Caribbean Cruising with PetsEntry rules for cats & dogs arriving by boat

Central America and Mexico

Guatemala

No import permitRabies vaccine neededVet certificate needed

Before you sail

  • Rabies vaccine between 1 year and 30 days before arrival; at least 3 months old when vaccinated
  • Veterinary health certificate
  • Parasite treatment — internal and external
  • Dogs vaccinated against: Rabia (rabies)
  • Cats vaccinated against: Rabia (rabies)
Not requiredImport permit · Microchip

Not documented Rabies titer test · Quarantine

Fees

Inspection

USD 14.00 per pet, paid to SEPA/OIRSA at the point of entry: "El usuario debe entregar una copia de cada certificado a) y b) y cancelar $14.00 (de acuerdo al peso) por cada mascota." Note the qualifier — "de acuerdo al peso", according to weight — sitting next to a single flat figure. The sheet gives one number and no scale, so either the figure is a band from a tariff published elsewhere or the phrase is vestigial; it could not be resolved. The charge is per animal, so a dog and a cat are at least USD 28. Nothing states the currency of payment, whether quetzales are accepted at an exchange rate, or whether a card can be used, which on a river-mouth clearance is worth knowing in advance.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[12]

Other

ON THE WAY OUT, AND THIS IS AN EXIT COST, NOT AN ENTRY ONE — but it is the one every Río Dulce boat pays, because the thirty-day threshold catches every animal that stays a season. An animal leaving Guatemala more than thirty days after the day it entered needs an export certificate. Certificado Sanitario de Exportación, for Central American destinations: USD 6.25, obtained at MAGA's export window in the AGEXPORT building, 15 avenida 14-72 zona 13, Guatemala City, telephone 24223400 — a trip to the capital from Fronteras, not something done on the river. Certificado Zoosanitario Internacional de Exportación, for the rest of the world, which for a departing yacht means Mexico, the US, Colombia or anywhere else outside Central America: NO PRICE IS PUBLISHED. The requisitos sheet refers the reader to asisehace.gt/es-GT/tramites/397 for the process and costs; that URL was retrieved and no longer resolves to a trámite of any kind — it redirects to the PRONACOM home page. The cost and procedure of the certificate most cruisers will actually need is therefore not published anywhere reachable, and both certificates require the health certificate and vaccination card to be presented for each animal.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[12]

The requisitos sheet cites no legal instrument for the USD 14. MAGA's 2021 announcement attributes it to Acuerdo Ministerial 114-2018 — "deberá realizar el pago de inspección física de la mascota, por un valor de 14 dólares estadounidenses, con base en lo establecido en el Acuerdo Ministerial 114-2018" — but the text of that acuerdo could not be retrieved and the fee therefore could not be checked against its own tariff. MAGA's compiled volume of 2018 ministerial agreements is a fourteen-megabyte image scan with no text layer and is not searchable. The figure recorded above is taken from VISAR's own requirements sheet, which is the operative document a traveller is handed, and not from a search summary or a secondary site. Verify it on arrival: a 2018 tariff quoted in a 2025 sheet is exactly the sort of number that goes stale without the sheet being updated.[15]

Timeline

  1. 1 year – 30 days before arrivalRabies vaccine given in this window
  2. 4 weeks before arrivalHave the US rabies certification form endorsed before you sailGetting home again — a rule of where you sail from, not Guatemala's (Leaving from the United States) · See it on the departure countdown

    ONLY NEEDED IF your route touches a country CDC treats as high risk for dog rabies — and it cannot be arranged once you have left. CDC readmits a US-vaccinated dog from a high-risk country on a Certification of U.S.-issued Rabies Vaccination form, and "The form must be submitted to USDA and endorsed BEFORE the dog leaves the United States". "USDA endorsement of the form may take several weeks", so this is the step to start first. WITHOUT IT, YOUR DOG CANNOT COME HOME ON THE BOAT. It falls under the rules for foreign-vaccinated dogs from a high-risk country, and those close every seaport: such a dog "Can only enter at a U.S. airport with a CDC-registered animal care facility where the dog has a reservation". Land borders are closed to it as well. The only sea exception is a qualifying service dog with a titer, travelling with the person it assists. The alternative CDC used to accept — a USDA-endorsed export health certificate — covers only certificates issued "no later than July 31, 2025", so it is closed to anyone arranging travel now. Eight destinations on this site are on CDC's high-risk list — Belize, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Suriname and Venezuela — and the Dominican Republic is the one most likely to catch an eastern-Caribbean itinerary. The Bahamas, Turks & Caicos and the BVI are not on it.

