Horse passports: Minimum Operating Standards (MOpS) for Passport Issuing Organisations (PIOs)

Temporary Documents

111. Temporary documents must only be issued in exceptional circumstances. They must not be issued where fraud is suspected.

112. To comply with Article 24(1) of the 2016 Regulation, temporary documents must not be issued unless the PIO holds the full passport for the animal concerned. The full passport must be retained by the PIO until either the keeper returns the temporary document or the temporary document expires. After this, the PIO should return the full passport to the horse’s keeper.

113. Temporary documents must be clearly printed with all information required by Annex III of the 2016 Regulation including a clear expiry date not exceeding 45 days from issue.

114. Temporary documents must be stamped with the PIO’s official stamp and contain a watermark, embossed stamp or hologram. This is to protect against fraud and aid in the identification of valid documents.

115. Details of any temporary document issued by a PIO must be noted on its database.

116. PIOs must contact keepers within 10 working days of the temporary document’s expiry date if the keeper has failed to return it. This is to minimise the risk of fraud by reducing the number of expired temporary documents in circulation.

117. PIOs must inform customers issued with a temporary documents that:

a) If a horse’s permanent passport is not immediately available to a veterinary surgeon, medicine that would exclude that horse from the food chain should not be administered.

b) Horses may not be moved between countries or to slaughter on a temporary document.