Pet Transport from Singapore to Malaysia

Two lists matter, and they do different things.

The refused list: American Pit Bull, Pit Bull Terrier, Pit Bull, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, American Bulldog, Neapolitan Mastiff, Japanese Tosa, Akita, Dogo Argentino and Fila Brasileiro. MAQIS will not issue an import permit for any of them.

The restricted list: Rottweiler, Doberman Pinscher, German Shepherd, Belgian Shepherd, East European Shepherd, Bull Mastiff, Bull Terrier and Perro de Presa Canario. These can come, but the owner must make a written application to the Director of State Veterinary Services in the destination state in advance. Start that early, because it is a state-level decision rather than a form.

A note for owners of mixed-breed dogs, since this is where the rules bite hardest in practice: what matters at the border is how the animal is described on its paperwork and how it presents on inspection, not a DNA test. If your dog could reasonably be called a Staffordshire cross, take advice before booking anything.

Since 2013 the import permit for animals entering Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan has been issued by MAQIS, the Malaysian Quarantine and Inspection Services, under the Malaysian Quarantine and Inspection Services Act 2011. But MAQIS does not act first.

The Department of Veterinary Services grants approval, and only then can MAQIS process the permit. Applications sent straight to MAQIS sit still. DVS also maintains the country classifications that decide what the permit will demand, and it last revised them in March 2026, having suspended an earlier 2025 version in February, so working from a guide written even a year ago is risky.

For a pet coming from Singapore specifically, the requirement is an import licence together with an owner declaration and a certificate from the Singaporean veterinary authority. That certificate carries an unusual double endorsement: that the animal was not itself imported into Singapore during the six months immediately preceding the certificate except in accordance with regulation, and that no case of rabies had been reported in Singapore during those same six months.

The first half of that is worth reading twice. A dog that only recently arrived in Singapore from somewhere else cannot use the Singapore arrangement to hop onward to Malaysia. The six months are about the animal, not just the country.

Singapore’s export side is quick and well documented. The export licence goes through the GoBusiness Licensing Portal at S$50 for the normal two-working-day service or S$100 for express in one working day, and stays valid for 90 days.

For the health certificate there is a choice, and it is a scheduling decision rather than a preference. AVS can endorse Malaysia’s own template, which your private vet completes and you submit through GoBusiness with the documents dropped at the Raffles Building in the Singapore Botanic Gardens; that takes two working days and has no express option. Or you can use the QR-verifiable AVS certificate, issued after a private veterinary examination and printed by you, which is valid for only seven days from issue and therefore has to be timed to the crossing.

Where a pre-export inspection is required, request it at least five days before departure through the NParks eservices portal. And once the animal has actually gone, cancel its Singapore dog licence in PALS. That last step is easy to forget and easy to fix.

For a move to Johor Bahru, Kuala Lumpur or anywhere else on the peninsula, the road is almost always the right answer. It is under an hour from central Singapore to Johor Bahru, there is no crate going into an aircraft hold, no ground handling charge at either end, and the animal stays with its people the whole way.

Air freight earns its place only when the destination is Penang, Kota Kinabalu or Kuching, where driving stops being realistic. Kuala Lumpur International is the main live-animal entry airport, and it is also where breed policy is enforced most visibly.

Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines both operate the sector, and neither will take a pet in the cabin, so flying means the hold for a journey a car covers in an hour. On welfare grounds alone that is a poor trade for most animals, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than presenting the flight as the default.