Form A and Form C for Japan: Who Signs in Malaysia

Most families preparing a move to Japan hear the same two names early on: Form A and Form C. They download both, hand them to their vet, and assume the paperwork is under control.

The forms are the easy part. What decides whether a pet clears Tokyo in twelve hours or sits in a detention facility is who completed each field and whose stamp is at the bottom. Japan’s Animal Quarantine Service treats an unendorsed certificate as though it were never issued at all, no matter how carefully the vet filled it in.

This guide sets out what Form A and Form C each cover, who signs which part on a Malaysian file, and where the endorsement usually goes wrong. It follows the same route we run every month at My Pet Mover, described in full on our Malaysia to Japan pet transport page. The video below explains how an export health certificate should be completed and endorsed.

The split is cleaner than most owners expect. Form A carries facts only the person shipping the animal can supply; Form C carries facts only a veterinarian can attest to. Japan’s own note on Form A says the certificate consists of Form A plus one of the veterinary forms, so neither sheet works alone.

One row deserves a second look. The microchip number appears on Form A, on the vaccination lines of Form C, on the antibody test lines and again on the clinical inspection, and Japanese officers check that every instance matches. One transposed digit in a fifteen-digit code fails the arrival inspection, which is why microchip rules deserve more attention than owners usually give them.

This is where a lot of online advice has fallen behind. Search Form A and Form C for a Japan pet move and you get pages built around two separate downloads. Japan’s guide for non-designated regions, revised in February 2025, recommends Form AC and links to it directly, and the Form AC template carries the identification block, vaccination table, serological test lines, clinical inspection and endorsement box on one sheet.

Malaysia sits in the non-designated group, so this is the version that applies to a pet leaving Kuala Lumpur. Three practical differences follow from using Form AC:

• One endorsement instead of two. Separate forms each need their own official stamp; Form AC gives the government veterinarian one sheet to endorse, which removes the commonest cause of half-endorsed files.
• The vet completes the whole thing. Japan’s guide says the private veterinarian fills in Form AC, and that a government veterinarian may complete it instead where local circumstances require it.
• Extra pages attach cleanly. If a long vaccination history overflows the table, a second Form AC is attached to the first and filled in the same way.

Some Malaysian clinics still keep the separate Form A and Form C templates on hand out of habit, and that is not wrong. What matters is that every field Japan lists is present and endorsed, and that the port you are flying into accepts the animal at all, since only a fixed list of Japanese airports accepts dogs.

Japan defines the endorsing body as the agency in charge of animal quarantine in the exporting country’s government, its counterpart to the Animal Quarantine Service. In Malaysia that authority is the Department of Veterinary Services, which issues veterinary health certificates for exports and works alongside MAQIS on the permit. Live-animal files go through the DVS state office, so confirm the counter and its lead time for your state before booking the vet.

The gap that catches families out sits between rows three and four. The clinical inspection has to happen within ten days of boarding and the endorsement can only follow it, so the DVS appointment has to be free inside that same narrow window. Booking the vet without checking the endorsement slot is how a file that was ready for months misses its flight. The veterinary health certificate process on the Malaysian side runs on the same logic in reverse.

Across the Malaysia-to-Japan files we have handled, the corrections cluster into a short list. None of them involve a sick animal or a failed test.

The top cause trips up experienced vets. The effective period Japan asks for is the duration of immunity on the manufacturer’s data sheet, not the expiry date printed on the vial. A clinic that writes the vial expiry into that column has answered a different question, and the file comes back.

Row three has a knock-on effect. If the inspection date falls outside the window the appointment has to be repeated, and if the flight then slips past the antibody result’s validity, the file collides with Japan’s 180-day waiting period and the date it counts from. A ten-minute transcription error becomes a scheduling problem measured in months.

These read like clerical fussiness until you see the purpose. A quarantine officer in Narita cannot verify a change made after the stamp, so Japan removes the possibility by making every amendment visible and attributable.

1. Type it, or print in block capitals. Handwriting that a Japanese officer cannot read confidently is treated as an unclear entry.
2. Never use pencil or erasable ink. Anything that can be rubbed out fails on principle, whatever it says.
3. Never use correction fluid or correction tape. A covered entry is an unverifiable entry.
4. Strike through, do not overwrite. Draw a line through the wrong entry so it stays legible, write the correct information next to it, then sign and date the correction.
5. Correct before the stamp, not after. Once the endorsement is on, only the government agency may amend the document — and the amendment itself needs a fresh endorsement.

That last rule is the expensive one. A vet who spots a typo the evening before the flight cannot simply fix it; the form goes back to DVS, which has to make the change and re-endorse it. The same discipline applies in the other direction, where a MAQIS import permit for a pet arriving from Japan has its own fields that cannot be amended casually.

The draft check exists because of the correction rule. Once DVS stamps the form, only DVS can fix an error, so Japan prefers to catch it while the document is still editable. Send it to the office that took your notification, which is why the 40-day advance notification has to be settled well before the certificate is drafted.

Read the right-hand column top to bottom and the shape of the risk is obvious: cheap to fix for the first month, awkward for a week, impossible on the day. That is also why the endorsed original, not a scan or a photocopy, has to sit in the folder that travels with the crate on flight day at KLIA, alongside the original antibody test report.

Form A and Form C are not difficult documents. They are unforgiving ones, because Japan checks them against a fixed list and cannot accept a nearly-correct certificate at the border.

Owners who treat the forms as a download problem meet the endorsement schedule too late. Owners who treat them as a signature problem book the vet and the DVS slot together, send the draft a month out, and arrive with a file that clears in hours. The same planning applies further back in the file, where the rabies titer test and its long wait sets the earliest date any of this can happen.

1. Do I still need Form A and Form C, or just Form AC?

Either is accepted. Japan’s current guide for non-designated regions recommends Form AC because it merges both into one sheet and therefore needs only one endorsement. If your clinic works from the separate Form A and Form C templates, that is still fine — but each sheet then needs its own official stamp.

2. Who signs Form A and Form C in Malaysia?

Three parties. You complete the exporter declaration and animal details. Your private veterinarian completes and signs the vaccination, antibody test and clinical inspection sections. A government veterinarian at the Department of Veterinary Services then endorses the document with a signature, office name, official stamp and date.

3. Can my own vet endorse the certificate instead of DVS?

No. A private veterinarian’s signature certifies the veterinary facts; it is not an endorsement. Japan requires the certificate to be issued or endorsed by the government agency in charge of animal quarantine in the exporting country, and treats an unendorsed form as not issued at all.

4. What happens if there is a mistake on the endorsed form?

Only the government agency that endorsed it may correct it, and the correction itself needs a fresh endorsement. Correction fluid and erasable ink are not accepted at any stage. If an error reaches the Japanese port undetected, the pet can be held for quarantine or refused entry.

5. How early should the certificate be prepared?

Draft it about a month before departure so there is time for Japan’s free advance confirmation by email. The clinical inspection and the endorsement then happen inside the ten days before boarding, which is a tight window that needs both appointments booked in advance.