Questions to Ask Your Pet Relocation Agent

Almost every family who calls us has already spoken to two or three other companies. They arrive with one number in their head and a quiet worry that they are missing something.

They usually are. The gap between a RM 9,000 quote and a RM 15,000 quote for the same dog on the same route is rarely dishonesty. It is scope. One quote covered the flight. The other covered the flight plus everything that happens before and after it.

You cannot see that difference by reading the totals. You can only see it by asking. This guide sets out the questions that actually move the outcome, the answers that should reassure you, and the answers that should make you slow down. It is written from the files we handle at My Pet Mover, and you can read more about how we work on our about My Pet Mover page.

Before the questions, it helps to see the whole process once end to end. The short video below walks through the five stages a pet import to Malaysia moves through.

The order matters as much as the list, as our pet import to Malaysia timeline shows. Not every question carries the same weight. Some change a price by a few hundred ringgit. Others change whether the move is possible at all in the month you had planned.

The table below ranks the ten questions by how often the answer changed the plan in files we handled from 2024 to 2026. The pattern is consistent: the questions that reshape a move get asked least, and price gets asked first.

This is the first question because it silently answers several others. A company that lodges its own permits knows what a rejected file looks like. A company that resells someone else’s service is passing your questions down a chain, and the answers come back slower and thinner.

The Department of Veterinary Services’ own procedure to import dogs and cats into Malaysia is blunt about the sequence:

1. Check the breed against the banned and restricted lists.
2. Get the vaccinations right, so they are valid on arrival.
3. Obtain a veterinary health certificate from the exporting country’s government veterinary authority.
4. Obtain the MAQIS import permit before the animal leaves the country of export.

Three checks make the answer verifiable rather than a claim:

• Ask who signs the permit application. If the answer is a partner company you have never heard of, you are buying through a middleman. That is not automatically bad, but it should be reflected in the price and the response time.
• Ask for the registered business name. Malaysian companies and businesses are searchable through the Companies Commission’s SSM e-Info portal. A trading name with no registered entity behind it is a warning.
• Ask about association membership, then check it. Many established movers list with the IPATA active member directory. Membership is not a licence and does not replace MAQIS registration, but a claim that fails the directory check is worth a second thought.

One more question belongs here. Ask who handles the export side in the country you are leaving. Every origin country has its own veterinary authority, its own endorsement calendar and its own paperwork. A pet relocation agent who says “we will sort that out locally” without naming how has not started the file yet.

Quotes fall into three broad shapes, and they are almost never labelled. A headline air-freight number covers the flight and little else. A partial door-to-door quote covers the flight and the paperwork but leaves quarantine and local handling open. A full door-to-door quote carries the whole chain.

Read the three columns below across a single row and the reason two quotes differ by thousands becomes obvious.

A quote that cannot tell you what it excludes is not a quote. It is an opening bid.

The crate row deserves its own question. Airlines charge live-animal freight on the volume of the box, so a crate one size too large moves the freight bill before anything else has happened. Get the measurement right first using our guide to IATA crate sizing for dogs, then ask which size the quote assumed.

Ask for the quote to be restated against a published structure. Ours sits on the pet relocation cost Malaysia page, which makes a line-by-line comparison straightforward.

This is the question where a good pet relocation agent will hesitate before answering, and the hesitation is a good sign. Malaysia sorts origin countries into scheduled and non-scheduled groups, and the lists have moved.

The non-scheduled countries regulation states that on arrival the animal is placed in quarantine and detained for a compulsory period of not less than seven days. That period can be extended up to six months on a case-by-case risk assessment. The scheduled countries regulation carries no equivalent quarantine clause. A DVS notice dated 11 December 2025, appended to both documents, expanded the scheduled list considerably.

The timeline below shows how the list has moved and what each move meant for the question you should be asking.

So the honest answer to “how many days will my pet be in quarantine” is a range with a source attached. If a pet relocation agent gives you a single confident number for a non-scheduled origin without naming the document it came from, ask which document. A blanket fourteen days for every country deserves the same question.

We have written elsewhere about how this plays out for dogs arriving from Japan, where the listing has held steady but families still get contradictory advice.

Families worry about the flight. In practice the flight has the most rules and the least improvisation. The handovers on either side are where things go wrong.

