The regulation every guide still cites stopped applying in April 2026

What changed, precisely

Regulation (EU) No 576/2013, the basis of the "EU pet passport" cited by almost every guide online, was repealed by Article 270(2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/429 — the Animal Health Law. The repeal dates from 2021, but Article 277 of the same regulation kept it in force transitionally, for non-commercial pet movements only.

That transitional period ended on 21 April 2026. Since then the framework is Part VI of Regulation (EU) 2016/429, supplemented by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/131, published in the Official Journal on 27 March 2026. The third-country lists moved to Annexes I and II of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/636.

What it does not change

The EU pet passport has not disappeared, the microchip remains the basis of everything, and rabies vaccination keeps its central place. The new text says so itself: the earlier rules proved "sound, proportionate and effective", and their substance is carried over.

One provision matters particularly to anyone who already prepared their animal: an identification carried out under the old framework before the end of the transitional period remains valid. There is nothing to redo if it was done properly.

What actually moves

Three things are worth knowing. First, the text explicitly defines "travellers points of entry": these are the only crossings through which an animal may enter from a third country, and that is not a recommendation.

Second, it frames the notion of a "single non-commercial movement" — the maximum number of animals accompanying one person stays at five, and the text sets out what stops several owners travelling together from circumventing that ceiling.

Third, where the animal travels without its owner but with an authorised person, the movement must take place within five days of the owner's own, and a written authorisation signed by the owner must accompany the identification documents.

France is not one regime

This is the point French-language guides leave out, and it affects tens of thousands of journeys a year.

Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana are outermost regions: European Union territory, where Union law applies. A Paris–Réunion flight is an intra-EU movement, not an import — even though those territories apply their own health conditions on top, and a rabies-free island status adds more.

French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon and Wallis and Futuna are overseas countries and territories. Legally they are third countries. They appear in Annex II to Implementing Regulation 2026/636, which would make no sense were they Union territory — and it is precisely that listing which exempts an animal returning from them from the rabies titre test.

Why the distinction isn't academic

Two flights that look like the same French domestic trip do not follow the same regime. Paris–Fort-de-France stays inside the Union. Paris–Papeete leaves it, and the return is an entry from a third country.

What follows isn't merely administrative: the direction of travel changes the list of documents, the certificate's validity window, and sometimes the preparation time by several months. An owner who reasons "it's France, so nothing to do" is wrong one time in two.

The documents themselves — chip, vaccine, certificate — and the order they have to be obtained in.

How to check what you're told

A guide that cites Regulation 576/2013 without mentioning that it stopped applying is describing a framework no longer in force. That isn't necessarily wrong on substance — the content was carried over — but it marks a page unrevised since April 2026, and on this subject freshness is the only guarantee available.

The texts themselves are public and readable on EUR-Lex. They are listed in the sources below.