  3. ArrivalPresent the certificate; clear the animal before going ashore.

On arrival & aboard

Advance notice
NOT ESTABLISHED. No cited document states whether anything must be notified or filed before arrival. The requisitos sheet enumerates the import requirements as three incisos and MAGA's announcement describes the same procedure, and neither mentions a pre-arrival notification, registration, portal, appointment or lodged declaration — but neither says none is required either, and that silence is not a published assurance. A yacht is also not a scheduled arrival; radioing ahead through the Livingston agent costs nothing.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.
Appointment
Not yet documentedconfidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.
Veterinary inspection
On arrivalconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[25]
At the dock
THE PROCEDURE IS WRITTEN FOR A BORDER POST, AND LIVINGSTON IS NOT ONE. The rule itself is broad: inciso c) requires SEPA/OIRSA inspection "en cualquier punto de ingreso al país (aéreo, marítimo y terrestre)" — any point of entry, air, MARITIME or land — and OIRSA, which has run Guatemala's quarantine service for MAGA under agreement 263-98 since 1998, lists "recreational yachts" among the maritime transport it inspects. So both the rule and the inspecting body contemplate arrival by sea. But MAGA's own announcement places the SEPA inspector "en los puestos fronterizos", at the border posts, and the SEPA presence documented in Izabal is at the commercial cargo terminals of Puerto Barrios and Santo Tomás de Castilla — neither of which a yacht clears through. NO SOURCE FOUND NAMES LIVINGSTON. Nothing published describes who conducts an animal inspection at a river-mouth clearance done by launch, whether an agricultural inspector accompanies the immigration and customs officials who board or meet the boat, how the USD 14 is paid there, or what a crew does if no inspector appears. No approved-port list is recorded in this file for exactly that reason: Puerto Barrios and Santo Tomás are where SEPA has people, not a list of yacht entry points, and publishing them as the latter would send a boat to a container terminal. Ask on arrival and get the receipt — the paperwork the inspector issues is what proves the animal entered lawfully and on what date, and that date is what the thirty-day export threshold counts from.
Confinement
Nothing published addresses an animal aboard a vessel — not whether it may remain aboard, not whether it must, not whether a boat lying at anchor in the Golfete or on a marina dock at Fronteras is treated any differently from a house. The requisitos sheet is about presenting an animal at a point of entry and says nothing about what happens after.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.
Leash
FOR LISTED BREEDS ONLY, AND IT IS MANDATORY. Decreto 22-2003, transitional article 1: "Para la presencia y circulación en espacios públicos de los perros potencialmente peligrosos, será obligatoria la utilización de correa o cadena de menos de dos metros de longitud, así como un bozal homologado adecuado para su raza" — for the presence and movement of potentially dangerous dogs in public spaces, a lead or chain of LESS THAN TWO METRES is obligatory, together with an approved muzzle suited to the breed. Under article 39(e), being found with such a dog in a public place without muzzle or chain is an infracción grave carrying a fine of five to fifteen daily minimum wages. This is the rule that governs walking the dog into Fronteras, and unlike the licence question it is not ambiguous. No leash rule of any kind is published for dogs not on the list.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[6]
Muzzle
Required in public spaces for the seventeen breeds of article 6 and anything else classified under articles 7 or 8 — "un bozal homologado adecuado para su raza", an approved muzzle suited to the breed. Guatemala publishes no approved muzzle standard or homologation list that was found, so what "homologado" means in practice is undefined. Not required for any other dog.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[6]
By yacht
Two things a long-stay boat should hold together. First, none of the above comes from MAGA — it is the Ministerio de Gobernación's dangerous-animals statute, and the SEPA inspector who clears the animal in has no part in it. Second, article 29 of the same statute provides that moving a licensed dangerous dog outside the department where it is licensed, permanently or for more than three months, obliges the holder to register in the new departmental registry within fifteen days. A boat that licenses a dog in Izabal and then cruises to another department is squarely inside that provision on its face, which is one more reason the unresolved question of whether the licence regime reaches a visiting cruiser's dog at all matters so much. Nothing addresses an animal that stays aboard and never lands.

Quarantine

Quarantine
Not yet documentedconfidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.
If your papers are not in order

NO SANITARY QUARANTINE IS MENTIONED ANYWHERE. Neither edition of the requisitos sheet contains the word, no quarantine station for pets is named, and no source found describes what MAGA does with an animal that fails inspection or arrives with defective paperwork. That silence is recorded as silence — graded unknown above — and must not be read as a guarantee that none exists. What IS documented is a detention power, and it comes from the breed statute rather than from MAGA: article 21 of Decreto 22-2003 provides that in import, export, transit or transport operations involving a dangerous or potentially dangerous animal which do not meet the legal requirements, "la autoridad competente procederá a la incautación y depósito del animal hasta la regulación de la situación, sin perjuicio de las sanciones aplicables a los infractores y de los pagos por concepto de depósito del animal" — the competent authority will seize and impound the animal until the situation is regularised, without prejudice to penalties and to the charges for boarding it. Indefinite in duration by its own terms, at the owner's cost, and it applies only to the seventeen listed breeds and whatever else the registering office adds to them.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.[6]

