HolaRetire · Free planning tools for retiring to Spain
The order and the deadlines — get one wrong and the trip moves, not the paperwork.
Leave it empty to see the order without dates.
Travelling together, with you.
Without a date this is the order rather than a calendar — and the order is the part that goes wrong. Nothing here is expensive; all of it has a lead time.
Start with your own vet. All of this is routine for them, and they will know the local official vet.
An ISO-standard chip, implanted and readable, and implanted before the rabies vaccination and never after it. Have your vet scan an existing chip: old ones fail, and a chip that cannot be read counts as no chip at all.
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Given after the microchip and after the animal is old enough, and then it has to mature before you travel. A booster given before the previous one expired starts no new wait; one given a day late starts the whole wait again.
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Issued by a vet in the EU and valid for as long as the vaccinations stay current — no expiry date to chase and no repeat appointment before each trip.
Signed by an official vet shortly before you travel, valid for a single entry, and endorsed by the national authority where that is required. Book the appointment as soon as your travel date is fixed: official vets are not on every high street.
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Required for Finland, Ireland, Malta and Norway — not for Spain. It is the rule people most often apply to themselves by mistake, and the second vet appointment nobody needed.
Cabin places for small animals are few and go early; larger animals travel as cargo, which is routine but wants a specialist agent. Some airlines will not carry snub-nosed breeds at all, and the ferry and drive is often the calmer option.
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Register with a Spanish vet, who takes over the vaccination record, and register the animal with your town hall — most keep an animal census and some want the microchip re-registered regionally in your name. Several regions also require third-party liability insurance for dogs.
Set a travel date to see when
Your personal step-by-step plan for retiring to Spain, built around this result.
Free · takes about three minutes
The rules themselves are short. What catches people is the sequence: the microchip has to come before the rabies vaccination or the vaccination does not count, the vaccination has to mature before you travel, and the health certificate has a short life, so the vet appointment cannot be brought forward to be safe. Put your travel date in and this becomes a calendar. Verified on 19 August 2026.
Figures verified on 19 August 2026.
Based on 2013 and 2025 figures where a newer official figure has not been published.
This is an estimate to help you plan, not advice. Your own position depends on where in Spain you live and on details no calculator sees — check anything that matters with a professional.