CROSSING THE BORDERS
Remember - links to sites outside this one are in
green. Although all care is taken, no responsibility can be accepted for the content of any outside link.IMPORTANT CAUTION
It is YOUR responsibility to acquire the information and provide the documentation which may be needed to legally and safely permit your horse to move from one region, or one country, to another.
It is YOUR responsibility - both financial and moral - if your horse should, due to your actions or inactions, be quarantined or even euthanased by the relevant authorities, and/or if your horse carries disease to other living beings on this beautiful earth of ours.
It is YOUR responsibility, before attempting to travel even one meter on your horse, to ensure that you are permitted to do so.
This site is purely a layman's guide to the currently-existing (2008) situation in Europe. I have NO contacts with veterinary or agricultural authorities not any particular knowledge of customs or quarantine practice. I can in no way be held responsible for the accuracy or otherwise of any information you may find on this site, or on any links from it.
YOU MUST check all international travel and border crossing information yourself.
NEVER assume anything. The equine or agricultural health status of a nation or a region can change at a moment's notice, so, if planning to travel, always check on the current health status of each country with that country's veterinary authorities, and, if planning to return, with the UK's own DEFRA.
Summary of Documents which MAY be needed
Export Licence This is required to take your horse or pony out of the UK. The ferry company will ask for this when you arrive to board the ferry. You can apply for this yourself from DEFRA - remember that ponies need a different form to that for horses, and you must show evidence of their value.
Health Certificate Not applicable between Ireland, France and the UK. All you need is the licence and the horse's passport. Apply to DEFRA yourself for the certificate, or get your vet to apply for the health certificate for the country t which your horse is travelling. The certificate will be sent directly to your vet and you will need to make an appointment with him or her for the horse to be inspected no more than 48 hours before it leaves the UK. The ferry company will ask to see this at the port but will return it to you. You will need this in your destination country. You will also need a health certificate to be issued and signed in your destination country to be able to return to the UK.
Route Plan This is a form which you partially complete and then send off with your application for a health certificate. DEFRA will stamp the first section and send it back with the health certificate for you to complete during the journey. Do not allow any official to keep this en route. You must take this home and keep it for 6 months in case DEFRA want to inspect it.
ATA Carnet This is a temporary export document that eliminates the need for a Customs declaration at border points and the deposit of a guarantee, bond, or cash deposit in the country of temporary importation. It is only applicable to non-EU countries. It can be used for a trip covering more than one country and includes numerous exits and re-entries in the country of origin during the period of validity of the document, which is one year. This is available from the Chamber of Commerce in your home town and is somewhat expensive. The extension of the European Union, and the entry of Switzerland into the Union's animal health schemes has reduced the call for these, and you may find them difficult or even impossible to get hold of.
General Information
It is easy to take your horse on a car ferry. You could use your own trailer or lorry, or use a reputable international transport company. The most common ferry crossings are as follows:
Horses are not allowed to travel in the Chunnel.
Note that ferry companies charge by your vehicle's length, so a 4wd and trailer will probably cost more than a small lorry. You must ensure that your preferred ferry route will take horses - some won't - and inform the ferry company when you make your booking that you will be transporting a horse. You must phone the ferry company before you leave, or before you load up at your lairage before the port, to check for delays or rough weather. The ship's captain will - rightly - not permit horses to travel in rough seas.
When you apply to DEFRA for a health certificate for your horse, you must complete a route plan, at least in part. It will probably flummox the authorities totally to see YOUR route plan which will omit all major roads and aim to complete 30-40kms per day ...
Travel between the UK, France and Ireland
Travelling between Ireland, the United Kingdom and France is - or should be - simple. The tripartite agreement which is in existence between the veterinary authorities in the three countries means that for the movement of a privately-owned horse, you should need only your horse's passport and an export licence, easily obtained from DEFRA. Of course you may need to show valid vaccination certificates for flu and possibly strangles to the horse transporter and to any horse accommodation or lairage you stay at, and you will want to have your horse protected from tetanus, too. Remember that extra precautions against ticks will be required in France owing to the presence of piroplasmosis. Check with your own vet about different health precautions for your horse which may be necessary, contact a vet in a practice which deals with horses which travel frequently, or consider asking in a French or Irish forum about the area to which you plan to travel . You must stay aware of changing health status in the country of both departure and destination.
