Home → Compare → AHC vs EU health certificate
They look almost identical, they are both signed by a vet, and they are both valid 10 days. They are still not interchangeable, and using the wrong one is the mistake we see most often on a two-country trip. The answer depends on one thing only: which country your pet is entering first.
| EU health certificate | GB Animal Health Certificate | |
|---|---|---|
| For entry into | European Union member states | Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales) |
| Valid for entry | 10 days from the vet signature | 10 days from issue |
| Onward travel | Single entry into the EU | Covers travel in the EU and re-entry to GB for 6 months |
| Who issues it | USDA-accredited vet, then APHIS endorsement | An official vet, APHA-endorsed |
| Tapeworm treatment | Not required for France or most EU countries | Required for dogs, 24 to 120 hours before arrival |
| EU pet passport accepted | No, for pets arriving from outside the EU | No, for pets arriving from the USA |
This is where the two documents collide. If you fly your dog from New York to Paris, spend a week, then take the train to London, you need the EU health certificate for the Paris entry and a GB AHC for the London entry. They are separate documents, issued by the same accredited vet, and both have to fit inside their own 10-day windows. The tapeworm treatment applies to the GB leg only, between 24 and 120 hours before you cross.
Plan the two windows backwards from the two arrival dates, not forwards from the vet visit. That is the single change that stops this trip from going wrong.
Both documents sit on the same three foundations, and neither is valid without them: a microchip implanted before the rabies vaccination, a rabies vaccination at least 21 days old at the moment of entry, and a vet appointment that fits inside the 10-day window. If any of those three is out of order, the question of which certificate you need stops mattering, because neither will be accepted.
Get the checklist for the exact route you are flying, with real dates instead of general advice.
Build my free checklistNew certificate from 1 October 2026: the EU health certificate is issued on a new model (Regulation (EU) 2026/705). A certificate issued before 1 October 2026 stays valid until 31 March 2027, so a trip already under way does not need redoing.