Florida

On arrival & aboard

Customs inspection

On arrivalconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.^[16]

At the dock

WHO ACTUALLY CHECKS, AND WHERE. A boat arriving from a foreign port clears in with US Customs and Border Protection, a federal agency: under 19 CFR 4.2 and 19 U.S.C. 1433 the operator must report arrival immediately, either by telephone to be directed to a port of entry, in person at a designated reporting location, or through the CBP ROAM app, which is the exception to the face-to-face requirement most cruisers use. CBP's pleasure-boat reporting page describes that process in full and does not mention animals, pets, dogs or cats anywhere. On the state side, FDACS's enforcement arm operates its animal and agricultural checks at the road border: the Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement "operates 23 agricultural interdiction stations on 19 highways entering and exiting Florida", and that page likewise says nothing about vessels, marinas or seaports. So nothing located in this research puts a Florida agriculture inspector at a marina, and no source describes any animal inspection at a seaport arrival as against an airport. That is a finding about the documents, not a promise about your dock: CBP may request a physical report at any time, and an officer who asks to see paperwork for the dog will not be interested in which agency's rule it satisfies. Carry the rabies certificate and the federal CDC paperwork.

Carrier or crate

Not required, and not mentioned. Chapter 5C-3 and FDACS's movement pages are where a container requirement for a dog or cat entering Florida would sit, and neither asks for a crate, carrier or kennel, sets a standard for one, or mentions IATA. Container rules for animals are an air-carriage subject, and this is not an air arrival.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.^[10,9,5,6]

Confinement

Nothing published requires an arriving dog or cat to be confined, aboard or ashore. Chapter 5C-3 — the rule chapter for animals entering Florida — sets a certificate and a rabies requirement and says nothing about where the animal is kept afterwards, and no FDACS page conditions entry on confining it. Florida's two confinement provisions both sit outside arrival: the "proper enclosure" of Fla. Stat. ch. 767, which attaches only to a dog an animal control authority has classified as dangerous, and Monroe County's "secure fence or other means of confinement", which is offered as the alternative to a leash in a public place rather than as a quarantine. A boat is therefore as good a place to keep the animal as any other, because Florida does not ask the question.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.^{[10,9,5,15,18]}

Leash

No statewide leash rule — Florida's dog chapter hands the question to local government. Fla. Stat. § 767.07 provides that the chapter shall not be construed to "prevent municipalities from prohibiting, licensing, or regulating the running at large of dogs within their respective limits by law or ordinance". IN MONROE COUNTY — the Keys, and the first US landfall for most boats coming up from the eastern Caribbean — THERE IS A LEASH RULE AND VOICE CONTROL WILL NOT DO. The "Monroe County Code requires animals in public places to be on a leash"; "effective voice command" is "no longer an acceptable means of control for an animal in a public place"; what is required is "a physically capable person to be in control of an animal by means of a leash; or for the animal to be enclosed by a secure fence or other means of confinement". It "applies countywide and within municipalities if there is no conflict with an existing municipality's ordinance", so it reaches a marina dock and its car park on the face of the wording. Every other landfall has its own county or city ordinance, and none of those was read for this file.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.^[18,15]

Muzzle

No muzzle is required of an arriving animal. Florida's only muzzle provision belongs to the dangerous-dog regime of Fla. Stat. ch. 767, part II, where the owner of a classified dog must "not allow the dog to be outside a proper enclosure unless the dog is muzzled and restrained by a substantial chain or leash and under control of a competent person". That duty follows a classification made by a Florida animal control authority after a sworn affidavit and an investigation — § 767.11(3) defines a dangerous dog by "the records of the appropriate authority" — so it attaches to a dog with a Florida history, not to a dog that has just made a passage, and not to any breed as such.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.^[15]

By yacht

WHY THERE IS SO LITTLE OF FLORIDA'S OWN TO GRADE HERE. The whole of the state's dog-and-cat movement law is drafted for movement between states, which in practice means the highway: R. 5C-3.001(29) defines importation as "the movement of animals into Florida, from another state, United States (U.S.)", and FDACS's enforcement arm works the road border rather than the waterfront. Sailing in from any foreign port makes the arrival an international import into the United States, so the inherited CDC dog rules are what governs the animal and Florida's own contribution is the rabies-vaccination proof. Sailing to Florida from Puerto Rico or the USVI is domestic movement instead, and that is the one case where the interstate rule genuinely might bite, since both are US territories rather than foreign countries — though R. 5C-3.001(29) says "from another state, United States (U.S.)" and does not mention territories, and nothing published resolves it. Either way a privately owned pet travelling with its owner is within the R. 5C-3.009(1) exception to the OCVI; see veterinary_certificate. Who you report to, and the absence of any state animal inspection at a seaport, are in arrival_procedures. The practical shape of it: nothing requires the dog to stay aboard and nothing forbids it landing, and the moment it is on the dock you are in county and city territory — so look up the ordinance for your own landfall, not Florida's statutes.

Quarantine