Service dog laws in Canada

There is no national Canadian service dog standard, no federal registry, and no Canada-wide certification. Anyone telling you otherwise is either mistaken or selling something.

What Canada has is thirteen different answers. Start with your own province or territory.

Find your jurisdiction

Provinces with a real government program — apply directly, do not buy a substitute:

• Alberta — Service Dog Identification Card. The card is free. Assessment $50 for Albertans.
• British Columbia — Guide Dog and Service Dog Team Certification. Owner-trained teams can qualify by passing a public safety assessment.
• Nova Scotia — Service Dog Team Certification. 40-exercise assessment, $187.50, waivable.

A statute, but no government card:

• Newfoundland and Labrador — the Service Animal Act recognises accredited schools and certifications from other provinces.

An Act passed but not confirmed in force:

• Prince Edward Island — royal assent December 2024; confirm status with PEI Justice before relying on it.

Human rights and accessibility law only — no registry exists:

• Ontario — a letter from one of nine named regulated health colleges, and no training requirement
• Quebec — the government states outright that no official certification exists
• Manitoba — "no standardized identification or certification of service animals in Manitoba"
• Saskatchewan — "in most cases no evidence should be required"
• New Brunswick — the province whose Human Rights Commission is most explicit that emotional support animals are protected when they are part of a person's treatment for a disability
• Yukon · Northwest Territories · Nunavut

The national standard that never existed

You will see references to a "CGSB standard" for service dogs. It does not exist, and it never did.

The Canadian General Standards Board began work on CAN/CGSB-193.1 (service dog teams) and 193.2 (training schools) in 2015, under an agreement with Veterans Affairs Canada. A draft went to public review in 2017. On 17 April 2018 the project was terminated — CGSB "withdrew its intent to produce a National Standard of Canada for Service Dogs, as there was no consensus among the committee members that the standard could be achieved."

Neither number was ever published as a standard. And as of 1 April 2026, CGSB no longer offers standards development or conformity assessment services at all, following a Budget 2025 decision.

So a claim to "meet the CGSB standard" is wrong twice over: the standard was never published, and the body that would have issued it no longer operates. Say "the project was terminated before publication," not "the standard was withdrawn" — a standard has to be published before it can be withdrawn.

Worth watching: Accessibility Standards Canada has a draft standard, CAN-ASC-5.2, with a section on guide dogs and service dogs. That is the most likely future source of a federal norm, and we will update this page if it is adopted.

Air travel within and from Canada

The Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations (SOR/2019-244) govern large air carriers, rail carriers serving three or more provinces, larger interprovincial ferries, and interprovincial bus carriers.

A service dog under the regulations is "a dog that has been individually trained by an organization or person specializing in service dog training to perform a task to assist a person with a disability with a need related to their disability."

Three things follow from that definition: dogs only; the work must be a task, which is what excludes emotional support animals; and the trainer must be an organisation or person specialising in service dog training — note this does not require accreditation or government certification.

Carriers must accept service dogs on board. They may require a leash, tether or harness, and may require either a declaration or an identification card attesting to the dog's training. Where the dog lacks sufficient floor space at your feet, the carrier must provide an adjacent seat if one is needed. There is no size restriction on service dogs.

Documentation and notice:

• At reservation — a declaration that the dog received specialised training to perform a disability-related task
• Before departure — an identification card or document from the training organisation attesting to that training
• Carriers must keep electronic copies for at least three years, so you should not have to resubmit
• Standard advance notice is 48 hours; the CTA notes it can be up to 96 hours if the carrier needs documentation

A point no registry will volunteer. The regulations contemplate an ID card from the organisation that trained the dog. A registry that never met your dog is not that organisation, and an airline is entitled to reject its card. If you trained your own dog, your training log and your trainer's documentation are what matter here — not a purchased certificate.

Emotional support animals and Canadian air travel

Emotional support animals are not covered by the regulations. The Canadian Transportation Agency describes them as animals "not trained to perform a specific task" that "provide comfort and emotional support to persons with mental health-related disabilities."

A 2023 CTA decision requires accommodation of emotional support dogs only, and under strict conditions:

1. Medical documentation from a physician confirming a mental health disability and the need for emotional support
2. A veterinary certificate issued within two months, submitted 96 hours before travel
3. The dog must remain in a carrier at your seat for the whole journey
4. Proof of compliance with destination entry requirements
5. No charge is permitted for the accommodation

Practically: an emotional support cat has no right of carriage, and an emotional support dog too large for an under-seat carrier has no right of carriage.

Housing across Canada

The principle is the same in every province and territory: a landlord, condominium corporation or strata has a duty to accommodate a disability-related need for an animal, up to undue hardship — regardless of whether the animal is certified.

In Hart v Condominium Corporation No. 831 0969, 2025 AHRC 52, an Alberta condominium board that refused an informally trained dog was found to have discriminated, and was ordered to pay $15,000 plus undertake a policy review and human rights training.

Ontario is the one province with a tenant-protective statutory provision voiding no-pet clauses — but read the Ontario page carefully, because it does not mean what most sites say it means.

Misrepresentation penalties

Three things to notice. In no province is the business-side penalty smaller than the handler-side one; in Alberta and Ontario it is ten times larger, and in BC and Nova Scotia the two are equal. Only British Columbia has an offence of falsely representing a dog — Alberta's and Ontario's offences are about a person misrepresenting themselves, which many sites state backwards. And prosecutions of either are rare.

Flying: which rule applies to your flight

There are three regimes, and which one you are in depends on the airline and the aircraft. Most writing about this treats the first as though it were the only one. It is not.

