Import registration and quarantine thresholds: China, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Canada, US
Six markets, one problem: getting a pet-food shipment past the border. Each jurisdiction answers the same three questions differently ā who must register, which plants are on the approved list, and what paper travels with the box ā and then sets its own rule for what happens when the paper (or the product) fails. This article walks the six-jurisdiction gate for China, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Canada and the United States, drawing only on first-hand source topics on disk, and flags where the data is thin.
Import registration regimes
China runs a two-key system. The product key is the import pet food registration certificate (čæå£ē»č®°čÆ), "China's market-entry license for imported complete pet feed (å® ē©é å鄲ę) and pet additive-premix feed (å® ē©ę·»å åé¢ę··å鄲ę)." Under MOA Announcement No. 20 (2018) Pet Feed Administrative Measures Article 14, an overseas manufacturer "must appoint its office in China or a Chinese domestic agent (å¢å 代ēęŗę) to apply," because direct foreign application is not provided for. The Feed and Feed Additive Administration Regulation (2017 revision) has the authority "review application materials within 10 working days of acceptance, ... and issue the certificate within 10 working days after a satisfactory test"; the certificate "is valid for 5 years; renewal must be filed 6 months before expiry," and "import of feed without an import registration certificate is prohibited." A companion product-access step, MOA Announcement No. 923, also issues registration certificates "valid for 5 years." Reference data records "2,564 imported pet food registrations issued 2021-2025, 47.6% of all 5,384 import feed registrations, covering 22 countries/regions."
Korea runs two parallel tracks: feed-ingredient registration under the Feed Management Act (Article 12) per the Feed Standards and Specifications (Article 9), and Import Health Requirements (IHRs) for pet food, "administered by the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (APQA, ėė¦¼ģ¶ģ°ź²ģė³øė¶) of MAFRA." The original IHRs were "published 2025.01.14"; a "MAFRA amendment of 2025.12.12 (notified to the WTO as G/SPS/N/KOR/832 on 2025.11.03) extends this grace period until 2027.12.31."
Japan asks for notification, not product registration. Under the Pet Food Safety Act, a business that imports pet food "must file a notification before starting," to the MAFF regional agricultural administration office; changes "must be notified to the nearest regional office within 30 days." The notified base is large: "10,169 notified manufacturers and 1,039 importers (as of end-March 2025)."
Brazil requires the foreign producer to "work through a Brazilian legal entity (the importer) registered with MAPA," which "registers the establishment and the products via MAPA's electronic system (SIPEAGRO; newer label registration runs on the PGA-SIGSIF platform)"; "registration is valid for up to 5 years." Under Decree 12031 (published May 28, 2024) and updated DIPOA guidance (July 7, 2025), "products cannot be shipped until both plant registration and product label registration are confirmed by the Government of Brazil."
Canada and the United States take a different shape. Canada's gate is the Health of Animals Act: there is no pet-food product registry, but s. 16 makes the importer "present the animal, animal product, animal by-product, animal food or veterinary biologic, or any other thing ... to an inspector, officer or customs officer who may inspect it or detain it." The US has no pre-border pet-food registration either; enforcement is ex-post through FDA Import Alerts.
Facility / processor listing
China adds an enterprise-access layer on top of product registration ā the "List of Registered Overseas Pet Food Production and Processing Enterprises," the "22-country list" under a "mandatory registration regime." This is the GACC whitelist: "one registration number per enterprise, admitting it to the customs entry-supervision whitelist (ē½åå)." The "Two-stage administration (äŗꮵē®”ē): MOA registration first (product access), then GACC registration (enterprise access); imported pet food must pass both." The list runs to "Total countries/regions: 22 (including å°ę¹¾ (Taiwan))," with the United States, Canada and Brazil each carrying their own annex.
Korea ties the plant to the exporting government. Under MAFRA Notification No. 2025-20, Article 7, "Manufacturing facilities shall be registered with the exporting country's relevant authority," then the exporting country's government inspects and notifies APQA, and "The Korean government then conducts on-site inspection and approves the facility," or "approval may be granted through documentary examination only." Facilities "must maintain daily manufacturing and storage records for ā„ 2 years."
Brazil makes foreign-manufacturer registration its own procedure via Circular nĀŗ 21/2025/DIPOA/SDA/MAPA (updated December 5, 2025), which "operationalizes the registration requirements under Decreto nĀŗ 12.031/2024." The application needs an Official Establishment Certificate (Art. 21, Decreto nĀŗ 12.031/2024) and a Good Manufacturing Practice Declaration; "HACCP certification ... is recognized by MAPA as equivalent to the Good Manufacturing Practice declaration." Note the catch: "Registration of the manufacturer does not grant direct access to the platform. A separate access request step is required."
Canada and the US hold no facility list in the sources we hold (Canada's Act empowers the Minister to "make regulations prohibiting or governing importation (s.22)," and the US works through port-level alerts).
