as rabies vaccines, tapeworm treatments, that you are the owner of the pet and that your trip is for non-commercial reasons.

On the agreed collection date you will need to come to Abbeywell Vets in Folkestone with your pet to collect the AHC. We will scan your pet’s microchip and witness you signing the document. We do not offer appointment times due to people arriving from all over the country and the potential for traffic and delays. Arrive anytime during our collection times and the whole collection process takes on average 10-15 minutes. Please note, we are closed for collections on Sundays & Bank Holidays.

The Collection Address is: 2-3 Majestic Parade, Sandgate Road, Folkestone CT20 2BZ.

Monday to Friday: 9:30am – 6pm
Saturday: 9:30am – 2pm
Sundays & Bank Holidays: Closed.

You do not need an appointment to collect your AHC. You can only collect during the advertised times.
If you cannot make the agreed collection date, we will hold the document for 10 days for you to collect.

Certified documents that show your pet has a valid, in-date Rabies Vaccine with written confirmation that your pet’s Microchip was scanned and verified by a veterinary surgeon at the time the Rabies Vaccine was administered. This evidence can be provided in the form of an existing Pet Passport, a Microchip Reading & Rabies Vaccination Certificate certified by your vet or your Pet’s Clinical Record which must be emailed directly to us by your vet and this should include all of your pet’s details such as colour, sex, breed, DOB, etc. and include the Owner’s name and address. We may need to contact your vet if any clarification is required.

What is a certified document? A rabies vaccination and microchip document is certified when the vet’s name is clearly written on the document along with the vet’s signature and has the vet’s practice stamp. If the vet who issued the document is an Official Veterinarian (OV) the vet should also include their SP number.

Documents that are not accepted include: Standard Vaccination Card, Record of Vaccination Card, Annual Health-check Card, Vaccine Invoice or Receipt, Microchip Certificate etc. These are all examples of documents that cannot be used as they are not certified documents.

You can request that your vet emails a copy of your pet’s clinical history directly to us. This must include the vaccine information (manufacturer, brand and date administered) and it must be noted that the microchip was verified at the time of vaccination.
Alternatively, you can download here a Declaration Form that your vet can complete electronically and email it to us directly (please note your vet may charge a fee to complete the Declaration Form)

Your pet can travel to the EU 21 days after they have received a rabies vaccine. You can order an AHC anytime after the rabies vaccine has been given as we require evidence of this to process your request. However, it is important to note that we are prohibited by the Government to issue an AHC until 21 days have elapsed; therefore, you can only collect an AHC after the 21 days has elapsed.

Your pet must have another rabies vaccine and you will need to wait for 21 days before travel. You can order an AHC anytime after the rabies vaccine has been given, but you can only collect the AHC after the 21 days has elapsed.

An Animal Health Certificate is valid to enter the EU & NI for up to 10 days from the date of issue, the date of issue is your collection date (when counting 10 days, your collection date is day 1 not day 0) The AHC is valid for a single entry into the EU & NI and cannot be re-used. Once a pet has entered the EU a pet can remain within the EU for up to four months, providing the rabies vaccination is still valid. Once a pet exits the EU a new Animal Health Certificate is required to re-enter the EU.

Please Note: If the rabies vaccine entered in the AHC expires before your return from the EU, your pet will not be allowed to enter Great Britain. Please ensure the rabies vaccine is valid for your entire journey.

A maximum of 5 pets can be entered on a single AHC. The pets must all be owned by the same person and must be travelling together. They do not need to be the same species, you could have a dog, a cat and a ferret travelling on the same certificate. If different Owners are travelling together as a group, they will each require a separate AHC for their own pet(s)

Our Standard Service is a minimum of TEN DAYS from the date of your application. For example, if you emailed your application on the 5th, the soonest you could collect your AHC would be the 15th. We always strongly recommend that you apply for your AHC as soon as possible, this is because we may become fully booked on the date you would like to collect. We have AHCs confirmed for collection many months in advance.

We will only take payment once we are satisfied with the documents you have provided. Sending incorrect, incomplete or out-of-date documents will cause delays, which is why it is important that you read and follow the detailed information and provide the correct documents as fully described on the website.

We are a busy veterinary surgery and there is a limit to the number of enquiries we can deal with and the number of AHCs that we can produce each day. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you apply for your AHC as soon as possible. Once we have received your email application with the required documents you will receive an immediate auto-responder acknowledgement, if you do not receive this, then we did not receive your application (check your Spam Folder). We aim to respond as quickly as we can, but during busy periods this may be longer, so please be patient.

