Importing Dairy Cattle into Pakistan: What Quarantine Rules Apply?

Yes, importing dairy cattle into Pakistan requires clearing quarantine under a law that has governed animal imports since 1979. The Pakistan Animal Quarantine (Import and Export of Animals and Animal Products) Ordinance, 1979 (No. XLIX of 1979) and its 1980 Rules set the framework: health certification, disease testing, and a quarantine hold before release. In 2025, the department that ran this system for over four decades was folded into a new authority. This post walks through the law, what the quarantine process actually checks, and what changed in 2025.

What law governs dairy cattle imports into Pakistan?

The starting point is the Pakistan Animal Quarantine (Import and Export of Animals and Animal Products) Ordinance, 1979, published in the Gazette of Pakistan on 17 September 1979. Its stated purpose is to regulate the import, export, and quarantine of animals and animal products in order to prevent the introduction or spread of disease into the country.

Under section 14 of that Ordinance, the federal government issued the Pakistan Animal Quarantine (Import and Export of Animals and Animal Products) Rules, 1980, which came into force immediately. These Rules are where the operational detail lives: conditions to be observed before, during, and after importation of animals or animal products; procedures for landing, inspection, quarantine, seizure, detention, and treatment; methods of disease testing; and the forms and fees for import and export licenses, health certificates, disease-freedom certificates, and vaccination certificates.

The first Animal Quarantine Station under this framework was established at Karachi in 1980, and the department subsequently expanded with office-cum-microbiology laboratories at Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, Quetta, Multan, and Sialkot. If your shipment is also carrying feed, forage, or other plant-origin inputs alongside the cattle, our guide on the seed import permit process covers the parallel plant-quarantine chain those goods follow.

Who actually runs quarantine, and what changed in 2025?

For over four decades, the Animal Quarantine Department (AQD), an attached department of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, was the lead agency for animal import and export quarantine, inspection, and certification in Pakistan. It coordinated with other agencies to protect livestock and wildlife from exotic disease introduction, and it issued the certification importers and exporters needed to meet international trade requirements.

That changed in 2025. Following a 2024 inquiry into 72 rice export interceptions by the EU, which found the existing regulatory system managed by AQD and the Department of Plant Protection (DPP) incapable of meeting global sanitary and phytosanitary compliance standards, the government moved to consolidate. The National Agri-trade and Food Safety Authority Ordinance, 2025 was gazetted on 2 May 2025, merging DPP and AQD into a single corporate-style authority, the National Agri-trade and Food Safety Authority (NAFSA), with administrative and financial autonomy. The new authority was formally launched in July 2025, with assets and employees transferred over and a six-month transition period for staff adjustment while both former departments continued limited functions temporarily.

For a dairy cattle importer, the practical effect is that certificates and clearances that used to carry the AQD name are transitioning to NAFSA. Confirm with your clearing agent which authority is issuing your specific certificate at the time you ship, since the transition period means both names may appear on documentation depending on timing.

What does the quarantine process actually check?

The Rules give quarantine officers broad testing authority. Animals and animal products detained in quarantine must undergo the tests specified in the regulations, or any additional tests the quarantine officer determines are necessary, before they are released. Only once an animal is found free of disease is it returned to the importer.

Cattle imports also depend on a sanitary or health certificate issued by the approved veterinary authority in the exporting country, matched against Pakistan's specific import conditions for that country of origin. Those conditions are negotiated bilaterally rather than applied as one universal global standard. Pakistan's own resumption of live cattle imports from the United States in 2015 came only after the two governments negotiated a specific health protocol, an example of how country-of-origin terms get worked out case by case rather than under a single blanket rule.

Where are Pakistan's animal quarantine stations located?

Quarantine stations sit at seaports, airports, dry ports, and land border points, for convenience of traders bringing animals or animal products in from different directions. Karachi's station, tied to the department's head office on Shahra-e-Faisal, is the first point of contact for most sea-borne livestock imports, which makes it the natural entry point for a dairy cattle shipment arriving by vessel. Import Permit applications for animal shipments are filed electronically through the Pakistan Single Window, which routes the request to the relevant quarantine authority.

What should a dairy cattle importer prepare?

1. Confirm the exporting country's negotiated health protocol with Pakistan, since terms vary by country of origin and are not standardized globally.
2. Secure the sanitary or health certificate from the approved authority in the exporting country before shipment.
3. File your import permit application through the Pakistan Single Window ahead of arrival.
4. Budget time and holding costs for the quarantine period, since release depends on test results, not a fixed calendar window.
5. Confirm with your clearing agent whether your certificate and permit reference AQD or NAFSA, given the 2025 transition.

Livestock shipments often move in step with feed and fodder imports, which our companion post on importing hatching eggs and day-old chicks also touches on from the poultry side of animal quarantine.

Olympic Agencies has cleared agricultural cargo at Karachi Port and Port Qasim since 1982, and we coordinate the quarantine, certification, and customs steps that livestock shipments need under our customs clearing service. Send us your cattle shipment's origin, health certificate, and expected arrival on WhatsApp and we will get the quarantine process moving.

More on livestock & poultry imports

• Importing Animal Feed Additives and Supplements into Pakistan: Vitamins, Minerals, and Premixes
• Importing Hatching Eggs and Day-Old Chicks into Pakistan: What Do You Need?
• Our service: Livestock & Poultry Imports clearance →