Crossing the Channel
with your assistance dog.

Recognised assistance dogs now cross the Channel with SailLink, free of charge, marina to marina between Dover and Boulogne-sur-Mer. For a three-person operation running a small sailing ferry, getting there meant months of quiet work with the authorities on both sides of the water. Here is what it means, and what it asks of you.

Can you cross the Channel with an assistance dog?

Yes. If you rely on a recognised assistance dog, you can now sail with us between Dover and Boulogne-sur-Mer. The dog travels free, we can take one recognised assistance dog per sailing, and it stays with you for the whole crossing. There is no car deck and there are no kennels, so your dog is simply beside you, settling in the cockpit or inside, sheltered from the salt and the spray.

Because we cross an international border between Great Britain and France, each country checks the dogs entering its own territory, so what you prepare depends on the direction you travel. We set the whole process out, step by step, on our assistance dogs page.

What counts as a recognised assistance dog

This matters, so we are precise about it. A recognised assistance dog is one trained and certified by a member organisation of Assistance Dogs UK, Assistance Dogs International (ADI) or Assistance Dogs Europe (ADEu). That covers guide dogs, hearing dogs, and mobility, medical alert and other certified assistance dogs.

Emotional support animals are not covered by these rules. Only a recognised assistance dog, travelling with the person it assists, can be accepted. This is honestly where we are today, and we would rather tell you plainly than let you arrive at the pontoon to a surprise.

What you need depends on which way you sail

Travelling into the UK and travelling into France are not the same procedure. The documents, the health requirements and the checks differ by direction, and getting them right before you book is what keeps your crossing simple. The one thing that needs planning ahead is the tapeworm treatment for any crossing arriving in Great Britain, which a vet in France has to give within a set window before you sail back.

Rather than half-explain it here, we keep the full, up-to-date detail in one place, laid out by direction of travel, so you can prepare the right thing the first time. When you are ready, tell us you are travelling with an assistance dog as you book. Everything to prepare, by direction, is on the assistance dogs page.

A low-impact, car-free way across the Channel should be open to as many people as possible.

Our position, and a first step

We have engaged the UK Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), with whom we have a signed Memorandum of Understanding, and the French authorities, and we apply their requirements in full. SailLink is listed on the UK government register of ferry and cruise companies recognised to carry assistance dogs.

We see this as a first step. Making a car-free crossing genuinely available to passengers who travel with an assistance dog is part of what a low-impact link between two countries should be. If anything in the process is unclear, or you would like it in another format, write to us at joris@saillink.co.uk. And if you sail with us, tell us what worked and what did not, so the next crossing is better than the last.