IATA Crates · Dubai, UAE
Pet Crate Hire Dubai
IATA-compliant travel crates to hire or buy, measured to your animal and delivered to your door — plus custom wooden containers built here in Dubai for giant and strong breeds that no shop in the country stocks.
Before you hire anything, read the next section. For a one-way move out of the UAE, buying is often the cheaper answer, and we would rather tell you that than take a hire fee you did not need.
Read this first
Hire or buy — the honest answer
Here is the thing crate hire pages leave out. On an international one-way move, the crate goes with the animal and stays at the destination. Getting a standard plastic kennel back from Manchester or Melbourne costs more in return freight than the crate is worth — so for most outbound moves, hire is not the cheaper option and anybody selling it as one is not doing the arithmetic in front of you.
Hire makes sense
- Arriving into the UAE. The crate lands here with your pet and comes back to us — the clean case for hire, and the most common one we run.
- Giant and custom containers. A wooden CR82 built to your dog is a serious piece of joinery. The value justifies recovering it, which makes hire genuinely cheaper than buying.
- Acclimatisation before a move. Hire a crate to have at home in the weeks before departure while the travel container is being prepared.
- Short-term and domestic needs. Boarding, a vet stay, a move within the UAE, a temporary arrangement between homes.
- Multi-pet households. Three or four crates needed once, for one journey.
Buying is usually better
- A standard one-way move out of the UAE. Sizes 100 to 500 cost AED 300–1,200 new. Return freight from the destination will exceed that.
- When you want the crate at the other end. A familiar container is a useful den in an unfamiliar house for the first fortnight.
- If the animal will fly again. Second moves are common in this region, and a crate you own is a crate already broken in.
- When you have started acclimatisation early. After six weeks of sleeping in it, that crate is the animal's, and sending a rental back is a small cruelty for a small saving.
If you are booking a move with us
The crate question mostly disappears. An IATA-compliant crate, measured and fitted to your animal, is included from the Essentials tier upwards — from AED 4,000 — along with the permits, the cargo booking and the health certification. You do not buy it separately or hire it separately; it is part of the move.
What size does your pet need?
Four measurements, taken with the animal standing. Send us these and we will specify the crate before you buy or hire anything — it takes us minutes and it is the step that prevents the expensive mistake.
- A — LengthNose tip to the base of the tail
- B — Elbow heightGround to the elbow joint
- C — WidthThe widest point, usually across the shoulders
- D — HeightGround to the top of the head or the ear tips, whichever is higher
The rule those four numbers have to satisfy is simple to state and easy to get wrong: your pet must be able to stand fully upright without its ears touching the roof, turn around completely, and lie down naturally. Crates are sold in a numbered series, and the dimensions below are internal usable space — they vary slightly between manufacturers, which is one reason a size label alone is not a specification.
| Series | Typically suits | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Cats, toy breeds | Cat containers need ventilation apertures no larger than 19 mm × 19 mm, which a small dog crate will not always have |
| 200 | Small dogs, large cats | Two compatible cats up to 14 kg each may share one container |
| 300 | Medium dogs — spaniels, terriers | The most commonly hired size for inbound arrivals |
| 400 | Larger medium dogs — collies, boxers | Volumetric weight starts to dominate the freight cost at this size |
| 500 | Large dogs — labradors, retrievers | Check aircraft hold dimensions on the routing before committing |
| 700 | Giant breeds | Often better served by a custom wooden container than a plastic kennel |
Crate size also sets the price of the flight, because airlines charge live animals on volumetric weight — length × width × height in centimetres divided by 6,000 — rather than on what the animal weighs. A crate one size too large is a permanent surcharge. The full arithmetic is on our quote page.
