Almost everything written in English about bringing a pet to Spain stops at the border. It tells you about microchips, rabies vaccinations and health certificates, and then the plane lands and the guide ends. What almost nobody mentions is that arriving starts a clock. Andalucía runs its own animal register, and moving here with a dog, cat or ferret gives you three months to get onto it.
This is not a national rule and it is not a formality. It sits in a regional decree from 2005, it applies to every dog regardless of breed, and the penalty for ignoring it is a infracción grave — serious infringement carrying a fine of 501 to 2,000 euros. It applies whether you arrived from Manchester, Munich, Michigan or the next province along.
Last verified: 6 August 2026.
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The rule, in law
Andalucía’s Ley 11/2003, de 24 de noviembre, de Protección de los Animales created municipal and central registers for companion animals. Decreto 92/2005, published in the BOJA on 21 April 2005, sets out how they work.
Two things follow from it. Identification and registration are compulsory for the owners of all dogs, cats and ferrets whose habitual residence is in Andalucía, with no breed exceptions. And the register you are joining is your town hall’s Registro Municipal de Animales de Compañía — municipal companion-animal register, which feeds a central regional database called RAIA, the Registro Andaluz de Identificación Animal.
RAIA is run under agreement by the Consejo Andaluz de Colegios Veterinarios — Andalusian Council of Veterinary Colleges, which is why the whole process happens at a vet’s surgery rather than at a government counter.
Which deadline is yours
The decree sets three different clocks, and people moving here routinely apply the wrong one.
If you moved your residence to Andalucía and brought an animal with you, article 8.3 gives you three months from the date of that move to register it. This is the one that catches new arrivals, and it is the reason the other two rarely matter to you.
If the animal was born here, identification is due within three months of birth.
If you acquired the animal here, whether bought, adopted or given, you have one month from acquisition.
There is also a genuine exemption, and it is worth knowing because it is the line between visitor and resident. Owners of animals arriving from elsewhere who stay in Andalucía for less than three months are excused, provided the animal is identified according to the rules of where it came from and you can show that to the authorities. Holidays and short lets sit outside this. A move does not.
Your existing microchip almost certainly counts
This is the part that saves most people money and worry. Article 8.3 says explicitly that you may keep your original identification code where it is compatible. You are registering the animal, not re-chipping it.
Compatible means the chip meets the ISO standards the decree names: ISO 11784:1996 for the structure of the code and ISO 11785:1996 for how the chip and reader exchange energy. Any 15-digit chip fitted in an EU country, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada or Australia in the last two decades will almost certainly qualify. Chips implanted under a non-official system, and tattoos, do not count as identification here and the animal will need a compliant chip.
One quiet trap. If your animal is already registered in a different Spanish region, that registration does not migrate. You have to cancel it there and register here.
How it actually happens
You go to a vet. That is genuinely most of it.
Only vets authorised as veterinarios identificadores — authorised identifying vets may carry out identification and registration, and the authorisation comes from their provincial veterinary college. In practice any established small-animal practice on the coast will either hold it or tell you plainly that they do not. Municipal animal centres can also do it where they exist.
Bring your passport or national identity document, your NIE, your address in Andalucía, a Spanish telephone number, and whatever paperwork came with the animal’s existing chip and vaccinations. The vet reads the chip to confirm it and check it is not already registered elsewhere, enters your details into the municipal register, and gives you a signed identification document. The decree gives them three days from identification to complete the register entry.
You should then receive a DAIRA — Andalusian animal identification and registration document, issued as a card, within a month. It can also be pulled from the RAIA platform using electronic authentication, which is one of the more agreeable uses anyone has yet found for a certificado digital — digital certificate.
What it costs
Honestly: the decree does not set a fee, and we are not going to invent one. Registration is charged by the practice, and figures circulating on expat forums are one clinic’s price quoted as though it were a tariff. Ask when you book. If your animal already carries a compliant chip you are paying for the administrative entry rather than a procedure, and it should be modest. If it needs a chip, you are paying for that too.
The fine, and who actually issues it
Possessing an unidentified or unregistered dog, cat or ferret is a serious infringement under Title V of Ley 11/2003. The Junta puts the fine at 501 to 2,000 euros.
The part people find surprising is the enforcement chain. Fines are imposed by the provincial Delegaciones del Gobierno de la Junta de Andalucía — regional government delegations, acting on reports from the local police, the Guardia Civil, the police unit attached to the Junta, or the National Police. In other words this does not surface through your vet or your town hall. It surfaces the day someone official has a reason to scan your dog, which is usually the day it has gone missing, bitten somebody, or been found wandering.
Since a recent update, town halls can also read the central register directly for both animals and owners.
What registration does not do
Four things it is regularly confused with, none of which it covers.
It is not an EU pet passport. That is a separate travel document issued by an authorised vet to owners resident in the EU, and you will want one before you next leave the country with the animal.
It is not insurance. Third-party liability cover for dogs is a different obligation running on a different and currently unsettled timetable.
It is not the potentially dangerous dog regime. If your dog falls under those rules, registration here is the floor, not the ceiling, and a separate licence and separate insurance apply.
And it does not follow you. Move out of Andalucía, or out of Spain, and you are obliged to notify the change. So is a death or a transfer of ownership, within one month in each case. Nobody does this and it is the most common reason a register entry is quietly wrong for years.
The five-minute version
- Moving to Andalucía with a dog, cat or ferret gives you three months from the move to register it, under article 8.3 of Decreto 92/2005. Birth gives three months, acquisition gives one.
- Staying under three months and identified at home? You are exempt. This is a residents’ rule.
- Your existing ISO-standard chip is almost certainly fine and you may keep the original code. You are registering, not re-chipping.
- Any authorised vet does the whole thing. Bring ID, NIE, your Andalusian address, a Spanish phone number and the animal’s existing paperwork.
- Not registering is a serious infringement, 501 to 2,000 euros, and it typically comes to light on the worst possible day.
- Registration elsewhere in Spain does not transfer, and leaving, selling or losing the animal all carry a one-month notification duty.
Related guides
- Moving pets to Spain: entry requirements by where you are coming from
- Padrón in Spain: how to register and why it matters
- Spain’s deadline system: every date that matters for residents
- Spain 2026: every regulatory change that affects expat residents
- Moving towns within the Costa del Sol: admin, costs and timing
General information, not legal advice, current as of 6 August 2026. Primary sources: Decreto 92/2005, de 29 de marzo, BOJA número 77 of 21 April 2005; Ley 11/2003, de 24 de noviembre, de Protección de los Animales (Andalucía); Junta de Andalucía, Registro Andaluz de Identificación Animal.