Lots of pet owners request their AHCs many weeks or even many months in advance, so leaving things to the last moment may mean we are unable to provide you with an AHC on the date you have requested. We currently have confirmed requests for Christmas and Easter next year.

We can provide urgent same day AHCs, but this is a limited service and generally requested by people that have been refused travel at the Eurotunnel Terminal because of incorrect paperwork.

We may be able to provide an urgent AHCs for same day issue – normally within a few hours of confirmation. However, the Official Veterinarians at our surgery are usually busy providing care to sick and injured animals, so we cannot guarantee this. The fee for an urgent issue AHC is £199. Please only contact Abbeywell Vets directly if you require an urgent AHC. The clinical reception team are unable to answer general AHC enquiries.

It is prohibited by the Government to post an Animal Health Certificate. The Government Agency (APHA) state very clearly that your pet must be physically presented to be scanned for a microchip and identified as the pet entered on the AHC. We must also witness the signing of the Declaration in the Certificate.

The AHC must be collected by the Owner as it is their name that appears on the document. We also need to scan your pet’s microchip on the day of collection so both the Owner and pet(s) need to be physically present at the time of collection of the document.

Our service is designed for Owners travelling with their pets only. If the ‘Owner’ is not travelling with the pet, but a friend or family member is transporting the pet on the Owner’s behalf, we can provide this service but you MUST enquire about this before making a request for an AHC. This is because of additional checks and documents are required and the AHC must be completed differently.

Please note: We do not provide our services for pets being carried by pet transport companies, pet couriers etc. Please discuss your needs with your own vet or with the courier company.

An AHC for the first pet costs £99. Additional pets can be included on the same AHC for an additional fee of £30 per pet. Therefore, if you have two pets, the fee to provide an AHC would be £129. Our prices are inclusive of 20% VAT.

If we have previously provided you with an AHC and you now require another for your upcoming travels – providing that none of the details have changed such as the owner, the pets, the address, your pet’s vaccinations, your entry point into the EU etc. then an AHC for the first pet will be £69 and additional pets £20 each. We can provide this discount because we have your details on file that have already been fully checked and verified, so this saves us time and you money.

If your pet has a valid EU Passport (Not UK) and the current rabies vaccine was administered in Great Britain before the 1st January 2021 the current advice states it is valid for travel. If you have a valid EU Passport (Not UK) and the current rabies vaccine was administered in Great Britain after the 31st December 2020, this is currently not valid and you will require an AHC to enter the EU.

The AHC will need to be completed in the language for the country that you will enter the EU. For example, if you are travelling to Italy but you will enter the EU via France, the AHC will need to be completed in French. You do need to enter the EU via one of the specific Travellers Point of Entry (TPE)  You can click here to see the list.

There is free 2 hour on-street parking to the front of our surgery on Sandgate Road. We have dedicated client parking in the car park to the rear of our surgery, this is accessed via Christ Church Road, this has no height restriction. There is also a Public Car Park opposite our surgery if you wanted to spend some time in Folkestone, this has a height restriction so is not suitable for motor-homes or caravans. Some people with large motor-homes and caravans choose to stop at the front of our surgery to drop-off the person signing the documents and then drive around the block.

Please follow the links at the top right of this page to submit your request for an AHC. Alternatively, email your supporting evidence and completed application form to:  info@animalhealthcertificate.online
Please DO NOT send emails to Abbeywell Vets – we may not receive them and this will only delay your request.

Once the required details have been verified and we are able to issue you with an AHC, we will send you an email confirming the spelling of the owner’s name, the microchip number, the collection date etc. We will also send you a secure Payment Link to make payment using a credit or debit card to confirm your AHC request.

We can only issue a limited number of AHCs each day. Once we have sent the Paylink we will reserve your AHC & Collection Date for 24 hours. Please note that until payment has been received your collection date is not confirmed. Once we reach the maximum number of AHCs for a specific date we are then unable to issue any additional certificates for that date and a new collection date will need to be requested.

After 24 hours, if payment has not been received, the AHC request and the associated Payment Link will be deleted once the daily confirmed limit has been reached; or seven days have passed since the Paylink was first sent; or it is three days before the requested collection date; whichever is sooner.

No, this is not a requirement for issuing an AHC. An AHC does not require a health check or examination, it is an official document proving to the EU authorities that your pet is identifiable with a microchip and has had a valid rabies vaccine.
If your carrier requires a “Fit to Travel” certificate please discuss this with us.

No, you do not need to be registered at our surgery. We can provide AHC certificates to pet owners and their pets without registration. However, if you live in the immediate area of Folkestone and wished to register with us, you would be more than welcome to do so.