Ask for the chain in named steps, and listen for whether the answer has real parties in it or only pronouns:

1. Collection. Who arrives at your home, in what vehicle, and how long before check-in?
2. Export terminal. Who lodges the crate at the cargo terminal, and does anyone stay until it is accepted?
3. In the air. Which airline, and does the routing involve a transit stop? Transit adds its own permit questions.
4. Arrival. Who meets the flight, and who clears the consignment with the inspection officers?
5. Final leg. Who drives your pet to the quarantine station or to your home, and when do you get told it has landed?

Two follow-ups matter. Ask what happens if a heat embargo or a capacity change moves the flight; airlines restrict live-animal carriage in some conditions, and that answer should not be improvised on the day. Ask also whether the agent sedates. The right answer is no, for reasons set out in our note on why vets advise against sedating pets for flights.

Crate compliance sits inside this chain too. The IATA Live Animals Regulations set the container standard airlines accept, and the current edition tightened ventilation and bedding guidance for pet containers. Ask which container requirement your crate is being built to, and whether the airline has confirmed acceptance.

Confidence is easy to produce and tells you nothing. The scorecard below is how we read the replies, question by question.

The breed row is worth dwelling on. Malaysia’s importation regulations name seven banned breeds and six restricted ones. A restricted breed needs written approval from the MAQIS Director General plus a premises inspection, both before the permit is applied for. Our list of dog breeds banned or restricted in Malaysia covers both.

These surface in month three, when the file is moving and the options have narrowed.

• Does my visa or pass affect anything? Long-stay pass holders sometimes need their status documented in the import file, and an agent who has handled the pass before will say so unprompted.
• Will my new home accept the animal? Condominium and strata rules in the Klang Valley vary widely. This one is not the agent’s decision, but a good pet relocation agent raises it before the crate is built.
• What happens to the permit if the flight moves? Permits carry a limited validity window, so a delay can outlive the document. Our note on how long a MAQIS import permit lasts explains the exposure.
• Who do I call outside office hours? Flights land at inconvenient times. Ask for a name and a number, not a general line.

There is a fifth, and it is the one we would ask first if we were the customer: how early do you want to hear from me? Agents who want three months are describing the real sequence. Our guide to how far in advance you should book pet relocation sets out why. For a worked example on a single route, our walkthrough of the MAQIS import permit for a pet from Japan shows the order the paperwork has to fall in.

None of these questions are adversarial. A good pet relocation agent enjoys them, because specific questions let them show what they actually know instead of competing on a number.

Take one habit from this guide: ask for the answer and the source in the same breath. Which document, which party, which date. A pet relocation agent who works that way will still be working that way at 11pm on flight day, and that is when it counts.

You can see the full route coverage and the way we run files on our about page, and compare it against the quotes already sitting in your inbox.

What are the most important questions to ask a pet relocation agent?

Four carry the most weight: who lodges the MAQIS import permit, whether your breed is allowed or restricted, what quarantine your specific origin country triggers, and what the quote excludes. Those four decide whether the move is possible, when it can happen and what it will really cost. Everything else is detail around them.

How can I check whether a pet relocation agent is legitimate?

Ask for the registered business name and search it on the Companies Commission’s SSM e-Info portal. Ask whether they lodge import permits themselves or through a partner. If they claim trade association membership, check the association’s own member directory rather than taking the logo on the website as proof.

Why do two pet relocation quotes differ so much for the same route?

Usually because they cover different scopes. A headline air-freight quote covers the flight and the crate. A full door-to-door quote covers collection, export vet work, permits, terminal handling, quarantine and final delivery. Ask both pet relocation agents to list their exclusions against the same line items and the gap usually explains itself.

Should I ask about quarantine days before booking?

Yes, and ask for the source document with the answer. Malaysia’s non-scheduled countries regulation sets a compulsory period of not less than seven days, extendable up to six months on risk assessment, while the scheduled countries regulation has no equivalent clause. Published sources currently disagree on the detail, so confirm your own country with MAQIS or DVS in writing.

What should I ask about my pet’s crate?

Ask which crate size the quote assumed and which IATA container requirement it is built to. Airlines charge live-animal freight on crate volume, so a size assumption made without measuring your dog can move the freight cost significantly. Ask also whether the airline has confirmed it will accept that crate on your routing.