Open questions

High priority

  1. HIGH PRIORITY — nothing published limits how long an imported animal may remain, and that needs confirming rather than assuming. No permit exists to expire, no maximum stay is stated, and no renewal or re-registration with MAGA is described. For a boat that will be on the river six months to two years this is the central question and the answer is currently an absence. Confirm with VISAR that an animal admitted under the requisitos sheet may simply remain, and that nothing further is owed to MAGA in the meantime.
  2. HIGH PRIORITY — the thirty-day export threshold, in practice. An animal leaving more than thirty days after entry must obtain a Certificado Sanitario de Exportación (Central America, USD 6.25) or a Certificado Zoosanitario Internacional de Exportación (everywhere else, price not published). Establish: can either be obtained anywhere other than the MAGA window in the AGEXPORT building in Guatemala City, or must a Río Dulce crew travel to the capital before sailing; how long is the certificate valid once issued, which matters when a departure waits on weather; what does the international certificate cost, given that the asisehace.gt link the requisitos sheet points to no longer resolves; and does the animal need a fresh Guatemalan veterinary examination for it.
  3. HIGH PRIORITY — does the thirty-day clock restart if the boat leaves and comes back? Nothing addresses re-entry at all. A boat that runs to Belize or the Bay Islands for a few weeks mid-season and returns has, on the face of it, made a new entry and started a new thirty-day count, and would have needed an export certificate to leave the first time. Confirm, because the answer changes whether a mid-season cruise is worth making.
  4. HIGH PRIORITY, AND THE ONE THAT CAN COST AN ANIMAL — does the Decreto 22-2003 licence regime reach a visiting cruiser's own dog? Article 17 conditions "la internación o entrada en territorio nacional" of the listed breeds on the licence, but its own wording frames the condition around a transferring seller and an acquirer, and it sits in a chapter headed Traslación de Dominio. No reglamento to the statute was found. Article 21 makes non-compliance grounds for seizure and impoundment at the owner's cost. Ask the Gobernación Departamental de Izabal and the Ministerio de Gobernación, not MAGA — MAGA does not administer this and VISAR's sheet does not mention breed. Ask specifically how a foreign visitor satisfies article 11(b), which requires a Cédula de Vecindad, a Guatemalan identity document, and 11(d), a civil liability policy of at least Q100,000.

Also open

  1. HIGHEST PRIORITY FOR THIS AUDIENCE — what actually happens at Livingston. The rule says a SEPA/OIRSA inspection occurs at any maritime point of entry and that USD 14 is payable, but no source found names Livingston as a SEPA post, and MAGA's own announcement locates its inspectors at the border posts. Ask VISAR's Departamento de Protección y Sanidad Pecuaria directly: is there an agricultural inspector at Livingston at all; does one come out on the launch with immigration and customs; if not, does the animal formality happen later at Puerto Barrios or Santo Tomás, or not at all; and what document does a crew leave with. That last part is not academic — the thirty-day export threshold counts from the day of entry, so whatever proves the entry date is the document the boat needs a season later.
  2. Related, and specific to a long stay — article 29 requires a licensed dangerous dog moved outside its department of licence, permanently or for more than three months, to be re-registered within fifteen days. If the licence regime does apply to visiting animals, a boat that licenses in Izabal and then cruises elsewhere in Guatemala is inside that provision. Confirm whether it is applied to non-resident owners, and what happens on departure to a licence and its associated microchip record.
  3. MAGA's own sources conflict on how old a rabies vaccination may be. The 2021 announcement says "no menor a un mes y no mayor a un año" — a hard one-year ceiling. Neither the 2024 nor the 2025 requisitos sheet repeats it; both ask only that the carnet show the vaccination's "vigencia". A three-year vaccine in its second year passes on the sheet and fails on the announcement. Establish which VISAR applies at the point of entry, and carry the vaccine's own documentation either way.
  4. No certificate validity window is published at all, and this file's most cruiser-favourable statement is therefore an absence rather than a permission. Ask VISAR whether a health certificate has any freshness limit in practice, and in particular what a SEPA inspector does with a certificate signed weeks earlier in the last port before a long passage. Do not sail on the assumption that silence means indefinite; get it in writing if it matters to the routing.
  5. "País de origen" is undefined for an animal that lives aboard, and it does real work here in two places: the health certificate is to be issued by a veterinarian "del país de origen", and the antiparasitic products must be "aprobados por el país de origen". For a boat that has been cruising for years, is that the last country cleared out of, the animal's country of residence, or the vessel's flag state? Establish it before departure — it cannot be fixed at the dock.
  6. The governing document is an unsigned, undated departmental requirements sheet with no acuerdo number, and two editions of it are live at once. An acuerdo ministerial governing the entry of dogs and cats as pets was looked for on maga.gob.gt, visar.maga.gob.gt, congreso.gob.gt and MAGA's normativa archive and was not found. Ask VISAR whether one exists, whether the February 2025 sheet supersedes the October 2024 sheet formally or merely in practice, and whether the pet passport provision that appears only in the 2025 file is in force. A rule that can change without a published repeal is a rule to re-check shortly before arriving.
  7. The USD 14 inspection fee could not be checked against its own instrument. MAGA's 2021 announcement attributes it to Acuerdo Ministerial 114-2018, whose text could not be retrieved — MAGA's compiled 2018 acuerdos volume is an image scan with no text layer. The requisitos sheet's qualifier "de acuerdo al peso", according to weight, sits beside a single flat figure and could not be reconciled. Confirm the current amount, whether it varies by weight, and what currency and payment method are accepted at a maritime entry point.
  8. The United States protocol does not match what VISAR publishes. The requisitos sheet describes a two-page "Certificado de Salud para la Exportación de Perros, Gatos de los Estados Unidos a Guatemala"; the file actually linked from VISAR's Importaciones page is one page and covers dogs only. No cats equivalent was found. A US-origin cat appears to have no protocol form; confirm whether it falls back to the general route or whether a two-page combined certificate exists elsewhere.
  9. Quarantine is not mentioned anywhere in any MAGA or VISAR source, and neither is what happens to an animal that fails the SEPA/OIRSA inspection or arrives with defective paperwork. There is no published refusal, detention, re-shipment or remediation procedure of the kind Colombia sets out. Ask what the actual consequence is, because a boat with no onward clearance and an animal that cannot land is in a much worse position than an airline passenger.
  10. Nothing in the sources addresses an animal that stays aboard and never lands, so no transit section is authored here.

