Dog licence and pet registration in India: fees, documents and portals city by city

What a dog licence is in India, and what it is not

A dog licence in India is a certificate issued by your municipal corporation or village panchayat under its own Act or bye-law, valid for a fixed period, and issued only against a current anti-rabies vaccination certificate. No national licence exists, and it is not the same thing as pedigree registration.

No central law licenses pet dogs. The Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, the central rules on dogs, classify 'Pet animals' as 'dogs owned and kept indoor by individuals' (rule 7) and place one duty on their owners: 'In case of pet animals, the owner of the animal shall be responsible for the deworming, immunisation and sterilisation' (rule 8(1)). Nothing in the 41-page gazette creates a licence or a registration for a pet dog; the only other mention is a committee function, 'providing guidelines to pet dog owners and commercial breeders from time to time', in Schedule II. Wikipedia says the same in one line, 'India does not have any pan-India law for dog licences';. The rule that applies to you is the one your council or panchayat wrote; the street-dog side of the same rules is in free-ranging dogs in India.

Three names for one document

Municipalities call the same permission by three names. Delhi calls it a Pet Dog Registration Certificate under section 399 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957. Mumbai calls it a licence granted after payment of a 'tax on dogs' under sections 191A and 191B of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888. Chennai calls it a Pet License, Kolkata lists 'Dog Registration' under its Dog Licence head, and Guwahati calls it registration under the 1975 bye-laws on the levy of tax on dogs. All five mean the same municipal permission to keep the dog, renewed on the council's cycle.

Kennel Club of India registration is a pedigree record, not a licence. It records a dog's parentage for showing and breeding; it satisfies no municipal corporation, and no municipal certificate satisfies the KCI. The two are compared in KCI registration explained. A dog can lawfully hold neither, one or both.

Three documents recur on every portal in this guide. The first is a valid anti-rabies vaccination certificate from a registered veterinarian, which Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Kerala each make the pre-requisite in their own words Chandigarh Administration Gazette Kerala High Court. The second is the owner's identity and address proof. The third is a photograph, of the dog in Mumbai and Chandigarh, and of the owner standing with the dog in Delhi and Guwahati Guwahati Municipal Corporation. Scan those three before you open any portal.

Dog licence fees, documents and portals city by city

Municipal dog licence fees published by the authorities themselves run from Rs 10 a dog under Kerala's panchayat rules to Rs 2,000 a year in Ahmedabad, with Delhi, Chandigarh and Bengaluru's draft all at Rs 500 and Chennai at Rs 50. Every row below was read from the portal, rate book or gazette named in its last column on 18 September 2026; where the authority publishes no fee, the row says so.

Every rupee figure in the table was divided by 84.38 and by 74, the two exchange rates that turn a converted US price list into fake Indian prices. None lands on a round dollar figure: Rs 500 is USD 5.93 or 6.76, Rs 2,000 is USD 23.70 or 27.03, Rs 110 is USD 1.30 or 1.49. These are statutory amounts fixed in rupees by a council, which is why they stay put for years and then jump when a council votes, as Ahmedabad's did from Rs 200 to Rs 2,000.

Delhi: MCD pet dog registration under section 399 of the DMC Act

Delhi's MCD registers pet dogs online only, for Rs 500 a year, against an anti-rabies certificate, an identity proof, a residence proof and a photograph of you with the dog. The five steps below are the portal's own sequence.

The portal's words on the law are that 'as per the u/s 399 DMC Act of 1957 each Dog owner need to register Pet Dog with the MCD'. The SOP adds four eligibility criteria: the applicant must be 18 or older, each dog needs a separate application, 'all applicants must apply for Pet Dog Registration Certificate through MCD portal only', and the zonal Deputy Director (Veterinary Services) or Veterinary Officer decides each application on merit and can raise a deficiency for a missing or unclear document.

1. Sign up at mcdonline.nic.in/petmcd with an Aadhaar-linked mobile number; the OTP and every status SMS go to it.
2. Upload the four documents as PDFs of 2 MB or less: the anti-rabies vaccination certificate issued by a registered veterinary practitioner or hospital, identity proof, residence proof and the photograph of applicant with pet dog.
3. Pay Rs 500 online by debit or credit card; the department warns that a rejected application gets no refund of the processing fee.
4. Download the certificate from the dashboard's Action button once approved; each carries a token number and a QR code.
5. Renew after expiry for Rs 500, with a one-month grace period and then Rs 100 for every late month; identity and residence proof are non-mandatory at renewal, the fresh ARV certificate and photograph are mandatory.