Yes we do! If we have previously provided you with an AHC and you now require another for your upcoming travels – providing none of the details entered on the previous AHC have changed, we can offer a discount for this repeat service. To be eligible for a Repeat Service AHC, all the details entered on the previous AHC must be identical, think of it as a reprint. If any of the information entered on a new AHC does not match the information entered on a previous AHC, then this is not eligible for a repeat service. If any of the details have changed, then we must process and verify the details to generate a new AHC. If we need to spend time verifying new information, then this is not eligible for a Repeat Service.

An AHC for the first pet will be £69 and additional pets £20 each. We can provide this discount because we have your details on a secure file that have already been fully checked and verified in the correct language, so this saves us time and you money. If we need to change any details, we need to delete the secure file and create a new one and this takes time.

If any details have changed from when we previously issued you with an AHC, please make your application for a Standard Service AHC.

Animal Health Certificates can be signed and collected on the following days and times:
Mondays: 10am to 6pm
Tuesdays: 10am to 6pm
Wednesdays: 10am to 6pm
Thursdays: 10am to 6pm
Fridays: 10am to 6pm
Saturdays: 10am to 2pm
Sundays: CLOSED
Bank Holidays: CLOSED
You do not need an appointment to collect an AHC but you can only collect during the prescribed times.

If your travel plans change, you have a free date change until ten days before your confirmed collection date. If you need to change the date again, any additional date changes until ten days before your collection date will incur a fee of £10 inclusive 20% VAT.

From ten days before your confirmed collection date any change to the collection date will incur a fee of £30 for the first pet and £10 for each additional pet. To change the date we must be given a new collection date that we must confirm on our system. Please remember you have 10 days from the issuance date (collection date) to enter the EU.

We hope that you don’t have reason to cancel your travel plans with your pet, but if you do need to cancel we ask that you email us immediately as cancellation refunds will be calculated from the date we received your email; please retain the acknowledgement email you will receive from us.

We try to keep our refund policy as fair as possible. This is based on the amount of administrative work undertaken to process requests from the original email and checking documents through to verifying details, creating digital files and processing payments. Due to the substantial amount of administrative work carried out before any Animal Health Certificate is issued, an administration charge is deducted from a refund when an AHC is cancelled.

For cancellations at anytime prior to the ten days before the confirmed collection date; a 50% non-refundable administration charge will be deducted from your refund.

For cancellations within 10 days prior to the confirmed collection date; a 100% non-refundable cancellation charge will apply.

We offer collections anytime during the following times:
Monday – Friday: 9:30am to 6pm
Saturday: 9:30am – 2pm
Sundays & Bank Holidays: CLOSED
We don’t offer appointments because people travel from all over the UK to collect their AHC and as we all know, traffic and roadworks can sometimes ruin the best made plans. We offer an open door collection service, so there’s no additional pressure to your journey to make a specific appointment time. Arrive anytime during our advertised collection times to collect your AHC.

Yes, you can! The vast majority of pet owners collect their AHC en-route to the Eurotunnel Terminal or the Port of Dover. However, the AHC is valid to enter the EU for 10 days from your confirmed collection date, and some owners choose to collect their AHC in advance of their travel date if they are travelling overnight or very early in the morning. This is why it is important that you provide your collection date and not your travel date if it is different from your collection date.

Once the required information has been checked and verified, we will send you a confirmation email setting out some important information that you must check such as, Microchip Number, Owner’s Name and Collection Date and country of entry. This email also states that your AHC is confirmed once payment has been received.

To make payment, we will send you a Payment Link immediately after the confirmation email. Once payment has been made you will receive an automated payment acknowledgement from our merchant services provider. This acknowledgement means your AHC is confirmed for collection on the agreed Collection Date. All AHCs go into an active file ten days prior to the confirmed collection date. Our Official Veterinarians process each AHC in the order they are added to the active List. Once your AHC has been prepared you will receive a text message confirming that your AHC is ready for collection on your agreed collection date – you can’t collect before this date. During busy periods, this text message may arrive as late as the evening before your collection date.

Please do not send emails enquiring how everything is going with your AHC. This greatly increases the number of emails we need to process and will delay our overall response times. If we have provided a confirmed collection date, if you have made payment and if you have received an acknowledgement for this payment, then please rest assured that we have your AHC in-hand and it will be ready for your collection date.

A tapeworm treatment must be administered by a veterinary surgeon a minimum of 24 hours and a maximum of 120 hours before arriving into Great Britain. If you are planning a trip to the EU and plan to return to GB within 120 hours, you could have the Tapeworm treatment administered in Great Britain. It is important to remember that your dog will not be allowed to enter Great Britain if they have not received a tapeworm treatment. Any vet in the EU can do this, they need to administer the tapeworm treatment and then complete and stamp the section in the AHC. If you have a French/English AHC, then this section is at the bottom of Page 4.