Page status

Central America and Mexico · Sovereign republicDataset status Inferredconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.Last checked 2026-08-13 Recently checkedfreshness: Recently checked. Sources were last re-read 60 days ago, well inside the 180-day window. Recent is not reviewed — this page is still an unreviewed draft.

Evidence

Import permit

Permit
Not requiredconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[41]
What it costs

No permit fee, because no permit exists — but note where the negative actually comes from, because the two halves are graded on different footings. The EXPLICIT statement is in the bilateral United States protocol sheet, which ends: "Note: An import permit is not required. / Nota: No se requiere Autorización de Importación para la importación." That is an affirmative official denial and it covers the US route. For every other country of origin the position rests on the requisitos sheet listing exactly three requirements — health certificate, vaccination card, SEPA/OIRSA inspection — and no permit among them, which is weaker. VISAR does run an import- authorisation regime for livestock, genetic material and animal products; dogs and cats as pets are not routed through it in anything found. What IS charged is the inspection, and the figure is NOT a flat rate: the requisitos sheet says the user must "cancelar $14.00 (de acuerdo al peso) por cada mascota" — $14.00 ACCORDING TO WEIGHT, per pet. No weight bands and no upper figure are published anywhere, so $14.00 is a floor for a small animal rather than the price of a large one. See fees.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[41]

Phone
1557 extensión 7426

Rabies

Vaccination
Requiredconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[125]
Min. age at vaccination
90 days (NOT A MINIMUM AGE FOR THE VACCINE — AN EXEMPTION FROM IT. The requisitos sheet requires rabies vaccination "Exceptuando Animales menores de 3 meses de edad", and the United States protocol says the same of dogs: "Perros menores de 3 meses de edad no necesitan ser vacunados." So an animal under three months old is not required to be vaccinated at all. The sheet does not say the vaccine may not be given earlier, and it does not say an unvaccinated animal under three months is admitted — it says only that the requirement does not bite. Read with the one-month pre-travel interval, an animal vaccinated at the earliest ordinary age is travelling at about four months regardless.)confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[14]
Min. before travel
30 days ("La misma debe ser aplicada en un período no menor a 1 mes antes del viaje" — the vaccination must have been given no less than one month before the trip. Note three things. It is expressed as one MONTH, not thirty days, and no edition defines the month; thirty days is this file's conservative reading and a vaccination given on the 31st of a month has no obvious anniversary. It is counted to EL VIAJE — travel, i.e. departure — and not to arrival, so a passage cannot exhaust it. And the sheet draws no distinction between a first vaccination and a booster: the interval as written applies to whatever vaccination the carnet shows, which is stricter on boosters than most of the region and looser on primaries than Colombia's 21 days.)confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[12]
Max. before travel
365 days (MAGA'S OWN TWO SOURCES DISAGREE, AND THE OLDER ONE IS STRICTER. MAGA's 2021 announcement states the vaccination card must show "las vacunas aplicadas en un período no menor a un mes y no mayor a un año" — vaccines applied not less than one month and NOT MORE THAN ONE YEAR ago. Neither the 2024 nor the 2025 requisitos sheet repeats that ceiling. Both instead require the carnet to show the vaccination's "vigencia" — its validity — which points at the product's own stated duration and would let a three-year vaccine in its second year through. The 365-day figure is recorded because it is the only published number and because an inspector working from the announcement will apply it; a traveller relying on a multi-year vaccine's stated validity is relying on the sheet against the announcement, and should carry the product's own documentation to argue it. This has not been resolved with VISAR.)confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[5]
Boosters, and what the certificate must show

The vaccination card must carry the seal and signature of a veterinarian in private practice and state the vaccination's validity; the United States protocol additionally requires the trade name of the product used ("Se debe indicar el nombre comercial del producto usado"). No approved vaccine list, no manufacturer restriction and no requirement that the product be inactivated appears in any source retrieved. The card must also "Indicar que otras vacunas fueron aplicadas de acuerdo a la edad correspondiente" — state what OTHER vaccines were given as appropriate to the animal's age. Read that carefully: it is a disclosure obligation, not a second vaccination requirement. Guatemala names no vaccine except rabies and does not mandate distemper, parvovirus, leptospirosis or the feline core vaccines; it requires you to declare whatever was given. Note finally that the 2025 edition lets a valid pet passport stand in for the vaccination card entirely — see approved_forms. NOTE THAT `three_year_accepted` IS DELIBERATELY LEFT UNRECORDED on this page. MAGA's announcement and VISAR's sheet point opposite ways on the question (see max_vaccine_age), the field carries no confidence grade in which to say so, and either answer would assert something the sources do not support.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[124]

Rabies titer test

A blood test that measures rabies antibodies, to show the vaccination actually took. The sample has to be drawn a set time after the jab, and some places then make you wait months more before the animal may land — so this is the requirement most worth checking before you plan a route, not after.