What you sign up to in Delhi

The terms bind you to fourteen conditions, the responsibilities of pet owners in Delhi. The registration number must be on the dog's neck collar at all times; the registration is non-transferable, so a buyer applies afresh with the seller's certificate and ARV details; an aggressive dog may not roam without a muzzle in a public place; a severe bite leads to cancellation and the owner bears the victim's anti-rabies serum and post-bite vaccination; and each failure to scoop the dog's poop attracts a penalty of Rs 500 from DEMS. Surrender is free and required when the dog dies, is sold, or when the owner moves out of Delhi.

The portal publishes its own numbers. It had issued 19,024 pet dog certificates from 2021 to 18 September 2026, and in the 2026-27 financial year to that date it had received 1,085 applications (847 new, 238 renewals), approved 478 and rejected 71, which is 6.5 percent of applications received. For a city of Delhi's size that is a small number of registered dogs, and the reasons the SOP gives for a rejection are a missing or an unclear document.

Mumbai: is a dog licence mandatory under the BMC?

Yes, a dog licence is mandatory in Mumbai: section 191A of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, 1888 levies a tax on every dog kept in Brihanmumbai, section 191B issues the licence and number ticket once it is paid, and the BMC's own 2025 guidelines say keeping a dog without one is illegal.

The Act sets the money and the calendar. The tax is 'not exceeding one hundred rupees per annum' on every dog kept within Brihanmumbai; a dog under six months is exempt if the owner declares it in writing to the Commissioner on or before 8 April; every owner files a return during April each official year and pays the tax in April; and a person who acquires a dog on or after 1 May files the return and pays within one week. The full year's tax is payable in a lump sum however long the dog is kept.

The licence and the ticket come from section 191B. Once the tax is paid the Commissioner 'shall grant him a licence to keep the dog during the official year' and 'provide him with a number ticket', which must stay attached to the collar; a dog without the ticket 'shall be presumed to be a dog in respect of which no licence has been granted' and 'may be seized by the police' or an authorised officer and detained until the tax is paid. The fine sits in section 471: failing to forward the section 191A(3) return is punishable with a fine that may extend to Rs 1,000, subject to a minimum of Rs 250.

The BMC says it in plainer words. Its Veterinary Health Department guidelines, signed by the Municipal Commissioner on 20 March 2025, state that 'it is mandatory for the pet dog owners to register their dog with BMC and get appropriate license issued as per provision of Section 191B of the MMC Act, 1888' and that 'keeping dogs without license is illegal';. The same document tells housing societies that they 'may insist for pet dog license issued by BMC' but cannot ban pets, cannot fix a small-versus-large size rule, and cannot bar a dog from the lift. Pet licence grievances go to the helpline 9635839888 or vhd.mcgm.gov.in.

What the BMC form asks for

The online form is Appendix C, 'Form of Application for Tax on Dogs under section 191A of the Municipal Corporation Act 1888 (Amendment of 1962)';. It asks for the ward, the owner's address, the dog's name, sex, identification mark, breed (a drop-down with an Others field), colour, date of birth, the dates of rabies and leptospirosis vaccination, the treating vet's name and MSVC or VCI registration number, and whether the dog was bought, transferred, adopted as a stray, brought from outside Mumbai or born to the owner's own dog. Three uploads of up to 2 MB each are mandatory: the rabies vaccination certificate, the leptospirosis vaccination certificate and an address proof, and the receipt and certificate are sent to the email address on the form. The form prints no fee, so this guide reports none; the Rs 100 a year cap is the only figure the law itself states.

Navi Mumbai is a separate corporation with its own instrument. NMMC told residents in May 2025 that a valid dog licence is a must, after the state approved its Dog Tax Regulations of 1993 under sections 149(1) and 127(2)(a) of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act, 1949, and warned of strict action against owners who keep dogs without one. A Mumbai licence does not cover a Navi Mumbai address.

Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad: three portals, three different fronts

Chennai publishes its Rs 50 fee on the department page, Kolkata publishes Rs 100 plus a Rs 50 processing fee in its rate book but keeps the form behind a login, and Hyderabad publishes nothing before the OTP screen.

Greater Chennai Corporation's veterinary department states that 'pet animal owners should obtain Pet License from Greater Chennai Corporation for keeping their pet animals at their house', that licences are issued 'after payment of Rs 50', that an online Pet Animal Licensing system was launched in 2024, and that 9,115 pet animal licences were issued in 2024. The same page says the corporation's six pet clinics provide 'all the treatment and anti-rabies vaccination free of cost for pet animals', which makes the gating certificate free in Chennai if you use them. The form-by-form walkthrough, the microchip rule and the renewal cycle are in Pet licence in Chennai (GCC), so this page keeps Chennai to one row.

