Flying with a dog or cat to the French overseas territories
Fort-de-France and Nouméa look like the same domestic flight. One is the European Union, the other a third country with a prior permit and quarantine.
Reference data verified at source on 2026-09-22.
Two regimes, not one
Overseas France is not a single regulatory block. It splits into two categories with almost nothing in common for a pet, and nothing on your ticket tells you which one you are flying to.
The outermost regions — Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Mayotte — are European Union territory. A flight from mainland France is an intra-EU movement: EU pet passport, microchip, valid rabies vaccination. No titration test, no third-country certificate.
The overseas countries and territories — French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Wallis and Futuna — are legally third countries. Authority is territorial rather than prefectural, and New Caledonia requires an import permit issued before departure, then quarantine.
The good news on the way back
The overseas territories are listed in Annex II to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/636. In practice: returning to the Union from Papeete or Nouméa requires no rabies titration test. It is the one point where third-country status works in your favour, and it saves three months of waiting.
Territory by territory
Four verification states coexist in this table, and they are shown as such. A uniform table would read better and would lie.
| Territory | Regime | Airport | What we know |
|---|---|---|---|
| La Réunion | RUP | RUN | Official page read |
| Mayotte | RUP | — | Official page read |
| Guadeloupe | RUP | PTP | No official page published |
| Martinique | RUP | FDF | No official page published |
| Guyane | RUP | CAY | Not yet searched |
| Nouvelle-Calédonie | PTOM | NOU | Authority verified, rules unread |
| Polynésie française | PTOM | PPT | Not yet searched |
| Saint-Martin | PTOM | SXM | Not yet searched |
Réunion: the only territory publishing local restrictions
And they are strict. Bringing in dogs classified in categories 1 and 2 is prohibited, the second category having a conditional route under a 2010 order. Animals under three months old and not vaccinated against rabies are banned. Neither rule exists anywhere else in the overseas file, and neither follows from any general principle.
Mayotte: one operational fact worth the detour
Rabies antibody titration cannot be carried out in Mayotte. It is not required to travel there from France, but it becomes required to leave for the Union if the animal has stayed in the Comoros, Madagascar, the Seychelles or East Africa. An owner who discovers the requirement on the island cannot satisfy it there.
What the absence of a page does not prove
Guadeloupe and Martinique publish nothing. We looked, twice, by browser automation on the prefecture sites, and the negative result is established and dated. It means there is nothing to read online before you leave — useful in itself. It does NOT mean no local rule exists: Réunion proves otherwise. For these two, contact the DAAF.
Documented routes to the overseas territories
28 routes in our catalogue serve an overseas territory, with the airlines that accept the animal and their constraints.
Further reading
The other regimes
- United States: the rules state by stateNo federal rule for a domestic flight. Eleven states require nothing.
- Latin America: who is exempt from the titration testArgentina, Chile and Mexico yes. Seven other countries no, and that is three months.
- Spain: the 29 entry points, and only thoseArriving anywhere else means arriving where no veterinary check exists.
- Japan, Australia, Singapore: the long regimesFrom 120 to 210 days. And the clock does not start at vaccination.