Pet Air Cargo · Dubai, UAE
Cat Shipping Dubai
Cats fly out of Dubai as manifested air cargo, in the same pressurised, temperature-controlled compartment as dogs. The conditions are not the variable. What decides how your cat handles the journey is almost entirely what happens in the six weeks before it.
So this guide is about preparation: the week-by-week plan that turns a carrier from a trap into a bed, exactly what IATA allows inside the container, the feeding and water timings most owners get wrong, and what it costs.
In this guide
One thing to settle first. Out of Dubai, a cat cannot travel in the cabin — Emirates carries no pets in the passenger cabin and does not take cats as checked baggage. The one UAE exception is Etihad, which carries cats up to 8 kg including the carrier in the cabin from Abu Dhabi, on a route list that excludes the UK, the United States and Australia. The full commercial picture is on cat relocation Dubai, and the cargo mechanics in pet shipping Dubai.
The part that actually matters
The six weeks before the flight
A cat that has slept in its travel container for a month is a different traveller from one that meets it on the morning of the flight. This is the single highest-value thing an owner can do, it costs nothing, and it is the step most people skip.
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Six weeks out — the container arrives and stays
Put it in the room the cat already sleeps in. Door off entirely, or tied fully open. No pressure, no shutting it in, no picking the cat up and posting it inside. A hard container with the door removed is just furniture, and cats investigate furniture.
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Five weeks — make it the best bed in the house
A blanket that already smells of the cat, not a fresh one from a cupboard. Feed the cat near it, then beside it, then just inside the opening. Cats claim warm, enclosed, familiar-smelling spaces on their own schedule.
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Four weeks — feed inside, door still open
Move the bowl fully in. You want the cat walking in voluntarily several times a day and choosing to stay. If it will not, move the bowl back to the threshold for a few days rather than pushing on.
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Two to three weeks — short closed periods
Door closed for two minutes while the cat is calm and fed, then opened before it asks. Build to twenty minutes over a fortnight. The cat should never learn that a closed door means something bad follows.
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One week — a car journey
Fifteen minutes in the car in the container, then home again. This separates "container" from "vet", which for most cats is the only association they have, and it is the association you are trying to break.
What we will not tell you
That this makes a cat enjoy flying. It does not. What it does is remove one of the few stressors in the process that is genuinely inside your control — the container being strange — so that on the day the only new things are the journey itself. How an individual cat copes depends on its age, health and temperament, and that is a conversation for your vet as much as for us.
What goes in the container, and what does not
This is the question every cat owner asks and almost nobody answers properly. The IATA Live Animals Regulations are specific, and acceptance staff check.
Required or permitted
- Absorbent bedding. Required, not optional — an absorbent pet pad or shredded newspaper, suitable for the species.
- A solid, leak-proof floor. Part of the container specification rather than something you add.
- Open water containers, fixed inside and fillable from outside without opening the door.
- A familiar-smelling blanket or worn t-shirt, which is the one piece of comfort that genuinely helps and is universally accepted.
Not permitted, or not recommended
- Water bottles or sipper dispensers. Explicitly not accepted as a substitute for open containers, whether fixed inside or outside.
- A litter tray. Not recommended inside the container — it displaces the cat, gets tipped, and soaks the bedding that is meant to stay absorbent.
- Toys and chews. They move around in transit and are a choking and obstruction risk in an unsupervised animal.
- Anything the cat could get a claw or jaw into — no collars with tags, no harness left on, no loose fabric with holes.
The ventilation apertures on a cat container must be no larger than 19 mm × 19 mm, which is why a correctly sized small dog crate is not automatically acceptable for a cat — the mesh is usually too coarse and a cat can work a paw through it.
Full container specification, sizing and the construction checklist are in our IATA crate guide.
Feeding and water, with the actual timings
Owners either starve the cat out of anxiety or feed it a full meal an hour before lodgement. Both are wrong, and the actual guidance is specific.
| When | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 2+ hours before dispatch | A light meal, a short drink, and time to move about | An animal must not fly within two hours of a meal — travelling on a full stomach is the problem, not travelling hungry |
| At lodgement | Water container filled, fillable from outside | Handlers can top it up without opening the door |
| First 12 hours after dispatch | No additional feeding normally required | A healthy adult cat does not need feeding across this window, and food in transit creates more problems than it solves |
| Journeys over 12 hours | Water must be provided | Becomes a requirement rather than a courtesy on long routings |
And the thing not to do at all: no sedation. Sedatives depress breathing and interfere with temperature regulation at altitude, and carriers refuse sedated animals. If your cat is genuinely too anxious to travel, that is a veterinary conversation about whether to travel, not a conversation about medication.
Two cats, one container
Two adult cats of comparable size, each up to 14 kg, may share a single container provided they are compatible and already live together. Most domestic cats are well under that ceiling, so the deciding factor is temperament rather than weight.
It is usually the right call for cats that already sleep together, and it is a genuine saving — airlines charge on the space the container occupies, so one container for two cats costs far less than two. Some destinations require individual crating regardless, so the destination rule gets checked before anything is specified. The cost side is covered on cat relocation Dubai.
One judgement call worth making honestly: two cats that tolerate each other at home are not necessarily two cats that should share a box for fourteen hours. If there is any doubt, take two containers.
The day itself
Deliberately brief, because by this point the work is done. The full hour-by-hour sequence, including what happens in the hold, is in dog shipping Dubai — the process is identical for cats.
