One of the things I stressed about most for most recent move was bringing my cats. As a proud helicopter cat mom, I’m constantly worried about their health and well being. It’s a place I often direct my anxiety because I love them so much and it feels useful, even though it’s often not.
I find people talking about “superpowers” with regard to disabilities pretty distasteful because it’s usually framed as, “Hey, obvs you’re not “normal” like the rest of us but look at your (insert special skill, affinity, or talent) which is so cool! Enjoy that one thing that’s so much better about being like you.” For the record, I’d definitely trade my disabilities and/or neurodivergence if it meant I’d live a more peaceful, lower stress life. So please let us staaaahp it with the “superpowers”.
Anyway, thanks to OCD my superpower is research. Paired with an ADHD focus, I can research the hell out of anything I’m driven to, especially when there’s fear behind that drive. As soon as I figured out France had the most viable visa path to Europe, I started learning about pet travel. And there’s not a lot of helpful info that I found, which is why I wanted to write about it.
Note: this is only my experience and is current as of spring ’26 moving cats from the US to France. Different regulations apply to different countries so please make sure to confirm the rules of your country of origin and destination.
Cat passports
TL;DR — vet prices vary widely, find a vet that has experience with passports, getting the timing correct is critical.
It’s pretty adorable in theory that my boys needed their own passports to travel! In reality, it means you pay a bunch of money to prove they’ve been microchipped and vaccinated for rabies in a timeframe that your destination country requires for entry. You also must have a vet that is certified to write international passports do the exam and paperwork. We’d recently moved from Spokane to Vancouver, Washington and needed to find a new vet. I called our old vet clinic in Portland, Oregon to see if they did passports, and they were in the middle of a move but would be able to do them for about $1,200 each. This was something that surprised me — the cost of the passport and how much it varied by vet. Because they only had 1 vet who was certified, it was expensive. They actually recommended I check out another clinic downtown and because most of their vets were certified it cost roughly half at about $600 per cat.
There’s some date math that needs to be taken into account as far as when your pet needs to be vaccinated, how old they are, and a very short window to have the paperwork approved. I found the USDA website woefully unhelpful and lacked plain language to guide me in understanding exactly what the requirements were. You have to have a vet confirm their rabies vax within 30 days of travel and send in their paperwork to the USDA no earlier than 10 days before your flight — or something like that. As someone who has been working in content design with a passion for accessibility, it was a huge miss for the site as I’d expect many people reading it to have some level of anxiety about bringing their furry family members on such a huge journey. Admittedly, mine was off the charts.
I’d decided my best course of action was finding a vet and clinic who knew what the fuck they were doing and helping me navigate this government bureaucracy was part of the service I was paying for. I also didn’t want any surprises or to have the first time this new vet was checking out my boys to be within the 30 day departure window, so I booked checkups a couple months before so they could get their shots and we could establish care at the new clinic. Ideally you’d do this with your current vet and not feel the need to re-do checkups.
Anyway! At the checkup appointment, I booked their official passport appointment for about 3 weeks before our flight (within the 30 day window) and the vet assured me that they would take care of sending all the paperwork to the USDA for certification. Part of their fee goes to the government for the passport validation, and I was really, really glad I chose a vet who did these all the time and knew the process inside and out.
Airlines
TL;DR — booking all legs of your journey with 1 airline will save money & call the airline ASAP to book one of the very few pet flights allowed per flight.
The next hurdle was getting the cats on flights. I wanted to minimize the travel time as much as possible, but there were no direct flights from Portland, OR to Paris. I searched Google Flights and Expedia for any and all possible flight combinations, airlines, and prices. Lufthansa has a really good reputation for welcoming pets on board, but there weren’t any flights that had France as a first stop in the EU. It might have been fine to land in Frankfurt and get our long stay visa stamped there, but I couldn’t for the life of me find any confirmation online that I could enter the EU on a French visa in any Schengen country, and didn’t want to risk it.
I then researched the cost of pet flights. There was no way I was letting my boys out of my sight, so they definitely had to be in the cabin with me. Cats under about 17 pounds can fly as your personal item under the seat in front of you. The fees vary depending on the airline but it seemed to average $200 per cat per airline for international travel. We found a good 2-leg journey on 2 different airlines, but the pet fees would have doubled as you have to pay the pet fee to each airline. In the end, we booked the entire journey with Delta and our fees were $200 per cat.
Things to note traveling with cats on Delta:
- Only 4 pets can be on any flight in the main cabin (first class has different rules but I don’t fly there 😂) at one time so make sure to call early to reserve your space
- Pets CAN’T FLY in Delta One, Delta Business, or Delta Premium! At first, we thought we’d throw some money around and book a bit more leg room but had to cancel and move to main cabin where pets were allowed.
- Pets have to be under a certain weight to fly in cabin (I think it’s 17lbs??)
- Pets must be in an airline approved carrier; Delta recommends a soft-sided one that’s approx 18″ x 11″ x 11″ (ours were similar give or take an inch here or there but no one measured or asked about it)
- Each person can only have 1 pet in cabin
- You have to call customer service to book your pet flight
- Much to my frustration, there is NO confirmation that you’ve booked a pet flight other than verbally on the phone with the representative
- You won’t be able to check-in for your flight via the app if you’ve booked pet travel and will check-in at the counter and pay your pet fee ($200 international, $150 domestic) at check-in
I also found this process waaaaaay too chill for me. We called immediately after booking our flights online in the main cabin. The Delta rep confirmed that they’d added a pet flight for each of us and that was it! But no confirmation came through so we called Delta again to make sure the second agent saw the booking. They said that there was no confirmation for pet flights, it wouldn’t appear anywhere on our tickets, and also gave us the heads-up that we wouldn’t be able to check-in normally — 24 hours before the flight on the app. I was really grateful for this intel cause I would have worried something was wrong if I didn’t know. (WHY ISN’T THIS INFO IN THEIR DOCUMENTATION ONLINE???)
