Formalities to bring your pet in Sweden

We brought a cat, a dog, and a horse from New Zealand to Sweden. The paperwork was very straight forward. There was one declaration for for each animal to be submitted to Swedish customs. This was downloaded from their website. Unfortunately this form was (at the time) only available in Swedish, so translation may be needed for local veterinary checks. This is important as Swedish authorities require specific wording to be included on the animal's vaccination record card. Rabies vaccines were also needed for both the cat and the dog. These have to be tested 120 days after the shot, and obviously give a positive result. If the result isn't sufficiently good enough then you have to re-jab and repeat the 120 day waiting period. To avoid the risk, our vet gave two vaccination shots, one week apart. We then tested 120 days after the second vaccine, halving the risk of  poor result. All the animals required Swedish vaccines when they arrived into Sweden, for the local strains of influenzas etc. The horse also underwent a physical inspection by a Swedish vet before being able to be insured in Sweden.

The horse was given temporary insurance cover until the vet had written up his assessment report. Took a couple of weeks. There were no quarantine restrictions for any of our animals.

Make sure that your pet travel cage is sufficiently large for the journey. Especially if it is your own cage and has some value. The cage for our cat was airline approved and met the airline requirements for travel into Europe. However, in London, the cat was placed into a larger cage to meet EU internal travel requirements. Which were different to the airline flying into Europe. Something we only found out about when collecting the cat from the plane in Sweden.