Flying to Colombia with a pet: what the ICA requires
The ICA (Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario) sets tight deadlines for the certificate and the vaccine — but on one point most travelers expect by reflex, Colombia asks for nothing at all.
The health certificate: ten days, not one more
To enter Colombia, the ICA requires an original health certificate issued by the official veterinary authority of the country of departure, stating the animal's species, breed, sex, age, color and electronic identification if it has one. The certificate must be dated no more than ten calendar days before entering Colombian territory — not ten days before the flight, ten days before actually clearing the airport.
That's a shorter window than several other South American countries (Argentina, for instance, allows sixty days): this document can't be arranged far in advance — the final vet visit has to be scheduled precisely around the already-confirmed flight date.
The rabies vaccine: twenty-one days, and a minimum age of fifteen weeks
For a first-time vaccination, the ICA requires a minimum of twenty-one days between the injection and departure. The animal must also be at least fifteen weeks old at entry — slightly younger than the sixteen-week threshold usually applied across the EU.
If the country of departure doesn't administer rabies vaccination locally, entry is still possible but conditional: home quarantine plus vaccination by a Colombian vet using an ICA-registered vaccine. That's a rare case, but it completely changes the timeline if that vaccination isn't routine practice where the pet is coming from.
What Colombia doesn't require: a mandatory microchip
Unlike the EU, where the microchip determines whether the rabies vaccine that follows it is even legally valid, the ICA does not make a microchip mandatory to enter Colombia. The health certificate records electronic identification "if the animal already has one" — not as a condition of entry.
That's not a reason to skip it: an unchipped animal has no reliable way to be identified if lost, and the next country on the trip may well require the chip before the vaccine, in that exact order. Colombia's rule here is the exception, not a pattern to plan the rest of the route around.
No separate permit — just the sanitary inspection certificate at the airport
No separate import permit is needed for a pet traveling with its owner: the document issued on-site is the Sanitary Inspection Certificate (CIS), only available at ICA offices located at the country's international airports, ports and border crossings.
For the return leg — particularly toward the EU — Colombia itself doesn't require a rabies titer test, but the ICA explicitly recommends one for animals continuing on to a country that does. Worth planning for if Colombia is only one stop on a longer trip.