If your are travelling to Finland, Ireland, Malta or Norway, your dog will require a Tapeworm Treatment administered by a veterinary surgeon a minimum of 24 hours and a maximum of 120 hours before arrival into those countries.

If you would like to have a Tapeworm Treatment administered when collecting your AHC it may be possible for Abbeywell Vets to provide this service. There is limited availability for this service and it is generally available during the afternoon on weekdays. Please note there is a maximum of two dogs per visit, per AHC for this tapeworm service.

Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you if plan to use this service that you do make this clear when requesting your AHC. Please note that Abbeywell Vets is a busy surgery and will have limited availability for this pet travel service due to the needs of the registered pets under their care. It is strongly recommended that you request your AHC with as much notice as possible so you will have a better chance of securing an appointment that better suits your travel plans; late requests may mean there is little or no availability.

The fee for this service is £54.95. This is for one or two dogs to be weighed, examined by a vet, the treatment administered and the documentation completed. The cost of the Tapeworm Treatment is in addition to this fee.

If you are collecting a confirmed AHC and your pet becomes unwell and requires urgent treatment, please contact Abbeywell Vets. If your pet has a genuine emergency that requires emergency treatment, please call 01303 227179. If Abbeywell Vets is closed, your call will be immediately transferred to the emergency care provider, Vets Now in Ashford.

We only issue AHCs for collection at Abbeywell Vets in Folkestone. We do not issue AHCs for anyone else or for collection from any other location. Because we issue the AHC, we must scan your pet and witness you signing the Declaration at our veterinary surgery.

There are now an ever growing number of websites advertising AHCs and there are a number of providers online who have copied our information and used content from our website without permission in an attempt to look similar. This can be misleading if you wish to use the AHC service provided by Abbeywell Vets, so please check carefully – the good news is that you are currently on the right website!

Here are the two website addresses you can use for our AHC Service:
www.animalhealthcertificate.online
www.ahc.online

Abbeywell Vets is a long established Veterinary Surgery and we provide the AHC service online, so that the AHC service is separated from our clinical and healthcare work that we do at the surgery. Providing this service online allows us to operate more efficiently so we can keep prices low. You can find lots of information about us online, including Google Reviews, social media and we are also listed on Government websites.

You are right to be cautious, there have been a number of reports in the veterinary press about fraud and fake AHCs being supplied, as the blank AHC documents are openly available online for anyone to download. If you are concerned, always use an established veterinary surgery for peace of mind.

If you are concerned or have doubts, there are a few checks you can do online before providing your personal details or making any payment:

Is the company GDPR compliant and registered with the ICO to legally handle your personal details
Is the company on the Government Website that lists providers of AHCs
Is the company registered with Companies House

We strongly recommended that you confirm your AHC as soon as possible. Once we have received your email application with the required documents you will receive an auto-responder acknowledgement email. We aim to answer your email as quickly as we can, this is normally around five days, but during busy periods this may be a little longer. The greater notice you can provide the less stressed you will be!

Lots of pet owners request their AHCs many weeks or even many months in advance, so leaving things to the last moment may mean we are unable to issue you with an AHC on the date you have requested because we are fully booked for that day. There is no limit to how far in advance you apply for an AHC, as long as the rabies vaccination evidence you are using is valid and in-date for your proposed collection and travel dates. We currently have confirmed AHC requests for Christmas and Easter next year!

We can accept a number of different documents as evidence to prove the rabies status and identity of your pet. The easiest and most straightforward way of doing this is for you to contact your veterinary surgery and request that they email your pet’s clinical history directly to us. This should contain all the essential information we require to issue an AHC and because it has come directly from your vet, it does not need to be certified separately because clinical history is a legal document.

If you as a pet owner will provide the evidence yourself, then this must be correctly certified to prevent fraud, but most importantly the Official Veterinarian who will issue the AHC can only accept evidence that has been correctly certified by a veterinary surgeon. All veterinary surgeons in the UK must follow the Code of Conduct as set our by their Governing Body, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). The Code of Conduct is very clear regarding certification of documents and the RCVS has clear guidance for this:

A veterinarian should ensure:
1. It includes their signature
2. In clear lettering, their name.
3. In clear lettering, their practice address
4. It includes their official or practice stamp.

Therefore, we can only accept documents that are correctly certified as set out above. Please see the Request Pages on this website where you can find more detailed information about the type of documents we can accept and the specific information that the documents must include.