Animal Plant Health Agency
This page provides details on particular issues or changes that importers and exporters may need to be aware of.
You can read a collection of all the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) guidance and forms for importing and exporting live animals or animal products.
Defras animal disease monitoring collection covers major, notifiable or new and emerging animal disease outbreaks internationally and in the UK.
Commercial import of dogs, cats and ferrets to Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) from Belarus, Poland, Romania or Ukraine
Great Britain has temporarily suspended the commercial import of dogs, cats and ferrets if they originate from or have been dispatched from Belarus, Poland, Romania or Ukraine, until 29 October 2022.
Commercial imports are the sale of or the transfer of ownership of a pet animal. This includes rescue animals and if you are travelling with more than 5 dogs, cats or ferrets if these animals are not attending training for a competition, show or sporting event.
This suspension does not apply to non-commercial pet animals from these countries.
This decision has been taken because of the serious health risk to humans and animals in Great Britain from commercial cats, dogs and ferrets from Belarus, Poland, Romania or Ukraine that do not comply with UK health and documentation requirements. These countries are at high-risk of rabies.
The risk has been exacerbated by serious cases of non-compliance from countries neighbouring Ukraine which are experiencing high volumes of animal movements at present.
Measures from 3 September until 29 October 2022
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Measures from 9 July until 3 September 2022
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Rodents imported from Lithuania
An ongoing outbreak of Salmonella enteritidis among the UK public has been linked to mice imported from Lithuania for use as animal feed, particularly for reptiles. The risk posed to public health has led to a decision to prohibit imports of feeder rodents (mice and rats for use as animal feed) from Lithuania into the UK, coming into force from 17 February 2022.
The following safeguard measures give effect to this decision. These are published on behalf of the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (England), the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd (Wales), the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Northern Ireland) and Food Standards Scotland:
The special measures shall continue to apply until revoked or amended. The measures will be reviewed over the coming months to take into account any actions taken by the Lithuanian authorities to control the risk from imports of feeder rodents in the long term.
Avian influenza (bird flu) outside the UK
This section was updated on 9 May 2022.
Our research reports provide preliminary and updated outbreak assessments for avian infl