Blood titer
Not yet documentedconfidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.
Required level
No rabies antibody titre is required by anything MAGA or VISAR publishes, and it was specifically looked for: no threshold, no approved laboratory, no post-test waiting period appears in either edition of the requisitos sheet, in MAGA's announcement or in the United States protocol. Graded unknown rather than false because that is an absence of any mention, not a published exemption. A commercial pet-travel page in wide use does discuss a rabies titre in connection with Guatemala; no Guatemalan source found supports it, and it is not recorded here. The advice that DOES matter for a boat is not Guatemalan at all — a titre drawn before arriving is what onward destinations that require serology will count from, and a Río Dulce season is long enough to burn the whole waiting period of the next country if the blood is drawn on the river instead of before it.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.

Veterinary health certificate

Certificate
Requiredconfidence: AI-vetted. An AI read the cited document and quoted the text it found; where the wording differed from ours, an AI judged the two equivalent. Not yet checked by a human — read the quote.[125]
Evidence for Certificate
Las personas que buscan llegar a Guatemala desde cualquier país del mundo deben presentar original del certificado sanitario de exportación del país de origen, o bien el certificado de salud emitido por un médico veterinario en el ejercicio de su profesión del país de origen.
Completed within
THE NUMBER THAT ISN'T THERE, AND IT WAS LOOKED FOR HARD. Neither edition of the requisitos sheet places any validity period, issue window or "prior to shipment" limit on the health certificate — not ten days, not thirty, not any. Nor does MAGA's 2021 announcement, nor the United States protocol sheet. For a vessel this is the difference between a possible landfall and an impossible one: the ten-calendar-days-to-arrival rule that makes Colombia unreachable on a long passage has no counterpart here. But it is graded UNKNOWN, not false, and the distinction is the whole point. VISAR has not published an allowance; VISAR has published nothing. A SEPA inspector may apply a working freshness rule that the sheet does not print, and a certificate months old will invite a question even if no printed rule forbids it. A commercial pet-travel page in wide use asserts a window of "between 10 and 30 days" while itself hedging it as an airline requirement to be checked with the carrier, not a Guatemalan one — it is not recorded here and should not be relied on in either direction.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.
Gov. endorsement
Not requiredconfidence: AI-vetted. An AI read the cited document and quoted the text it found; where the wording differed from ours, an AI judged the two equivalent. Not yet checked by a human — read the quote.[15]
Evidence for Gov. endorsement
el certificado de salud emitido por un médico veterinario en el ejercicio de su profesión del país de origen. El certificado debe contener nombre de la mascota, edad, sexo, raza, color y demás características físicas; vacunas aplicadas y desparasitaciones.
Form
Certificado de Salud — the general route. Any veterinarian in private practice ("Médico Veterinario en el ejercicio de su profesión") in the country of origin, with seal and signature. No prescribed form is published; the sheet specifies the content, not the layout., Certificado sanitario de exportación del país de origen — accepted as an alternative to the private certificate per MAGA's 2021 announcement, not required in place of it., UNITED STATES — AN OPTION, NOT AN OBLIGATION. "Certificado de Salud para la Exportación de Perros, Gatos de los Estados Unidos a Guatemala", the bilateral protocol, which the requisitos sheet describes as two pages and says is on the MAGA-VISAR site. Using it means endorsement, unlike the general route: a certificate in English AND Spanish issued by a USDA-accredited veterinarian and endorsed by a Veterinary Services (VS) veterinarian. But the sheet presents it disjunctively — "el protocolo acordado entre ambos países… Ó CERTIFICADO DE SALUD (inciso a, cuadro No. 1)" — so a US arrival may instead use the ordinary health certificate. That matters to a boat: a VS endorsement is obtainable before you leave the United States and effectively not obtainable once you are cruising, and the disjunction is what keeps Guatemala reachable for a US-flagged boat already under way. Either way the traveller must still meet inciso b (vaccination card) and inciso c (SEPA/OIRSA inspection and fee). MIND THE MISMATCH — the file VISAR actually links under "Perros" is ONE page and covers DOGS ONLY, titled "IMPORT HEALTH REQUIREMENTS OF GUATEMALA FOR DOGS EXPORTED FROM THE UNITED STATES". No cats equivalent and no two-page version was found. The "ó inciso a" fallback answers what a US-origin cat does: the general route., PET PASSPORT — added by the 2025 edition only. "Los usuarios deben presentar al Inspector SEPA/OIRSA, el pasaporte vigente emitido por el país de origen de la mascota, en conjunto con el Certificado de Salud indicado en el inciso a del Cuadro No. 1. Por lo que, pueden exceptuar la presentación del Carnet de Vacunación indicado en el inciso b del cuadro No.1." In English: present the valid passport issued by the pet's country of origin TOGETHER WITH the health certificate of inciso a, and the vaccination card of inciso b may then be dispensed with. Note what it does and does not replace — the passport substitutes for the vaccination card, never for the health certificate. Directly useful to EU-registered boats carrying an EU pet passport; the 2024 edition has no such provision at all.
Arriving by sea

None is written, and none is needed for the certificate, because no clock runs on it — see certificate_timing. The one time limit in the entry table attaches to the rabies vaccination and is a MINIMUM counted backwards from departure ("no menor a 1 mes antes del viaje"), so time spent on passage can only help it, never break it. That is the opposite posture to most of this dataset and it is why Guatemala is reachable under sail from almost anywhere. The sheet does not distinguish a yacht from any other means of arrival, and it does not contemplate one either.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[125]

