Pet Transport Japan to France

Japan is on the EU’s listed-country register, and that removes the single most time-consuming requirement in international pet travel: there is no rabies titre test and no 3-month wait. What is left is a short, sharp sequence. Rabies vaccination at least 21 days before departure, a NACCS export application filed at least 14 days before your inspection date, the inspection itself within 10 days of the flight, and a health certificate valid for 10 days.

Two things decide this route instead of serology. The first is your dog’s breed and, if it is an American Staffordshire, boerbull or Tosa type, its registration status: France bans category 1 dogs from import entirely. The second is which airline will take a flat-faced dog on the Haneda to Paris nonstop, because JAL and ANA answer that question very differently.

French law splits dangerous dogs into two categories, and only one of them may be imported. Customs state it plainly: only dogs of the second category are authorised for import.

Category 1, the chiens d’attaque, covers American Staffordshire terrier types (commonly called pit bulls), mastiff types called boerbulls, and Tosa types, where the dog is not entered in a genealogical book recognised by the Ministry of Agriculture. Category 2, the chiens de garde et de défense, covers the registered American Staffordshire terrier, the Rottweiler both by breed and by type, and the registered Tosa.

The distinction is registration, and it produces a counter-intuitive result: the same physical dog can be barred or admitted depending on whether it holds recognised pedigree papers. Category is assigned on morphology, so an unregistered Rottweiler-looking dog can be assessed into category 1 and refused at the border, with the prohibition codified in Article L. 215-2 of the rural code. If your dog is any of these types, settle its paperwork status before booking anything.

Air France, if you fly it, is stricter than the border: it declines dogs in both category 1 and category 2.

The nonstop is from Haneda, not Narita, and it is well served: Air France, JAL and ANA together run around 33 weekly departures, at roughly 14 hours 30 minutes.

For a flat-faced dog the choice is made for you by the calendar. JAL refuses Bulldogs and French Bulldogs on every flight, all year, domestic and international. ANA’s snub-nosed ban is seasonal, 1 May to 31 October, covering Bulldogs, French Bulldogs, Boxers, Shih Tzus, Boston Terriers, Bull Terriers, Chow Chows, Pugs and Pekingese among others. A pug moving in February has an ANA option; the same pug in July does not, on either carrier.

For everything else, ANA’s terms are the clearest published: no cabin carriage, crate up to 292cm total linear and 45kg all in, at a flat 40,000 yen (or 300 euros) per cage for a Japan to Europe sector. JAL’s crate rules include one detail specific to this route: on flights longer than 12 hours a water dispenser must be attached to the crate, and Haneda to Paris always crosses that threshold.

Japan’s Animal Quarantine Service runs one of the most precise export systems anywhere, and it starts a fortnight before you visit them. The export inspection application goes into NACCS, the customs IT system, at least 14 days before the inspection date you want. Email applications are accepted but slower, because AQS then has to key the data in.

The inspection happens within 10 days of departure, at Narita, Haneda or Kansai, daily between 08:30 and 16:30, and takes 30 to 60 minutes for a straightforward case. You leave with an export quarantine certificate in English, which is what French officials read alongside the endorsed health certificate.

On arrival at Paris Charles de Gaulle the pet goes through a documentary and identity check at the designated veterinary entry point. If your routing is not the nonstop and transits a country outside the exempt list, you also need written proof that the animal had no contact with rabies-susceptible species during that transit, which is a good reason to take the direct flight.