Pet Transport from India to New Zealand

New Zealand’s rule for Indian pets is stated without softening on MPI’s own site: if your pet’s country is not on the approved list, you cannot import the pet. India is not on the list. There is no permit, test or fee that changes this; the only lawful route is the two-stage move, and honest planning starts there.

The mechanism: the pet first relocates to an MPI-approved country (the UAE and the UK sit in the rabies-controlled category, Singapore in the rabies-free category) and lives there for the six continuous months immediately before export to New Zealand. Then it completes that country’s full NZ programme: rabies vaccination, the RNATT titre at 0.5 IU/ml or better, parasite treatments, the MPI import permit, and a minimum 10-day quarantine on arrival at Auckland or Christchurch. End to end, nine to twelve months is realistic.

MPI’s import health standard recognises three categories of country: Australia and Norfolk Island; rabies-free countries such as Singapore and Japan; and rabies-controlled countries such as the UAE, UK, USA and South Africa. Everything else, India included, is off the map, and the veterinary certificate every NZ-bound pet carries certifies that the animal has resided continuously in the exporting country for the six months immediately preceding export. That clause is what makes staging unavoidable and why a mid-period trip home resets the clock.

Stage one is an ordinary India-to-UAE or India-to-Singapore relocation, starting at the AQCS office: pet and paperwork presented seven days before departure by appointment, export certificate valid ten days, six offices covering Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Stage two, six months later, is the staging country’s standard New Zealand programme, run to MPI’s checklist. A new import standard came into force on 1 July 2026 with a transition window; from 1 April 2027 it adds an official identity check at least six months before export, which folds neatly into the residency period if planned from the start.

Every cat and dog entering New Zealand (Australia-origin pets aside) spends a minimum of 10 days at an MPI-approved quarantine facility, and the country has exactly three: Pethaven in Pokeno and Qualified Pet Services in Takanini, both serving Auckland, and Canterbury Quarantine Services at Aylesbury outside Christchurch, the South Island’s only facility.

Scarcity is the trap. Space books out months in advance, peaking in the southern summer (December to February) and mid-year (June to August), and MPI expects the quarantine reservation to exist before the import permit application goes in. Book the kennel before the paperwork.

The New Zealand fees themselves are precise: NZ$268.24 including GST for the import permit, NZ$374.05 border inspection for the first pet and NZ$124.68 for each additional, plus the facility’s own charges, indicatively around NZ$1,000 for a small dog’s 10-day stay. The larger costs sit earlier: two full relocations and six months of keep abroad. Indian shippers publish Rs 3,00,000 to 4,50,000+ for the comparable single-leg Australia move, and this route is that plus a second leg.

Pick the staging country by where your family will actually be. If the household is moving to New Zealand via a UAE or Singapore posting anyway, the six months costs little extra; if the pet must board abroad alone for half a year, the welfare and cost picture changes, and it is worth asking whether a family member’s interim posting can host the pet instead.

Whichever country you choose, engage a shipper at both ends before stage one begins, so the stage-two requirements (titre timing, treatment windows, permit sequencing) shape what happens from the first month of residency rather than being discovered in month five. Indian relocation firms publish this corridor as a staged service, and the good ones plan both legs as one project.