MMoving to Japan

Flying to Japan with a large dog – tips

  • November 21, 2025


We did the move US -> Japan last week with our 100lbs dog. Wanted to share some stuff we learned along the way and that I wish I had read beforehand!

There are 4 ways to fly with your dog:

  1. Shared charter: dedicated pet flights, maybe 10-15 passengers only. Exists for US-Europe but not for US-Japan. You can try to organize a charter on your own, but chances of finding ~10 people with a pet who are interested in a US-> Japan trip around the same dates and ready to pay a $10-$15k ticket are very slim. Bark Air might help organize such charters, otherwise check dedicated FB groups.

  2. In cabin: not an option if you have a medium to large dog.

  3. As checked luggage: there is a weight limit on dog + crate, which depends on the airline but around 100lbs I believe. We were over this weight limit for JAL. You also need to be on the same flight.

  4. As cargo: you pay based on crate dimensions and weight of crate+dog. Your dog may fly on a cargo-only (no passenger) flight.

For us, dog + crate was 180lbs, so our only option was cargo.

Booking cargo

We doing the whole process ourselves, all health paperwork was in order, advance notification approved etc. When we tried to book the space in cargo, both JAL and ANA told us that they no longer accepted cargo bookings from individuals. Apparently, Japanese airlines are stricter on this matter than other airlines which let you do it yourself. You will have to go through a IATA agent to book the cargo space, and the agent (or their representative) will also have to be present to check in your dog at the airport. This will obviously cost additional $$ on top of the cargo fee.

Arrival time in Tokyo

Multiple IATA agents told us that Haneda was a better arrival port than Narita for pets, because of flights arrival timing vs animal quarantine office hours. It can take 2-3h for your pet to go through animal quarantine + customs and be released. The animal quarantine office has normal office hours – if the process is not done before they close for the day, or if your dog arrives after they have closed, it will have to stay in their crate overnight (!) until the next day. No one wants that. If your dog's flight lands too close to the end of their office hours, you will be taking this risk. Our dog flew from the West Coast to Haneda and landed around 5-6am. It was another 2-3h until customs and quarantine offices opened, but at least we were able to get him out on the same morning.

Fwiw, as of mid-Nov 2025, the Haneda animal quarantine service for cargo inspection has the following hours:

Weekdays and Saturdays　　 8:30-18:00

Sundays and public holidays 8:30-16:30

Self-clearance process in Tokyo

When you book cargo through a IATA agent, you will have a choice between doing "customs self-clearance" or using a customs agent (additional $$) at the arrival port. We did self-clearance. This is how it looked for other people considering doing self-clearance:

  1. We had booked the pet taxi services of Izu-san from https://yakodoghouse.com/english/. Highly highly recommend! He made everything so much easier. He spoke great English and helped translate into Japanese where needed.

  2. We met at a passenger terminal in Haneda and he drove us to the cargo area. We picked up our dog's paperwork at the airline's cargo terminal.

  3. We went to animal quarantine office and waited. They brought our dog's crate to the quarantine office on a forklift (!). The employee from animal quarantine scanned his chip, did a quick examination (without taking our dog out of his crate) and the forklift took the crate + dog back to the cargo terminal.

  4. We had to go inside to do some paperwork with the animal quarantine office.

  5. We drove to the customs office for some more paperwork.

  6. Drove back to the airline's cargo terminal to finish paperwork and ask them to release our dog.

  7. Waited for a forklift to bring out our dog… They used the forklift to bring the crate to the same height as the car's trunk bed and we just had to push the crate into the car. Bring cutters for the zipties!

  8. Izu-san knew a spot inside Haneda with some grass and trees where we could let our dog out to pee after this super long trip, which was a relief since we still had a 90min drive to get home.

Crate

We didn't feel that a plastic crate would be the safest option given our dog's size. We went with a (non-collapsible) metal crate from Rock Creek Crates (https://rockcreekcrates.com/). Best customer service ever, highly recommend. You will need the airline kit (side spacer bars + door cover) and also ask them for the bar at the back of the crate. It needs to have spacer bars on three sides. We had no problems checking in the crate.

Feel free to ask any question that I may not have covered, happy to try to help now that we are on the other side.

by Temigo