Pet relocation, compared: who gets your dog or cat to Portugal in one piece

The short answer

Small pet flying with you? A cat or small dog under 8 kilos including the carrier can often fly in the cabin on TAP, Lufthansa, Air France or KLM for roughly €60 to €175 per leg, and owners handle the paperwork themselves. All in, a DIY cabin move from the US or UK typically lands under €1,000: vet work, the certificate, the carrier and the airline fee. This is the one case where a relocation firm is a luxury, not a necessity.

Big dog flying as cargo, or a tight timeline? PetRelocation publishes the clearest pricing on this page: a $2,000 service fee for one pet plus $500 per extra pet, with a worked door-to-door example of $5,500 to $10,500 for one small pet. Starwood Pet Travel publishes starting prices from $3,695 for one pet on a comparable EU route, in three service tiers with door-to-door built into the top two. The commonly reported band for a full-service US-to-Europe single-pet move is $4,000 to $6,000 or more. Read the recent complaints before you pick: price buys coordination, and coordination quality is the whole product.

Arriving from India, Nepal or Brazil? The rabies titer test is the move. Your pet needs a blood sample drawn at least 30 days after vaccination, tested at an EU-approved lab, then a three-month wait before travel. That wait is non-negotiable and it sits on top of everything else, so the real start date for your move is four to six months before the flight. Book the vet work before you book the firm.

Need help on the Lisbon end? Global Pets and Ferndale Kennels are Portugal-based: import assistance, the arrival clearance, national onward transport and kennelling. They are the natural second half if your departure-side firm does not clear pets in Lisbon.

The rest of this page is the detail: each firm's pricing model, the crate and flight logistics, and the EU rules in the exact order you must do them.

The seven firms, side by side

PetRelocation: clearest published pricing, premium all the way

PetRelocation is unusual in this industry for publishing a worked pricing example at all. Its own international cost page puts the service fee at $2,000 for one pet plus $500 per additional pet, then stacks the third-party costs on top: $500 to $2,500 for airport pickup and delivery, $450 for airport check-in, $1,100 to $3,000 or more for international airfreight, $550 to $750 for customs clearance and import processing, $250 for government paperwork. The firm's own door-to-door total for one small pet is $5,500 to $10,500. Independent breakdowns of its model put international totals at $5,000 to $10,000 or more, and note that the service fee is the coordination layer: the vet, the airline and the government still bill separately.

What you are buying is project management by one accountable company: route planning, airline booking, document coordination and customs clearance under one roof. For a straightforward US-to-Portugal move where you could fly with the pet yourself, that is expensive insurance. For a cargo-only move, a tight timeline or several pets, it is the difference between one phone number and five.

Starwood Pet Travel: premium tiers, check the recent record

Starwood Pet Travel positions itself at the concierge end of the market. Every move gets a dedicated pet travel coordinator, and the firm sells three service tiers, Economy, Business and Premium, with door-to-door delivery built into Business and Premium and available as an add-on to Economy. Published starting prices begin at $3,695 for one pet on a comparable EU route, and the company's 2026 cost data puts typical single-pet international relocations at $4,000 to $6,000 or more, with European destinations trending below quarantine countries but above simple routes.

The honest caveat: a 2026 Better Business Bureau complaint on a $4,300 two-cat move describes weeks of chasing the coordinator, repeated document requests and pickup details that arrived on the Friday before a Monday flight. Premium pricing does not guarantee premium execution. Ask who your coordinator will be, how many moves they run at once, and get the airline, route and crate size named in the quote before you pay a deposit.

Signature Pet Transport: the nanny-flight alternative

Signature Pet Transport works a different model: instead of cargo, your pet flies in the cabin with a professional flight nanny on commercial or semi-private flights. Its published pricing page lists a Western Europe handling fee of $1,697, and is explicit that airfare and expenses are charged on top. The formula is handling fee plus airfare plus expenses, and the page lists the surcharges plainly: 20 percent for bookings within 72 hours, 20 percent for small or regional airports, 20 percent for weekend transports, plus a flat $247 for door-to-door within 30 miles of the airport and $2 per mile beyond.

The model suits owners who cannot fly with the pet themselves but want it in the cabin rather than the hold. The trade-off is arithmetic: the $1,697 is only the handling layer, and the surcharges stack quickly on awkward routes. It is also inherently size-limited, since the nanny model depends on airline cabin allowances.

Airpets International and WorldCare Pet Transport: the full-service tier

Airpets International and WorldCare Pet Transport sit in the same full-service band as the firms above: industry estimates put Europe moves through this tier at $3,000 to $6,000 or more per pet, covering veterinary paperwork, import permits, customs clearance, airline bookings, crates and destination logistics. Both are long-established US operations in a market where longevity and route volume are the closest thing to a quality signal.

The weakness is transparency: neither publishes its own price bands, so you are comparing itemised quotes. When you do, the line items that separate an honest quote from a cheap-looking one are the crate, the customs clearance and the destination delivery. A quote that omits all three is not cheaper; it is unfinished.

Global Pets and Ferndale Kennels: the Portugal end

Global Pets is a Lisbon-based department of the relocation firm Global, staffed with veterinarians specialised in animal transport, holding IATA Live Animals Regulations certification, and working through IPATA member partners worldwide. Its value is arrival-side: import assistance, the documentary wrangling, national transit within Portugal including the islands, crates and a pet hotel if you need to travel ahead of your animal. Ferndale Kennels offers a similar Portugal-based proposition: pet relocation to and from Portugal with kennelling before or after the flight.

Neither publishes prices, and neither is a global origin network: their natural role is the second half of a move that starts in another country. If your departure-side firm does not clear pets through Lisbon's entry point, or you are flying the pet separately on a passenger ticket, a Lisbon-based firm that knows the airport vets by name is worth the second quote.