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Light meal, then the container
At least two hours before lodgement. The cat goes in the container it has been sleeping in, with the blanket it already knows.
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Lodgement, four to six hours out
Live-animal acceptance closes two to four hours before passenger baggage. The container is measured against the IATA specification, documents checked against the air waybill, microchip matched to every certificate.
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Animal holding, then loaded last
A climate-controlled holding area rather than a warehouse floor, then out to the aircraft separately from bulk freight. The hold is pressurised to the same cabin altitude you fly at and held between 7.2°C and 29.5°C.
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Offloaded first, inspected, released
Into Dubai, the MOCCAE veterinary officer checks the microchip against the import permit, health certificate and vaccination record before customs clearance and release to the consignee named on the air waybill. See our step-by-step process.
Pricing
What cat shipping costs from Dubai
Cats sit at the bottom of every band we quote, because the container is small and airlines charge on the space it occupies rather than what the animal weighs. A cat container at 61 × 46 × 46 cm works out at roughly 22 kg chargeable — against perhaps 9 kg of actual cat and container.
| Item | Typical | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| MOCCAE import permit | AED 200–400 | Filed online before travel |
| Arrival inspection | Approx AED 250 per cat | Lower than the dog rate |
| IATA container | AED 300–600 | Cat sizes sit at the low end of the range |
| Freight | On chargeable weight | Two cats sharing one container are charged once |
| Foufoufly service | From AED 4,000 | Essentials 4,000 · Managed 8,000 · White Glove 15,000, inc. 5% VAT |
Season matters as much for cats as for dogs. Dubai averages 39–41°C from June to September against an acceptance ceiling around 29.5°C, so summer shipments go out at night on fewer flights. October to April is cheaper and calmer.
Full breakdown in our pet relocation cost guide, or ask for a fixed quote — 24 hours, no obligation. Documentation is covered in our UAE import requirements guide, the MOCCAE permit guide, the rabies titre test guide and pet relocation checklist.
Most-run cat routes: UK to Dubai, Germany to Dubai, France to Dubai, Dubai to the UK and Dubai to Singapore.
Experience
Shipping a cat with Foufoufly
Five hundred relocations, zero rejections. We deliver the container weeks early with the acclimatisation plan above, we check it twice before lodgement, and we will tell you when your cat qualifies for Etihad's cabin service from Abu Dhabi instead — which is cheaper than cargo and a smaller job for us.
A recent move
A couple moving to Berlin with two rescue cats had been told to sedate them, and had bought a water bottle for the container because that is what they use at home. We replaced the bottle with a fixed open container the handler could fill from outside, removed the sedation plan entirely, and started acclimatisation six weeks out. The more anxious of the two was sleeping in the container voluntarily by week three. They shared one container, charged once, and both walked out of it in Berlin.
Sam Jamal founded Foufoufly after seeing how opaque this process is from the owner's side. The practice is IPATA-aligned, every shipment is crated to the IATA Live Animals Regulations, and permits are filed against current published requirements from MOCCAE and the destination authority.
FAQ
Cat shipping Dubai — frequently asked questions
Can I put a litter tray in the container?
It is not recommended. A tray displaces the cat in a container sized precisely for it, tips in transit, and soaks the absorbent bedding that is there to keep the cat dry. Absorbent bedding — a pet pad or shredded newspaper over a solid, leak-proof floor — is what the regulations call for, and it does the job a tray would.
Can I use a water bottle instead of a bowl?
No. Water bottles and sipper dispensers, whether attached inside or outside, are explicitly not accepted as a substitute for open water containers. The container must have fixed open water containers that handlers can fill from outside without opening the door. A bottle your cat uses happily at home will fail at acceptance.
When should my cat last eat before the flight?
A light meal at least two hours before dispatch, with a short drink and some time to move about. An animal must not fly within two hours of eating. No additional feeding is normally needed during the twelve hours after dispatch, and water must be provided where the total journey exceeds twelve hours.
Should I sedate my cat for the flight?
No. Sedatives depress breathing and interfere with temperature regulation at altitude, and carriers refuse sedated animals. Acclimatisation is the alternative that works — the container at home for six weeks, door open, fed inside it. If a cat is genuinely too anxious to travel, that is a conversation with your vet about whether to travel at all rather than about medication.
Can my two cats travel in the same container?
Usually yes. Two adult cats of comparable size, each up to 14 kg, may share a container if they are compatible and already live together — and since airlines charge on the space the container occupies, they are charged once rather than twice. Some destinations require individual crating regardless, so we check the destination rule first. If there is any doubt about how they get on, take two containers.
Can my cat fly in the cabin from Dubai?
Not from Dubai. Emirates carries no pets in the passenger cabin and does not accept cats as checked baggage, so they travel as manifested cargo through Emirates SkyCargo. The one UAE exception is Etihad, which carries cats up to 8 kg including the carrier in the cabin on flights to and from Abu Dhabi, excluding destinations such as the UK, the United States and Australia.
Shipping a cat to or from Dubai?
Tell us the route, the cat and your date. We will confirm whether the cabin is an option, specify the container, and send the acclimatisation plan — usually within one working day.
hello@foufoufly.com · +971 50 451 0918
Subject to eligibility. Terms apply. All prices in AED, inclusive of 5% UAE VAT.