Moving? What happens to your pet’s license

Short answer: a pet licence does not move with you between municipalities. It belongs to an animal, an owner and one municipality's register — and the third part stays behind. If you move within the same municipality you update your address; if you cross a municipal line you generally register again, on the new municipality's terms.

Why doesn't the licence travel?

Because there is no national or provincial pet register in Canada. Each municipality adopts its own animal by-law, sets its own fees and keeps its own register. Your licence is a record in the register you left, and the municipality you arrived in has no line for you until you create one.

Quebec adds a layer above that: under the provincial framework, registering a dog with its municipality is mandatory, and the dog must wear the tag issued at registration at all times. Moving does not pause that obligation — it transfers it to your new municipality.

Moving within the same municipality

This is the simple case. Update the address and phone number on the existing record and keep the tag. Nothing else changes: same by-law, same fee schedule, same renewal date.

Do it promptly anyway. The address and phone number on the licence are what a municipality uses to reach you when your animal is found, and a stale record is the most common reason a reunion takes days instead of hours.

Moving to a different municipality

Expect to register with the new one, and expect a deadline. Published municipal rules commonly count from the day you arrive:

• Dorval requires registration within 30 days of the animal arriving in the territory.
• La Sarre allows 15 days from acquiring an animal, moving into the city, or the animal turning three months old.

Do not assume a valid licence elsewhere satisfies the new by-law. It generally does not, and the deadline usually runs from your arrival rather than from your old licence's expiry.

What may be different in the new municipality

More than most people expect. Real published examples:

• The fee. A dog licence is $25 a year in Pointe-Claire, $37 in Brossard, and $50 for a resident in Westmount.
• The licence year. Pointe-Claire runs 1 May to 30 April; La Pêche runs the calendar year; Brossard renews everyone on 1 July.
• Which animals need one. Pointe-Claire does not require a permit for pets other than dogs, while Dorval licenses cats as well, on a three-year term.
• Preconditions. Dorval requires the animal to be microchipped and sterilized with a current rabies vaccination before registration is complete. The City of Amos has required microchipping for every dog and cat since 1 January 2024.

The practical consequence: budget for a different price, a different renewal date, and possibly a requirement your previous municipality never asked about.

What happens to the old tag?

Assume it stops being valid when the old licence lapses, and that your new municipality issues its own. Some places issue a tag meant to last the animal's lifetime — Senneterre does — but that tag belongs to that municipality's register, not to the animal in general.

Keep the old tag on the collar until the new one arrives. A tag that is out of date in the eyes of a by-law is still a phone number to somebody who finds your dog on moving day, which is statistically one of the likeliest days to lose one.

Don't forget the records that aren't the licence

A move is the moment to update everything that could bring your animal home:

• The microchip registry record — the chip number never changes, but the contact details behind it must
• The QR profile on a scannable tag, if you have one
• Any lost-pet alert subscription, which is usually tied to a municipal territory

A microchip registered to a phone number from two addresses ago looks like a success on the scanner and fails in practice.

How to check the requirements where you're going

Start with the municipality itself, not a general guide — including this one. The fee, the deadline and the species covered are set by by-law, and the municipality is the only authoritative source for its own rules.

Sources

• Encadrement des chiens — Gouvernement du Québec
• Licences pour chiens et chats — Ville de Dorval
• Animaux — Ville de La Sarre
• Dog License — City of Pointe-Claire
• Contrôle des animaux — Ville d'Amos

Use Find Your Municipality to reach the service where you are moving, and The pet license renewal checklist once you are registered. Municipal teams can see how records and renewals are managed in pet licensing software for Canadian municipalities.