What the certificate must say

Cuadro No. 1, inciso a): "Certificado de Salud (Con sello y firma del Médico Veterinario en el ejercicio de su profesión) — De la mascota, indicando nombre, edad, sexo, raza, color y demás características físicas, fue examinado y se encontró en buen estado de salud y libre de signos clínicos de enfermedades infectocontagiosas y/o parasitarias; Vacunas aplicadas (indicar fecha de vigencia) y desparasitación con productos aprobados por el país de origen." Inciso b): "Carnet de vacunación (Con sello y firma del Médico Veterinario en el ejercicio de su profesión) — La mascota fue vacunada contra la Enfermedad de Rabia, indicando su vigencia y la misma debe ser aplicada en un período no menor a 1 mes antes del viaje. Exceptuando Animales menores de 3 meses de edad. Indicar que otras vacunas fueron aplicadas de acuerdo a la edad correspondiente." Inciso c): "Inspección por parte del personal SEPA/OIRSA en cualquier punto de ingreso al país (aéreo, marítimo y terrestre) — El usuario debe entregar una copia de cada certificado a) y b) y cancelar $14.00 (de acuerdo al peso) por cada mascota." — In English: a health certificate bearing the seal and signature of a veterinarian in private practice, giving the pet's name, age, sex, breed, colour and other physical characteristics, stating that it was examined and found in good health and free of clinical signs of infectious and/or parasitic disease, the vaccines applied with their validity dates, and deworming with products approved in the country of origin; a vaccination card, also sealed and signed by a veterinarian in private practice, showing rabies vaccination with its validity and applied no less than one month before travel, excepting animals under three months of age, and stating what other vaccines were given as appropriate to the animal's age; and inspection by SEPA/OIRSA staff at any point of entry to the country — air, maritime or land — where the traveller hands over a copy of each of the two certificates and pays USD 14.00 per pet. Separately: "Los documentos redactados en idioma extranjero deben ser vertidos al español (traducción simple)" — documents drafted in a foreign language must be rendered into Spanish, and the 2025 edition adds that a simple translation suffices.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[12]

Parasite treatment

Internal

Required, and it is an attestation on the health certificate rather than a separate document: the certificate must record "desparasitación con productos aprobados por el país de origen" — deworming with products approved in the country of origin. The bilateral United States protocol puts it as "The animals were treated for endo- and ectoparasites with products approved by the country of origin", which is the clearest statement that internal treatment is meant. No product, class or active principle is named or excluded, and no tapeworm-specific requirement of the kind found in the northern Caribbean appears anywhere.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[124]

External

Required on the same footing and in the same words. The general requisitos sheet says only "desparasitación", which does not by itself distinguish internal from external; the United States protocol resolves it as "endo- and ectoparasites", both. A certificate that attests to both satisfies either reading, and there is no reason to draft one that does not.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[124]

Timing

NO WINDOW IS PUBLISHED, in either direction. The requisitos sheet gives no number of days before shipment, before arrival or otherwise, and neither does the United States protocol. This is a real gap rather than a generous allowance: contrast Colombia, which specifies 60 days before embarkation, and most of the Eastern Caribbean, which specifies fourteen. Treat close to departure and have the date on the certificate anyway: an inspector with no printed rule will fall back on judgement, and a recent date is the only thing that answers it.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[124]

The treatment is evidenced by the veterinarian's attestation on the health certificate, so there is nothing separate to obtain and nothing separate to lose. Note that the sheet requires the products to be "aprobados por el país de origen" — approved in the country of ORIGIN, not in Guatemala — which is the one place in this file where the exporting country's regime, rather than Guatemala's, decides whether something is acceptable. A boat that has been at sea or in a third country for months should be clear-eyed that "country of origin" is undefined for an animal that lives aboard; see the outstanding questions.[14]

Identification

Microchip
Not requiredconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[12]
Standard
None is specified, because no chip is required to enter. The only microchip requirement in Guatemalan law found is article 16 of Decreto 22-2003, and it is a consequence of the dangerous-animal licence rather than a condition of entry: when the first licence is authorised, "le será implantado al animal a nivel subcutáneo, un dispositivo electrónico de identificación (microchip), cuyo número de codificación será anotado en la misma" — a subcutaneous electronic identification device is implanted and its code recorded on the licence, at the Gobernación Departamental. No ISO standard, frequency or digit length is specified for it, and it is implanted in Guatemala rather than presented on arrival.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[61]

No microchip, tattoo or other permanent identification is required to bring a dog or cat into Guatemala. This rests on the requisitos sheet listing three requirements and no identification among them — the sheet asks the health certificate to record the animal's "nombre, edad, sexo, raza, color y demás características físicas", a written description rather than a number, and nowhere asks for a chip. That is an inference from what the sheet requires, not a published exemption. Two practical points regardless. A boat on the Río Dulce for a season is a boat whose next country almost certainly does require a chip, and a chip fitted before arrival is one less thing to arrange from Fronteras. And if the dog is a listed breed under Decreto 22-2003, a chip is coming anyway — see microchip_standard.[126]