The EU import sequence, in the order it must happen

Portugal applies the harmonised EU rules for dogs, cats and ferrets. The sequence is a chain: each step's date is checked against the previous one at the border, and a step done out of order is treated as not done at all.

First: the microchip. Every dog, cat and ferret entering Portugal must carry an ISO 11784/11785 compliant 15-digit microchip. The chip must be implanted before, or on the same day as, the rabies vaccination. A rabies shot given before the chip was implanted is invalid under EU rules, and the fix is to re-vaccinate and restart the waiting clock. This is the single most common and most expensive mistake in the whole process, and it is entirely avoidable.

Second: the rabies vaccination. An authorised vet gives the rabies vaccine once the chip is confirmed as working. The vaccine can only be given from 12 weeks of age. After a primary vaccination, the pet must wait at least 21 full days before entering the EU. Day zero is the day of the jab, so day 21 is the earliest travel date. In practice, puppies and kittens cannot enter Portugal before about 15 weeks of age. Keep every rabies certificate showing an unbroken chain of boosters, because a lapse of even one day resets the clock.

Third, for some countries: the titer test. If your pet is coming from a country with a higher rabies risk, which includes India, Nepal and Brazil, a rabies antibody titration must be done at an EU-approved laboratory. The blood sample is drawn at least 30 days after vaccination, and then there is a three-month waiting period before travel. Pets from the US, UK, Canada and Australia do not need the test. One consolation: a passing titer result lasts for the life of the animal, provided rabies boosters are kept current with no gap in coverage.

Fourth: the health certificate. For non-EU arrivals this is the EU animal health certificate, completed by an accredited or official vet in the country of departure and then endorsed by that country's veterinary authority: USDA APHIS in the United States, an Official Veterinarian in the UK. New certificate formats took effect on October 1, 2026 under EU regulations 2026/131 and 2026/848, and the old templates are no longer accepted. The certificate is valid for 30 days after the vet issues it, and the government endorsement must happen within 10 days of your pet's arrival. After arrival, the same certificate covers onward travel within the EU for up to six months, as long as the rabies vaccination stays valid.

Fifth: the 48-hour notice. At least 48 hours before landing, send the DGAV arrival notification to the Travellers' Point of Entry at your airport: Lisbon is closed from midnight to 6 am, Porto from 11 pm to 7 am, Faro keeps standard business hours. Plan night arrivals accordingly, because the entry point being closed is your problem, not the airline's.

Sixth: the arrival check. At the entry point, a DGAV veterinarian verifies the documents and scans the microchip. The fee is about €43 for one animal and about €86 for two or more, and it is updated periodically. Assistance dogs are exempt. Portugal's authority is explicit about what happens when the rules are not met: the animal is sent back first, and euthanasia is the last resort, with costs charged to the owner. Nobody should discover this paragraph at the airport.

Seventh: register in Portugal. After arrival, register the animal in SIAC, the national pet registry, through a Portuguese vet, and update the microchip records with your Portuguese address. A Portuguese vet can also issue an EU pet passport for future travel within Europe, typically for a small fee. If your dog is a potentially dangerous breed, expect muzzle and leash rules in public, third-party liability insurance and a municipal permit. Tapeworm treatment, required for the UK, Ireland, Finland, Malta and Norway, is not required for Portugal.

Cabin, hold or cargo: the three ways pets fly

The cabin is the cheapest and calmest option, and it is limited to small animals. TAP, Lufthansa, Air France and KLM all allow cats and small dogs up to about 8 kilos including the carrier in the cabin, for roughly €60 to €175 per leg. Spots are limited per flight and must be booked early, and the carrier has to fit under the seat.

Larger pets travel in the hold or as manifest cargo. Hold fees run roughly €150 to €600, while cargo airfreight from the US runs $1,100 to $3,000 or more depending on the crate size and route. The crate must be IATA-approved and correctly sized, and this is where relocation firms earn part of their fee: a crate that fails the airline's check at the counter does not fly. Brachycephalic breeds, the flat-faced dogs and cats, are banned from the hold by TAP, Lufthansa and many other carriers, and summer and winter temperature embargoes restrict cargo travel seasonally. If your pet is a bulldog, a pug or a Persian, plan around the bans before you plan around the price.

Should you hire a firm at all?

Not always. On an easy route, a healthy medium-sized dog flying from the US to the EU with its owner, a prepared owner can do everything: vet sequence, certificate, USDA endorsement, airline booking, the 48-hour DGAV notice. The hard costs run a few hundred euros plus the airline fee, and the professional coordination fee you skip is typically $600 to $1,500. The DIY route works when the sequence is simple and you control the timeline.

A firm pays for itself on hard routes. Cargo-only flights where you cannot travel with the pet, snub-nosed breeds, multi-leg routings, six or more pets, or a departure from a titer-test country where the three-month clock has to be managed exactly: these are the cases where one missed date costs months. The industry rule of thumb is to book 8 to 12 weeks ahead for international moves, and to start four to six months ahead when a titer test is involved.

The legitimacy check is the same whatever you choose. A real pet shipper is an IPATA member, names the airline, the route and the IATA crate size in the quote, and separates its service fee from the third-party costs. Vague answers on the route and the crate are the warning sign, and they cost nothing to ask for.

What pet firms do not do

A pet relocation firm moves the pet. It does not move your furniture, handle your visa file, get your NIF or open your bank account. The furniture side is a separate purchase with its own price traps, and the visa, NIF and fiscal-rep paperwork is the admin half of the move. Budget the three halves separately and none of them will surprise you.