Custom builds
When a plastic kennel is not enough
Two situations take you out of the shop-bought range entirely: a dog over roughly 55 kg, and a breed the airline treats as requiring reinforced containment. Both need a wooden container built to the IATA CR82 specification, and we build them here in Dubai to the animal's measurements.
| CR82 size | Internal dimensions, approx | Comparable to |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | 61 × 43 × 51 cm | A small to medium plastic kennel, reinforced |
| 350 | 74 × 48 × 66 cm | Around a series 300 |
| 450 | 83 × 53 × 75 cm | Around a series 400 |
| Custom | 122 × 81 × 89 cm | Equivalent to a No. 700 giant kennel |
Dimensions are internal and approximate; a custom build is made to your dog rather than to a catalogue. A CR82 container is heavier than plastic, which matters for the volumetric calculation, and it takes time to build — so a giant breed is the one case where starting the crate conversation early genuinely changes the outcome.
This is also where hire is almost always the right call. The container is valuable enough that recovering it makes economic sense, so you pay for its use rather than its manufacture — which is why most of our custom builds go to families arriving from Australia and the United States, the two routes that bring the largest dogs into the UAE. More on moving the largest dogs in large breed dog relocation, and on the breeds airlines restrict for other reasons in snub-nosed breeds and flying.
What a hire includes
- A sanitised, IATA-compliant crate, cleaned between every hire, checked for cracked corners, worn door hinges and missing hardware before it leaves us.
- Fitted water and food bowls attached to the inside of the door, which is where they have to be — a loose bowl in the crate is a refusal at acceptance.
- Absorbent bedding suited to the length of the journey.
- Live Animal labels and directional arrows, applied correctly rather than handed to you in an envelope.
- Cable ties for the door and corner fixings.
- A refundable deposit, returned when the crate comes back in good condition.
- Delivery and collection across Dubai, and across the emirates where we are running the move — including Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.
Every crate we supply is checked against the specification again at lodgement, before the animal goes anywhere near the cargo terminal. That second check is the one that matters — see what happens at the airport.
Why we deliver the crate weeks early
The difference between an animal that travels well and one that does not is usually decided at home, weeks before the flight. A crate that arrives on the day is a strange box the animal is put into at the worst possible moment. A crate that has been in the living room for a month with the door open and a familiar blanket in it is a bed.
So we deliver early and give you a plan: door off or tied open at first, meals fed inside it, a favourite blanket, no forcing, then short closed periods building up. Cats in particular respond to this — they will claim any box given enough time, and a cat that already sleeps in its container is a different traveller from one meeting it at the terminal.
One thing we will not do, and no reputable shipper will: sedate an animal for a flight. Sedation depresses breathing at altitude and most carriers will refuse a sedated animal outright. Acclimatisation is the alternative, and it works better anyway.
Species-specific detail in dog relocation Dubai and cat relocation Dubai, and a full pre-departure list in our pet relocation checklist.
Pricing
What crates cost
To buy, a standard IATA plastic crate runs AED 300–1,200 depending on size. Custom wooden CR82 containers are quoted against the build, because they are made to the animal rather than pulled off a shelf.
Hire is quoted against the size and the duration, with a refundable deposit returned when the crate comes back in good condition. Tell us the size and how long you need it and you will have a figure the same day — it is a small enough transaction that we do not think it warrants a form.
The cheapest crate is the one you do not buy twice
The most expensive crate in this business is the second one — bought because the first was a size too small, usually discovered at cargo acceptance with a flight booked. Send us four measurements first. We will specify it whether or not you buy it from us, and it costs you nothing.
Where the crate sits in the overall cost of a move is set out in our pet relocation cost guide, and the cargo mechanics in pet shipping Dubai.
Why crates get refused at the terminal
A crate is checked against the IATA specification at acceptance, and an undersized crate is the most common reason a shipment is turned away. Refusal means a rebooking, sometimes a new health certificate, and always a delay.
The seven things acceptance staff actually reject — sizing, ventilation, door and hardware, wheels, fixings, labelling and construction — are set out in full, with the fixes, in our IATA crate guide. If you are supplying your own crate, read that page before you buy. If we are supplying it, we have already checked all seven, twice.