Animals & vaccinations

Dogs

Min. age
NO MINIMUM ENTRY AGE IS PUBLISHED, and it was looked for. Neither edition of the VISAR requisitos sheet sets one, and no other MAGA source found does. The only age figure anywhere in the sheet is an EXEMPTION, not a bar: the rabies vaccination requirement applies "Exceptuando Animales menores de 3 meses de edad" — excepting animals under 3 months of age. The bilateral United States protocol says the same thing for dogs, "Perros menores de 3 meses de edad no necesitan ser vacunados". That exempts a young puppy from the vaccine; it does not state that a puppy of any age may enter. Graded unknown for that reason. Note separately that Decreto 22-2003 attaches its own age threshold to LISTED BREEDS — the licence must be obtained in all cases from eighteen months of age, and the socialisation test for the three "altamente peligrosos" breeds is conducted from eighteen months.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.[14]

Vaccinesconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[12]

  • Rabia (rabies)

Breed restrictionsconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[6]

  • Altamente peligrosos (art. 6a) — PitBull Terrier, and pure breed or cross: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence, plus a socialisation test from 18 months
  • Altamente peligrosos (art. 6a) — Stafordshire Terrier, and pure breed or cross: entry conditioned on a licence, plus a socialisation test from 18 months
  • Altamente peligrosos (art. 6a) — Tosa Inu, and pure breed or cross: entry conditioned on a licence, plus a socialisation test from 18 months
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Rottweiler and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Dogo Argentino and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Dogo Guatemalteco and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Fila Brasileiro and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Presa Canario and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Doberman and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Gran Perro Japonés and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Mastín Napolitano and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Presa Mallorquí and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Dogo de Burdeos and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Bullmastiff and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Bull Terrier Inglés and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Bulldog Americano and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Peligrosos (art. 6b) — Rhodesiano and crosses: entry conditioned on a Gobernación Departamental licence
  • Any other dog the registering office classifies as dangerous — art. 7 makes the list "puramente enunciativas y no limitativas", assessed when the licence is applied for; art. 8 adds any dog with a history of attacks on people or dogs, or trained for attack and defence, irrespective of breed

Cats

Min. age
NO MINIMUM ENTRY AGE IS PUBLISHED, and it was looked for. Neither edition of the VISAR requisitos sheet sets one, and no other MAGA source found does. The only age figure anywhere in the sheet is an EXEMPTION, not a bar: the rabies vaccination requirement applies "Exceptuando Animales menores de 3 meses de edad" — excepting animals under 3 months of age. That exempts a young kitten from the vaccine; it does not state that a kitten of any age may enter, and it must not be read as permission. Graded unknown for that reason.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.[1]

Vaccinesconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[12]

  • Rabia (rabies)

Other health requirements

Note
WHAT IS GRADED ELSEWHERE, AND WHY IT IS NOT REPEATED HERE. The SEPA/OIRSA inspection that inciso c) makes a requirement in its own right is arrival_procedures.veterinary_inspection. The rule that any document in a foreign language must be rendered into Spanish, with the 2025 edition's "traducción simple" — a plain translation, no sworn translator or apostille — is transcribed under veterinary_certificate.official_wording; note that the 2025 edition itself returns 403 and is not in the readable corpus, so the words checked here are the 2024 edition's bare "Los documentos redactados en idioma extranjero deben ser vertidos al español". BREEDS: the seventeen-breed regime is statutory, is administered by the Ministerio de Gobernación and not by MAGA, and is recorded under animals.dogs.breed_restrictions with its ambiguity intact. It is a licence condition, not a ban — Guatemala prohibits no breed — but a commercial pet-travel page's flat statement that "Guatemala does not publish a list of banned breeds" will leave a reader with a Rottweiler believing there is nothing to check, and there is.
Dogs
  • THE CERTIFICATE MUST ATTEST CONDITION, NOT JUST IDENTITY: the Certificado de Salud must state of the pet that it "fue examinado y se encontró en buen estado de salud y libre de signos clínicos de enfermedades infectocontagiosas y/o parasitarias" — examined and found in good health and free of CLINICAL SIGNS of infectious and/or parasitic disease. MAGA puts it the same way in its own announcement. Combined with the SEPA/OIRSA physical inspection at the point of entry, an animal can fail on the inspector's eye however complete its paperwork.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[25]
  • EVERY OTHER VACCINE GIVEN MUST BE DISCLOSED, though none beyond rabies is mandated. The carnet de vacunación must "Indicar que otras vacunas fueron aplicadas de acuerdo a la edad correspondiente" — state which other vaccines were given as appropriate to the animal's age. It is an obligation of disclosure about whatever was administered, and must NOT be read as a species vaccination list of the kind Colombia publishes; there is none.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[2]
  • NO DISEASE TESTING OF ANY KIND is required by anything published — no serology, no rabies titre, no heartworm, leishmania, brucella or Trypanosoma test. Beyond the rabies vaccination, the entire health requirement is the certificate, the deworming attestation and the animal's condition on the day. This is an absence in the documents read, not a published exemption.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.
Cats
  • THE CERTIFICATE MUST ATTEST CONDITION, NOT JUST IDENTITY: the Certificado de Salud must state of the pet that it "fue examinado y se encontró en buen estado de salud y libre de signos clínicos de enfermedades infectocontagiosas y/o parasitarias" — examined and found in good health and free of CLINICAL SIGNS of infectious and/or parasitic disease. MAGA puts it the same way in its own announcement. Combined with the SEPA/OIRSA physical inspection at the point of entry, an animal can fail on the inspector's eye however complete its paperwork.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[25]
  • EVERY OTHER VACCINE GIVEN MUST BE DISCLOSED, though none beyond rabies is mandated. The carnet de vacunación must "Indicar que otras vacunas fueron aplicadas de acuerdo a la edad correspondiente" — state which other vaccines were given as appropriate to the animal's age. It is an obligation of disclosure about whatever was administered, and must NOT be read as a species vaccination list of the kind Colombia publishes; there is none.confidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer.[2]
  • NO DISEASE TESTING OF ANY KIND is required by anything published — no serology, no rabies titre, no heartworm, leishmania, brucella or Trypanosoma test. Beyond the rabies vaccination, the entire health requirement is the certificate, the deworming attestation and the animal's condition on the day. This is an absence in the documents read, not a published exemption.confidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet.

