How Much Does It Cost to Ship a Pet from the USA to Vietnam?

The endorsement sits on the lower band at $101, because there is no laboratory result to verify on the certificate, and that fee covers the certificate rather than the animal. Two pets on one certificate is one endorsement fee, which is worth knowing before anyone books two separate certificates. The certificate itself is valid for 30 days from the date of issue to the date of departure, one of the wider windows on this calculator, so the veterinary appointment does not have to be squeezed against the flight.

Vietnam’s animal quarantine circular caps the number at two animals for keeping as pets, for household purposes, or for bringing along on a trip. That is per traveler, not per family, so a couple moving with three pets can usually structure the move around it while a single traveler with three cannot. The options are a second traveler on a matching itinerary, or a separate cargo shipment for the third animal, and both cost money that a plan made at the last minute cannot recover. This is the first question worth answering on this route, ahead of any quote.

There is no ministry permit to obtain before departure on this route. For an animal brought in by a traveler, Vietnam’s circular has the owner register the import quarantine directly at the border gate quarantine agency. At the gate the officer checks the exporting country’s quarantine certificate and carries out a clinical examination of the animal, and that is the arrival process. Nothing on the Vietnamese side has to be paid for or waited on before departure, which is why a realistic lead time here is set by the vaccination and the flight rather than by an authority. A pet shipped unaccompanied as cargo follows a different procedure with different paperwork, so which one applies is settled before anything is booked.

The veterinary side is four lines long. A USDA accredited veterinarian verifies the microchip, examines the animal and certifies it healthy and free of infectious or contagious disease, states that it came from an area not quarantined for rabies and has not been exposed to it, and records a rabies vaccination that is current on the day of export. There is no titer test and no waiting period after vaccination, so a pet already current on rabies can be ready inside the time it takes to book the flight. Microchip first is still the right order, because the number on the certificate has to match the animal an officer scans at the border gate, and a chip fitted afterwards leaves a record that does not line up.

Your vet sets their own fees. The examination, the microchip and the rabies vaccination are billed by the clinic and vary by state. Ground transport to the airport, boarding if a flight moves, and any handling charged at the Vietnamese end of a cargo booking sit outside this page as well. What is published and fixed is the USDA endorsement, and that is the line this calculator can state exactly.

Crate size is the largest lever, because it drives chargeable weight and freight on this lane is quoted rather than tariffed. After that it is the accompanied or cargo decision, which changes the handling charges more than it changes the freight. The paperwork itself barely moves the total on this route, so a quote that varies by thousands between providers is varying on crate assumptions and on which side of that fork they have priced, not on the rules.

Our Vietnam destination guide sets out the full document sequence behind these figures.

Vietnamese requirements from the veterinary health certificate that USDA APHIS publishes for pet dogs and cats traveling from the United States to Vietnam, which is the document a USDA accredited veterinarian completes and APHIS endorses, and from Vietnam’s animal quarantine circular for the arrival procedure and the two animal cap. Endorsement fees from the APHIS user fee schedule. Figures verified September 2026.

The figures above describe an accompanied pet. An unaccompanied cargo shipment follows a different Vietnamese procedure and carries handling charges this page does not estimate. Confirm which route applies before you commit to a date.

Send us the route, the breed and roughly when you want to travel, and tell us how many animals are moving and whether anyone is flying with them. We will size the crate, settle the accompanied or cargo question, and come back with a figure rather than a range.