Travelling to France with dog and EU passport

[Anna713]

We are travelling to France via Brittany Ferries at the weekend with our dog. We have an EU pet passport issued about 4 years ago. I know there have been recent changes to the rules about pet passports and now apparently you can only use a pet passport if your mail residence is in France. We have a holiday home there. However, Brittany ferries are saying you can use your EU passport if I has already been issued. When I asked chatgpt is say you can't and you risk being turned away at customs. I asked our vet ans she didn't know. Has anybody recently travelled to France using a E U passport please?

The people handling the paperwork are the ferry company so I would call their helpline, they are pretty good in experience (unlike the unhelpful airlines) on most matters.

I have no personal experience but there were a lot of issues with pets coming back into the uk on my ferry on Saturday (not Brittany ferries) with incorrect paperwork and chips that wouldn’t scan, based on this the problems will be re entering the uk not going to France!

I’m travelling via the tunnel this week with an EU passport dog but we live in France but only very recently moved! I used their help desk and received a ChatGPT answer that says we will be okay but when I checked as a non resident they required an AHC.

It is annoying but I think you will need one, contact them directly for sure.

Thanks both. I've finally managed to speak to an agent at Brittany Ferries and she categorically assured me that we will be ok. I'm not confident but she seemed very certain. They must have had lots of people travelling with their pets over the last few weeks so hopefully she's correct. We are a long way from Plymouth if we can't board! The address on the pet passport is French but obviously it's not our main residence.

The UK government goes to great lengths to issue guides about this and many other travel questions. For the rules regarding taking a dog to the EU from the UK, see > Taking your pet dog, cat or ferret abroad: Travelling to an EU country - GOV.UK

If I'm reading the rules correctly, it would appear that a dog from the UK can no longer travel to France with a pet passport and instead requires an Animal Health Certificate (see Point 3 in the guide)

That's what is worrying me. Brittany Ferries have been very clear that we will be ok but it's not what the guidelines say. The vet wants £300 for an ahc and I don't think we will get one in time now anyway. I was hoping someone might respond who has travelled with Brittany ferries and used a pet passport.