Sources

  1. 1

    Requisitos para el ingreso y egreso de mascotas (perros y gatos) a la República de Guatemala — February 2025 edition, linked from VISAR's Importaciones page as "Perros y Gatos"; treated as governing — Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación (MAGA) — Viceministerio de Sanidad Agropecuaria y Regulaciones (VISAR), Dirección de Sanidad Animal, Departamento de Protección y Sanidad Pecuaria

    agricultureAccessed 2026-08-13in ES — translated hereno archive yet

  2. 2

    Requisitos para el ingreso y egreso de mascotas (perros y gatos) a la República de Guatemala — October 2024 edition, still served and still the copy search engines return — Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación (MAGA) — Viceministerio de Sanidad Agropecuaria y Regulaciones (VISAR), Dirección de Sanidad Animal, Departamento de Protección y Sanidad Pecuaria

    agricultureAccessed 2026-08-13in ES — translated herearchived copy

  3. 3

    Importaciones — VISAR's index of zoosanitary import requirements by species and country, where the 2025 requisitos sheet is published under "Perros y Gatos" and the United States dog protocol under "Perros" — Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación (MAGA) — Viceministerio de Sanidad Agropecuaria y Regulaciones (VISAR)

    agricultureAccessed 2026-08-13in ES — translated herearchived copy

  4. 4

    Import health requirements of Guatemala for dogs exported from the United States / Requisitos zoosanitarios de Guatemala para importar perros de los Estados Unidos — bilingual, one page, dogs only — Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación (MAGA) — Viceministerio de Sanidad Agropecuaria y Regulaciones (VISAR)

    agricultureAccessed 2026-08-13in ES — translated herearchived copy

  5. 5

    Guatemala integra requisitos para ingreso y egreso de perros y gatos como mascotas — MAGA announcement quoting the Departamento de Protección y Sanidad Pecuaria; the only source found that names Acuerdo Ministerial 114-2018 and the one-year vaccination ceiling — Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación (MAGA)

    agricultureAccessed 2026-08-13Published 2021-04-23in ES — translated herearchived copy

  6. 6

    Decreto Número 22-2003, Ley para el Control de Animales Peligrosos (emitted 15 May 2003) — arts. 6–8 breed classification, art. 9–16 licence and microchip, art. 17 entry into national territory, art. 21 seizure, art. 29 inter-departmental movement, transitional art. 1 muzzle and lead — Congreso de la República de Guatemala — text published by the Congreso; applied by the Ministerio de Gobernación through the Gobernaciones Departamentales

    legalAccessed 2026-08-13in ES — translated herearchived copy

  7. 7

    Decreto Número 5-2017, Ley de Protección y Bienestar Animal (emitted 28 February 2017) — cited here only for art. 72, which repeals Decreto 870 and nothing else, so Decreto 22-2003 stays in force — Congreso de la República de Guatemala

    legalAccessed 2026-08-13in ES — translated herearchived copy

  8. 8

    Servicio de Protección Agropecuaria (SEPA) — describes SEPA's delegation, its presence at border posts and its maritime inspection remit, which names recreational yachts — Organismo Internacional Regional de Sanidad Agropecuaria (OIRSA), which administers Guatemala's plant and animal quarantine services for MAGA under agreement 263-98

    agricultureAccessed 2026-08-13archived copy

  9. 9

    Guatemala Pet Import Requirements — cited in prose only, as a caution: it asserts a 10-to-30-day certificate window that no Guatemalan source contains and that it hedges as an airline requirement, and it states that Guatemala publishes no list of banned breeds, which is true of bans and misleading about Decreto 22-2003. No field on this page is graded from it. — PetTravel.com — commercial pet relocation service, not an authority

    secondaryAccessed 2026-08-13archived copy

Last checked August 2026 · 4 high-priority open questions · Sources & questions

What the dots mean

confidence: AI-vetted. An AI read the cited document and quoted the text it found; where the wording differed from ours, an AI judged the two equivalent. Not yet checked by a human — read the quote. AI read the source and judged the match, awaiting human reviewconfidence: Inferred. Backed by an official source but not yet certified by a human reviewer. official-backed, awaiting human reviewconfidence: Unknown. Not located in any source yet. not yet documented· How we grade