Passport appointment
TL;DR — make sure your visit is less than 30 days before you fly, have the USDA certified paperwork FedExed to your home.
So, about 3 weeks before the flight, we took the cats back to the vet. She did another examination, but as I’d hoped there were no surprised because we’d been just a couple months before. We then talked about drugs. She’d given me some gabapentin to try with the boys to see how they reacted to it. I was really, really apprehensive to give them drugs and felt very guilty. I talked to her about it, and she explained that an event like this can stress out a cat for 72 hours, even though they may seem fine afterwards. Because it was going to be so long for them in a carrier, she recommended they take drugs and sent me home with a protocol for dosing and timing for each of them. I’ve since seen some shit on Reddit that it can be very harmful for cats to take drugs at altitude and I’m glad I didn’t see it before because I probably would have freaked out. This is definitely something to discuss with a vet that you trust and who knows your pets.
Finally, she asked if we wanted to have the paperwork FedExed to the clinic or our apartment, and said that they hadn’t had any issues so far but to be aware that with the government in the middle of a shutdown there can be delays. Great. If you don’t get the paperwork before your flight, your pets simply don’t get to fly. We paid the fees and went back home to continue packing and hope for the best.
Travel days
TL;DR — make sure your visit is less than 30 days before you fly, have the USDA certified paperwork FedExed to your home.
The moment I’d been worrying about for months had finally arrived. Fedex had indeed delivered the USDA approved passports on time! After selling our cars, all of our furniture and most of our stuff while packing all the things we couldn’t part with in a container so it could be shipped, we moved into a hotel for our last 4 nights in the US. While dogs are pretty welcome at tons of hotels now, few and far between actually allow cats. I found one place near PDX airport called My Place Hotel whose business model is basically centered around families and pets. They only charged a $15 per day pet fee (for both cats, not each!) and it was affordable and perfect for our needs. They’re nationwide too.
There were so many small details that I was stressed about that I made a spreadsheet of the timeline for every single possible task that needed to be completed for the travel days. Everything from the time we had to get up, when to feed the cats, get them in the carrier to the steps of getting to the airport, returning the rental car, and how much each fee we would be paying would cost. It was a lot, but I find having everything in black and white helps me to stop spinning with worry about what’s next and that I might forget an important step.
Check-in
At check-in, they weighed each of our 4 bags and we did some rearranging to get each to no more than 52 lbs. The guy checking us in couldn’t have been nicer and was super kind and patient with us. I don’t think they see a lot of cats, so he had to spend some time reviewing the rules and looking over our paperwork. We paid the $200 fee for each cat, he gave us a tag to put on their carriers, and told us we were “doing great”. 😭 I think most of my favorite lines from my former life as an actor are all from Tennessee Williams plays. At times like these, “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers” from Streetcar inevitably pops into my head.
Security
We then had to pass security. This was another flash point that I was concerned about as the cats have to be screened out of the carriers. This was another thing I couldn’t find info about online — how does that work? You’re just supposed to “hold” the cat and walk through the metal detector? I was 100% sure that technique would result in 2 terrorized runaways. The vet said that we should be able to ask for a private room, so I crossed my fingers and hoped this was a possibility.
When we approached security, I asked the TSA agent about the cat screening and he was like, “You can wait for a private room or you can just hold them and walk through.” I said that I was pretty sure they would run away and he said calmly, “Yeah, wouldn’t be the first time.” whattheactualfuck
Anyway, I elected to indeed wait for the room, and after walking through security ourselves 2 TSA agents walked us to a small, circular pod where we took the boys out while they brought the carriers back through security for screening. They cooed over Rudi, our marmalade kitty, and within 10 minutes we were back on our way. Phew!
Flights
The flights overall were relatively uneventful, thank goddess. The boys did start to cry a bit, and I kept giving them drugs mixed in Churus at the vet approved intervals. She said that they would likely not eat or drink anything and that it was most important to not let them out. On the 2nd leg from Seattle to Paris, we were on a new aircraft with the largest airplane toilet I’ve ever seen. When Henri started to cry a lot, I took him into the bathroom and let him out for awhile. I held him in my arms and he started to relax and fall asleep over my shoulder as I stroked his back. I hated having to put him back under the seat.
Customs
When we arrived and went through immigration and customs, I had all of our passports ready to show the authorities. Surely someone other than our kind Delta agent in Portland would need to see them. But no one ever asked. I walked past a bunch of customs agents, sure that someone was going to stop me for a tense conversation about my animals. Nothing. It was very anticlimactic. I’m not complaining and guess that it’s the responsibility mainly of the airline to ensure that they only provide transport for people and pets that are allowed to enter a country. It did surprise me though.
Arrival
Unfortunately, Paris was not our final destination. I knew there was no way I, or my boys, were going to be able to take another leg, so I’d planned to rent a car and stay at a hotel close to the airport. We’d then all get to sleep and stretch before driving the couple hours to our final destination the next morning. I’m really, really glad that I didn’t push it and that I spent the extra money on the car vs. trying to catch a train with 2 cats, 4 giant bags, and 2 smaller ones. That night at our rental cottage, I checked off most of the tasks on my spreadsheet and slept soundly and relieved with a fuzzy baby curled under each arm.
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I wanted to write the post I wish I’d had when I was doing my research and planning and hope this was helpful. Happy to answer any other questions I can and wish you safe travels with your fur babies. ♥️
anxieuse abroad 
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