Travelling between other EU countries
Travelling elsewhere in the EU is a little more complex, but nothing like it used to be as recently as ten years ago. To leave Great Britain, the horse will need an export licence and a health certificate, which are issued by DEFRA. The horse will also need its passport. To transit from one country to a neighbouring one in the EU, your horse will need its passport and MAY also need a recently issued health certificate. The regulations are not set up with the horse which travels "under its own steam" in mind, but rather with the horse which is being transported, either privately by its owners, or by a commercial operator, by land or by air. A health certificate is valid for ten days when issued by an authorised veterinary surgeon. Clearly this is long enough for any journey by road through Europe - even the longest, for example a horse being transported from Norway to the Channel crossings and thence to the UK or to Spain.
Although it appears that several such certificates may therefore be necessary for a horse-powered journey across Europe, and it is likely that some EU countries may demand a current health certificate from a duly-authorised veterinary officer, what is (IMO) equally likely to happen is that you cross international borders on a tiny path or lane without any border checks whatsoever. It is most unlikely that anything will happen to you if you do this, as long as your horse's documents are in order and as long as you are not breaking any quarantine laws or travelling when animal movement is restricted. You should keep up-to-date with this sort of thing, perhaps by arranging with a trusted friend at home to check regularly with DEFRA and send you any urgent information on your mobile phone, by checking once per week or so in an internet cafe, or - and perhaps the most secure way - by arranging a rest day when you approach a border crossing point and making contact with the veterinary authorities on each side of the border.
Twice in my life I have crossed international borders all unawares and without papers. Neither time resulted in any form of drastic action - or in fact any other action other than laughter and an escort back to where I had inadvertently crossed. The first time this happened was in Austria, when I crossed to Germany - and only realised because in the tiny Gasthof where I stopped for a drink, the prices on the menu were in Deutschemarks, not Austrian Schillings (this was before the Euro was adopted as currency, of course). The landlady was perfectly happy to accept my Schillings and I rode back the same way. The second time was when I rode into Poland from Germany, crossing the River Oder in error. I was escorted back to my crossing point by a couple of laughing Polish policemen on motorbikes, who seemed to find the idea of a Brit on a German horse entering Poland by mistake to be one of the best jokes ever. This sort of thing, though, is NOT recommended. It could have very serious consequences.
Travelling outside the EU with your horse
Remember that neither Norway nor Switzerland are members of the EU. An ATA carnet may well be required, as well as your horse's passport, vaccination certificates, a health certificate and an export licence.
In 2007, the Swiss regulations changed to make it considerably easier to take EU horses into and out of Switzerland. It appears that the paperwork required to travel between EU countries is now sufficient for entry to, and exit from, Switzerland. However, YOU MUST CHECK THIS with the Swiss Ministry of Agriculture if you are planning a journey through Switzerland.
To travel between different non-EU countries, and to travel between an EU country and (most) non-EU countries, you will need at least the following:
1. Veterinary certificates: in the language of the issuing country and in the one of the country of destination. Check very carefully in advance which are the blood tests needed for each country and remember that if you have a stallion everything becomes 10 times more difficult!
2. Customs papers: the so-called ATA Carnet is a document which confirms that you won't sell your horses without paying the customs. Check if the country you're travelling to recognizes this kind of document (the most recent information is that nations which were part of the former Soviet Union do not).
3. Transit permits, to be issued, if required, by the Ministry of Agriculture of each country. This can be a really complicated matter if you don't know the right person in the right place. Usually you have to declare your route, the time needed for the journey and sometimes also list all the places you'll be staying at.Fortunately this is not required by Swiss authorities.
EU law says that if a horse with an EU certificate stays more than 30 days in a "third country", from the sanitary point of view he becomes automatically a "non-EU horse" and needs brand-new health certificates upon your return to the EU.
If returning directly to the UK by road or by air, horses from outside the EU must be accompanied by the health certificate appropriate to their country of origin; details of the correct certificate and of any blood tests which may be needed can be obtained from the transport agent you contract to transport your horse. DEFRA has to be advised well in advance of the arrival of horses from outside the EU.
Regulations also state that horses from outside the EU must also arrive in the EU with an ATA Carnet issued in the country of origin, to cover the horse / pony and its accompanying equipment. If you left from the UK in the first place, though, I cannot see what relevance there is in this as your country of origin is Britain and you needed the ATA carnet in the first place to enter the non-EU country... Keep all your original documents which were issued when you LEFT the UK and/or any other EU country, in order to prove that you are both crossing borders and returning with the same horse you set out with. However, the website of a couple of keen distance riders from Northern Italy, who have ridden thousands of kilometres over the past fifteen years with the same three horses, states dispiritingly:
"Nobody cares if you have papers for a gray horse and go over the border with a black one, you cannot persuade the vet to go outside and check the horses with his own eyes, no! But you must have the blue stamp and the red stamp in the right place, that's all. A Czech friend used to say: "That man is a very important vet because he has got the red stamp""
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