ESTCA Standard v1.2: effective 1 May 2026

The ESTCA Association has published document ESTCA-STD-001-v1.2, the European Standard for Travel with Canine Animals. It supersedes v1.1 and takes effect on 1 May 2026. A scheduled review of the text is set for 1 May 2027.

What’s new in v1.2

• Three named carriage configurations (dedicated floor space, carrier on seat, container under seat) are now recognised, assessed and recorded on each certification. Behavioural assessment becomes the substitute for the physical containment a carrier is willing to relax (§ A.1.4, § D.2.1, § D.2.3).
• Absolute prohibition on aversive equipment and aversive methods — e-collars, prong collars, choke chains and similar — both inside and outside the ESTCA programme, backed by trainer declaration (§ C.1.3, § C.3.2) and owner declaration (§ C.3.3).
• Conditions of reliance (§ E.5) that let airlines rely on a certification only where the dog is unsedated, uncarried in aversive equipment, and in the configuration assessed — enforceable through conditions of carriage.
• Sedation (§ B.6) rewritten: certification is issued on the behaviour of an unsedated animal and does not cover travel under sedation.
• Verification points in the passenger journey (§ G.2.1, § E.3.1) — airlines are encouraged to look up certification status at booking, not only at check-in.
• Explicit exclusion of assistance dogs and other categories (§ A.1.5) — ESTCA is a pet-dog cabin-readiness standard and is not a route to assistance-animal status.

Assessor approval and certification issuance take place on certified-estca.eu, currently the sole operational platform recognised by the ESTCA Association. Certifications issued there flow automatically into this public register via the documented ingest API.

Read the standard online or download the PDF · Open the register · Download v1.1 (superseded)