Export health certificates
China sorts the certificate burden by risk. GACC Announcement No. 257 (effective "2025 幓 12 ę 29 ę„ (December 29, 2025)") sets a "three-tier classification (3 ę”£åēŗ§)": raw pet food is Level I, canned is Level III, and other is Level II. For Levels I and II, "Entry animal and plant quarantine approval must be completed before import," and for all three, "a quarantine certificate issued by the official competent authority of the exporting country/region must accompany the consignment." The former AQSIQ Announcement No. 144 of 2015 "is repealed at the same time."
Korea is explicit about the certificate's content. Under MAFRA Notice 2025-20, Article 9, "the exporting country's veterinary officer shall issue an export health certificate in Korean or English" covering commodity description, origin of animal ingredients, "name, address and registration number of the manufacturing facility," and container and seal numbers. The grace period "does not apply to pet food containing ruminant ingredients, which requires a new health certificate."
Japan folds the documentary duty into the notification-and-books regime: manufacturers, importers and sellers "must record the names and quantities of pet food in books (åø³ē°æ)."
Canada collapses the certificate into the s. 16 presentation duty ā the animal food is presented to an inspector at import. Brazil and the US hold no export-health-certificate text in the topics we used.
Border detention
China enforces at the port through inspection and quarantine and, for Level I, "quarantine supervision ... over post-import isolation and processing premises."
Korea gives APQA teeth under Article 10: if non-compliance is found, "the Korean government may order disposal or return of the pet food and suspend import from the concerned facility."
Japan backs its notification regime with an oversight matrix under the Act: manufacturers and importers face "notification / books / report collection & on-site inspection" (all three), while retailers sit at "Ć/Ć/ā."
Brazil's pinch point is fiscal, not sanitary: the sector faces "heavy taxation (up to 51% overall burden)."
Canada is the harshest on paper. Under s. 17, if the Minister determines that an animal or thing "has been imported ... in contravention of this Act ... it is forfeited to Her Majesty in right of Canada." Section 31 sets the penalty: on summary conviction "a fine not exceeding fifty thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both," or on indictment "a fine not exceeding two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to both."
The United States runs DWPE ā "Detention Without Physical Examination." FDA Import Alerts authorize detention "before physical examination"; four IA-7x alerts target pet food directly: 71-02 (2025-05-22, animal foods and food ingredients that may contain ingredients of animal origin), 71-04 (2026-04-06, food for animals due to the presence of Salmonella), 72-06 (2026-03-05, cat food products due to the presence of propylene glycol ā "FDA has prohibited Propylene Glycol (PG) in cat food since 1996"), and 72-07 (2026-03-05, poultry jerky-type pet treats due to the presence of antibiotic and/or antiviral residue(s)). The legal basis is "FD&C Act Section 801 (21 USC Section 381) ā 'appearance standard.'"
Where the data is thin
This article deliberately covers six jurisdictions. Two further GAIN topics were supplied in the brief ā the Philippines (gain_rp2023-0011) and India (gain_in2023-0082) import-requirement reports ā but they describe jurisdictions outside the six named in the title, so they are excluded from both the body and the source list rather than force-fit. Australia is likewise excluded: its cluster in our sources is veterinary-drug registration (APVMA), not pet-food import law (per selection rule #8).
Several held topics carry a first-hand-degree flag. The Chinese product-registration and GACC-257 topics are tagged needs_review (Tavily-extracted official web text), as are the FDA import-alert slice and the two Brazilian MAPA topics; the Korean APQA/MAFRA notices, the Japan notification topic, and the Canada Health of Animals Act extract are recorded as first-hand statute/PDF with no review flag. No numbers above are invented; every figure traces to a verbatim substring of the cited topic.
Sources
All claims are drawn verbatim from the following first-hand source topics (all on disk; C1 substring-verified unless noted):
- CN_imported_petfood_registration ā MOA Announcement No. 20 (2018) Pet Feed Administrative Measures (official source;
needs_review). - cn_gacc_announcement_257_pet_food_3_risk_levels ā GACC Announcement No. 257 of 2025, three risk levels (official text extract;
needs_review). - cn_gacc_22_countries_pet_food_processor_list_overview ā GACC 22-country overseas-enterprise list (official web page;
needs_review). - KR_imported_petfood_registration ā Korea Feed Management Act / MAFRA IHRs (official source).
- korea_apqa_production_facility_003 ā MAFRA Notification No. 2025-20, Art. 6ā7 (official PDF).
- kr_mfra_notice_2025_20_03_export_health_certificate ā MAFRA Notice 2025-20, Art. 9ā10 (official PDF).
- jp-import_001 ā Japan Pet Food Safety Act notification/books (official PDF; C1-verified).
- BR_pet_food_import_MAPA_SIF ā Brazil MAPA / IN pet-food import (official source;
needs_review). - BR_Circular_21_2025_foreign_manufacturer ā Circular nĀŗ 21/2025/DIPOA/SDA/MAPA (official PDF;
needs_review). - CA_HEALTH_OF_ANIMALS_ACT_IMPORT ā Health of Animals Act ss. 16, 17, 31 (first-hand statute; C1-verified).
- fda_import_alerts_pet_food_dwpe_2025_2026 ā FDA Import Alerts IA-7x DWPE (official text extract;
needs_review).