Container standards are published in the IATA Live Animals Regulations, which airlines apply at acceptance. Requirements for animals entering the UAE are in our import requirements guide and inbound route hub.
Experience
Why get your crate from us
Five hundred relocations, zero rejections — and the crate is where most of those rejections would otherwise have come from. We measure the animal ourselves rather than working from a breed chart, because two labradors of the same age can need different sizes and a chart does not know that.
We build custom CR82 containers in Dubai, we check every crate twice before lodgement, and we will tell you to buy rather than hire when buying is cheaper for you. Where a move needs the crate delivered weeks ahead with an acclimatisation plan and somebody checking in on progress, that sits in our White Glove tier.
A recent case
An owner moving a Cane Corso to Europe had bought a series 700 plastic kennel online, which arrived flat-packed and looked enormous in the hallway. It was not the size that was the problem — it was the breed. The carrier required reinforced containment, and a plastic kennel was never going to be accepted regardless of how well the dog fitted in it. We built a CR82 container to his measurements, hired it to the family rather than selling it, recovered it through our agent at the destination, and the kennel went back to the retailer unopened.
Sam Jamal founded Foufoufly after seeing how opaque this process is from the owner's side. The practice is IPATA-aligned and every shipment is crated to the IATA Live Animals Regulations. More about the team, and how a move runs end to end.
FAQ
Pet crate hire — frequently asked questions
Is it cheaper to hire or buy a pet travel crate?
It depends on the direction. For a one-way move out of the UAE the crate stays at the destination, and returning a standard plastic kennel costs more in freight than the crate is worth — so buying, at AED 300–1,200 by size, is usually cheaper. Hire wins for arrivals into the UAE, for custom wooden containers valuable enough to recover, for acclimatisation before a move, and for short-term or domestic needs.
What size crate does my dog need?
The size that lets it stand fully upright without its ears touching the roof, turn around completely and lie down naturally. That comes from four measurements taken with the animal standing: nose to base of tail, ground to elbow, width across the shoulders, and ground to the top of the head or ear tips. Send us those four numbers and we will specify the crate, whether or not you buy it from us.
What is a CR82 crate and does my dog need one?
A wooden container built to the IATA CR82 specification, used where a plastic kennel will not be accepted — typically dogs over roughly 55 kg and breeds an airline treats as requiring reinforced containment. They are built to the individual animal rather than bought off a shelf, we make them in Dubai, and because they are valuable enough to recover, hiring one is usually cheaper than commissioning your own.
Is a crate included if I book a relocation with you?
Yes. An IATA-compliant crate, measured and fitted to your animal, is included from the Essentials tier upwards, from AED 4,000, along with the permits, cargo booking and health certification. You do not hire or buy it separately — it is part of the move, and we deliver it weeks early so the animal can acclimatise to it at home.
Can two pets share one crate?
Two adult animals of comparable size, each up to 14 kg, may share a container under the IATA rules provided they are compatible and used to living together — which in practice means two cats far more often than two dogs. Above 14 kg each animal is crated individually, and some destination countries require individual crating regardless, so we check the destination rule before specifying a shared container.
What happens if my crate is rejected at the airport?
The shipment does not travel. You are looking at a rebooking, possibly a new health certificate if it falls outside its validity window, and a delay measured in days or weeks. An undersized crate is the most common cause. It is entirely preventable with a measurement check before purchase, which is why we do that check free for anyone who asks.
Send us four measurements
Length, elbow height, width and height, with your pet standing. We will tell you the crate size, whether to hire or buy, and what it costs — same day, and free whether or not you use us.
hello@foufoufly.com · +971 50 451 0918
Subject to eligibility. Terms apply. All prices in AED, inclusive of 5% UAE VAT. Hire subject to a refundable deposit.