How to renew your pet license

Renewing a pet licence is the single most common interaction a resident has with municipal animal services — and the one most often forgotten until a late notice arrives. This guide covers when renewal is due, what it costs to be late, what to have ready, and how to handle a move or a change of ownership.

When is a pet licence due for renewal?

Most municipal licences run for one year, though some municipalities sell multi-year terms. The renewal date is set by your municipality's bylaw, not by a national calendar, so the only reliable answer comes from your own municipality's page or from the notice it sends you.

Some municipalities notify you in advance. Senneterre, for example, sends a renewal notice a month before the due date, and Dollard-des-Ormeaux emails a reminder a month ahead — and some places let you cover more than one year at a time, as Dorval does with its three-year cat licence.

What happens if you renew late?

That depends on the bylaw, and the cost is real. La Sarre, for instance, states that a late renewal costs more, and publishes a minimum fine of $250 for failing to license an animal at all. Elsewhere a lapsed licence can also mean the animal is no longer listed as current in the municipal register — which matters most at exactly the wrong moment, when a lost animal is scanned and the file shows an expired record.

What do you need to renew?

Usually less than people expect. Have ready:

• Your licence or tag number, or the notice the municipality sent you
• Current address, phone number and email
• Proof of rabies vaccination, if your bylaw requires or discounts for it
• Sterilization confirmation, where it earns a reduced fee
• The microchip number, if the animal has one

Where a municipality offers online renewal, the record is usually pre-filled and the whole thing takes a few minutes. La Pêche, for example, handles registration online and mails the tag out afterwards.

Why keeping your contact details current matters more than the tag

A licence renewal is the one moment each year when a municipality can confirm it still has a working phone number for you. That is the detail that decides whether a found animal goes home the same afternoon or spends a night in a kennel. The tag can be perfect and the record still fail if the phone number attached to it is three addresses old.

If your municipality's portal offers it, this is also the moment to opt in to lost-pet alerts for your area.

What if you have moved?

A licence belongs to an animal, an owner and a municipality — the third part does not travel. If you move, update your address in your current record and then check the requirements of your new municipality, because the fee, the renewal period and even the species covered may differ. Do not assume a valid licence in one municipality satisfies the bylaw in the next one.

What if the animal has died or been rehomed?

Tell the municipality. It is the least pleasant administrative task on this list and the one most often skipped, but it keeps the register accurate — and it stops renewal notices for an animal that is no longer with you. Where an animal has been rehomed, the new owner generally needs to register it under their own name and address.

What good renewal handling looks like from the municipal side

For municipal teams, renewal is where compliance is won or lost. Programs with high renewal rates tend to share the same traits: reminders that go out before the deadline rather than after, an online renewal that pre-fills what the municipality already knows, discounts applied automatically from the fee schedule, and a phone line for residents who will never use a portal.

Sources

• Contrôle animalier — Ville de Senneterre
• Animaux — Ville de La Sarre
• Licences pour chiens et chats — Ville de Dorval

Related: The pet license renewal checklist and Moving? What happens to your pet's license. Municipal teams can see how renewals, reminders and payments are handled in pet licensing software for Canadian municipalities.