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Service & support animals
Big dog. Service dog. Which airlines will actually take them?
Most in-cabin allowances stop at about eight kilos, which rules out most dogs before the conversation starts. Assistance animals are handled under different rules again — and those rules changed in 2021. Below is what the carriers we have curated actually publish, with the legal position stated plainly rather than implied.
Find carriers for your animal
Answers come from our curated airline rule base — 261 carrier policies with weight caps, channels and breed restrictions — not from a marketing table.
Service dog, support animal, pet: three different things
Getting this distinction wrong at the gate is the single most common reason an assistance animal is refused.
Trained service dog
Individually trained to perform tasks for a person with a disability. Carries the strongest entitlement, travels in the cabin outside the pet allowance, and usually requires forms submitted in advance — for US flights, the DOT Service Animal Air Transportation Form.
Emotional support animal
Provides comfort by its presence, without task training. Since 2021 US carriers are no longer required to accept ESAs, and most now treat them as ordinary pets. Some carriers in other jurisdictions still accommodate them — but on their own terms, not by right.
Pet
Subject to the carrier's weight, carrier-size and breed rules. Above roughly eight kilos this normally means checked baggage or cargo, and some breeds are excluded from those channels entirely.
Assistance status does not replace import papers
It changes how your animal flies. It does not change what the destination requires on arrival.
Still required
Microchip, rabies vaccination within its validity window, and — for many destinations — a titre test with its own waiting period, plus a health certificate issued inside a narrow window before departure.
Still refused without them
A border authority applies import rules to every animal arriving, assistance or not. The most common failure we see is a correct assistance authorisation paired with a rabies certificate a few days out of date.
Questions people ask
On most airlines, no: the usual in-cabin allowance is around 8 kg including the carrier, so a large dog travels as checked baggage or as cargo. A small number of carriers publish no cabin weight cap, and a trained service dog is treated separately from the pet allowance altogether. The finder above shows which case applies to the airlines we have curated.