1. A large air carrier

Part 2 of the Accessible Transportation for Persons with Disabilities Regulations applies to a large air carrier by s.25(1)(a). For that section, s.25(2) defines the term:

In this section, large air carrier means an air carrier that transported a worldwide total of 1,000,000 passengers or more during each of the two preceding calendar years.

Note the opening words. The definition is local to s.25 — it is not a definition of "large air carrier" for the regulations as a whole.

Where it applies, s.51(1) says:

A carrier must, on the request of a person with a disability who needs to travel with a service dog, accept the service dog for transport and permit the animal to accompany the person on board, subject to subsection (2).

2. Any other air carrier, on a domestic service, with 30 or more passenger seats

Part VII of the Air Transportation Regulations applies by s.146(1). Section 149(1) says:

Subject to section 151, an air carrier shall accept a service animal for carriage without charge if the animal is (a) required by a person for assistance; and (b) certified, in writing, as having been trained to assist a person by a professional service animal institution.

Section 149(2) requires the animal to be harnessed and to remain on the floor at the passenger's seat. Section 149 is subject to section 151, which is the advance-notice provision: 48 hours before the scheduled time of departure.

3. Neither

A carrier that is not a large air carrier, flying an aircraft with fewer than 30 passenger seats — or a carrier that is not a large air carrier operating an international service — is reached by neither of the service-dog provisions above. That does not leave you without a route: an application to the Canadian Transportation Agency under s.172(1) of the Canada Transportation Act is the federal path.

Room for the dog

ATPDR s.51(4), marginal note "Additional space for service dog":

If, because of the size of the service dog, the passenger seat of the person with a disability does not provide sufficient floor space for the service dog to lie down at the person's feet in a manner that ensures the safety and well-being of the dog and the person, the carrier must provide to the person any passenger seat adjacent to their passenger seat that is needed to provide sufficient floor space for the service dog.

What it costs

ATPDR s.31(1):

Subject to subsection (2), it is prohibited for a carrier to impose a fare or any other charge for any service that the carrier is required by this Part to provide to any person.

And s.31(2):

The prohibition in subsection (1) does not apply to a carrier in respect of any service that the carrier is required to provide under section 50, 51 or 52 if that service is provided by the carrier for the purpose of a transportation service between Canada and a foreign country.

In our own words: within Canada, the service-dog service is free. The no-charge rule does not reach it on travel between Canada and another country.

Telling them in advance

ATPDR s.32(1):

If a person with a disability makes a request for a service set out in this Part at least 48 hours before the scheduled time of departure, the carrier must provide the service.

A textual fact, and only that: section 51 is not among the provisions listed in s.32(2), which names paragraphs 35(a), (b), (g), (i) to (l) and (n) to (r), and sections 37 and 38. We are not going to tell you what a carrier will do with a later request — the regulation does not say, and neither will we.

Connecting flights

ATPDR s.26(1):

If an air carrier transports a passenger between Canada and a foreign country and that trip comprises a series of flights, this Part does not apply in respect of any flight in that series except a flight in that series that departs from, or arrives in, a point in Canada.

What an airline may ask for

Under the ATPDR, s.51(2):

A carrier may require a person with a disability who requests to travel with a service dog to control the dog with a leash, tether or harness during travel and to provide

(a) a confirmation that they will be travelling with a service dog, at least 48 hours before the time of departure set out in their ticket; and

(b) a document that is issued by an organization or person specializing in service dog training and that attests that the dog has been individually trained by that organization or person to perform a task to assist a person with a disability with a need related to their disability.

The load-bearing part of (b), in our own words: the document must come from the organization or person that did the training. The issuer and the trainer are the same party. A document from anyone else — including us — is not the document this paragraph describes.

Section 51(3) allows an electronic copy:

The document referred to in paragraph (2)(b) may be provided in an electronic format.

The federal definition of a service dog

ATPDR s.1:

service dog means a dog that has been individually trained by an organization or person specializing in service dog training to perform a task to assist a person with a disability with a need related to their disability.

The federal definition turns on who did the training. Read the words carefully: they are "an organization or person specializing in service dog training". A handler who is themselves a person specializing in service dog training is not excluded by that language. What falls outside it is an ordinary owner who trained their own pet without that specialism.

We are not going to tell you that owner-trained dogs never qualify federally. The regulation does not say that, and the line is narrower and less tidy than the internet usually reports.

Two terms nobody has defined

"Organization or person specializing in service dog training" (ATPDR) and "professional service animal institution" (ATR) are both undefined in their own instruments. Neither regulation says what qualifies as either.

We are not going to invent a test for them. Where a term is undefined, what an airline accepts in practice and what the Canadian Transportation Agency would decide on a complaint are the places the answer actually comes from.

What a ServDog record is not, for a flight

Plainly, because this is the page where it matters most:

• A ServDog record is not a document issued by an organization or person specializing in service dog training. We did not train your dog. So it does not meet ATPDR s.51(2)(b).
• A ServDog record is not written certification from a professional service animal institution. So it does not meet ATR s.149(1)(b).
• What it is: a record of what the owner has written down, kept in one place, with a number and a page a business can check.

Nor is there a federal register or a government-issued service dog certification in Canada to hold instead. The document these rules contemplate comes from a trainer, not from a government. If your dog was trained by a program, the document you need is theirs.

What we do and do not do

We are a private registry. We are not a government agency in any province, and nothing we issue creates or confers a legal right anywhere in Canada.

Where your province runs a program — Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia — apply there. We have linked to each of them above, and Alberta's card is free. We would rather you got the real thing.

What we offer is what no province offers: a permanent place to keep your dog's records, a training log documenting the tasks it performs, and a scannable profile so a vet, a boarding kennel, or someone who finds your dog can reach the right information quickly. That is useful on its own terms, and it is all we claim.

Last reviewed: 18 September 2026. Verify current requirements at the primary sources above before acting.