Kolkata Municipal Corporation prints its dog fees in the Licence Department's rate book for 2026-27, under 'E. Dog Licence (U/S 521)': dog registration Rs 100 per dog, dog detention Rs 10 per dog per day, and a processing fee of Rs 50. The application itself is not public. The Dog Registration link on kmcgov.in redirects to the citizen user login page with a callback to the dog licence form, so you create a KMC user account with a mobile number before you can see the fields, and this guide could not read the document list without one. Budget Rs 150 for a first registration and keep the dog collared: Rs 10 a day is the corporation's charge for holding an impounded dog.

Hyderabad's licence runs on the GHMC's CURE platform at petanimal.ghmc.gov.in, titled 'Pet Animal License, Government of Telangana', and the GHMC home page links to it under 'Pet Dog License' in Our Services and 'Pet Licence' in e-Request. The public page is a citizen mobile authentication screen: enter a mobile number, receive an OTP, then log in. No fee, validity, document list or penalty is published before that login, and no other page on ghmc.gov.in that this guide could open states them, so the Hyderabad row says so instead of borrowing a number from a blog. Have the rabies certificate scanned before you request the OTP; every portal in this guide that shows its document list asks for it first.

Bengaluru and Guwahati: one city with a draft, one with a 1975 bye-law

Bengaluru has no pet dog licence in force on 18 September 2026, only a draft that proposes Rs 500 a year, while Guwahati has charged Rs 110 a dog under bye-laws from 1975 that it still enforces door to door.

Bengaluru's civic body has tried three times. BBMP told The Times of India in March 2024 that it 'has never had a proper pet licensing system', that a 2021 draft was withdrawn after the state delayed approval and activists called it 'replete with loopholes', and that it had formed a five-member committee because the BBMP Act, 2020 requires bye-laws before licences for domestic animals can be issued. The successor body, the Greater Bengaluru Authority, published a draft in February 2026 that exempts Indie, rescued, injured and abandoned dogs from the licence fee on a vet's certification, makes an annual licence compulsory for every other pet dog 'irrespective of breed or origin', drops an earlier plan to charge by KCI breed size, makes microchipping compulsory at the owner's cost, and requires valid certificates for rabies, distemper and leptospirosis.

The money arrived in September 2026. Bangalore Mirror reported on 17 September that all five city corporations under the GBA are preparing uniform Pet Dog Licensing Bye-Laws with an annual registration fee of Rs 500, Rs 50 for a street dog, a cap of three pet dogs per household by premises size with the third required to be a street dog, and a GBA official's line that 'the rule, once gazetted, will be applicable from the date it is issued'. Deccan Herald's report of 15 September says the draft is 'yet to be notified' and would register dogs above three months. Until a gazette notification appears, no fee, no penalty and no portal exists for Bengaluru, and this guide could not open one: the BBMP Animal Husbandry department page returned a connection timeout on three attempts on 18 September 2026, and searches of bbmp.gov.in returned no pet licence page. The Rs 100 and Rs 110 figures that circulate on blogs for Bengaluru appear on no BBMP or GBA page this guide could open.

Guwahati is the opposite case: an old bye-law, enforced. The GMC page says 'pet dog registration is compulsory under GMC Act, denying/failing is violation of law and is punishable', and sets the price at Rs 110 per dog, Rs 100 of it registration fee and Rs 10 application fee. A GMC-selected NGO collects it door to door, prints forms A and B under the 1975 bye-laws on the levy of tax on dogs kept within the city of Guwahati, buys the metal tag from the GMC Veterinary Branch at Rs 60 per dog in advance, gets the certificate signed by the Veterinary Officer and posts it to the owner at its own cost; the owner's photograph is taken with the dog at registration, and the registration 'is to be renewed every year';. Owners can also walk into the Veterinary Branch directly. No penalty amount is printed.

Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Kerala: what their own documents say

Pune registers dogs and cats online without printing a fee, Ahmedabad charges Rs 2,000 a year after a tenfold rise, Chandigarh's gazetted 2025 bye-laws charge Rs 500 for five years and ban six breeds, and Kerala lets each panchayat decide whether to license dogs at Rs 10.

Pune Municipal Corporation's veterinary department lists 'Online Pet Registration' as its ninth activity, 'launched to facilitate easy documentation and licensing for pet owners' and 'available for dog and cat owners within PMC limits', with the application at services.pmc.gov.in. The page prints fees for the slaughterhouse and for butcher shop licences but none for a pet licence, so this guide reports none.

Ahmedabad has the steepest fee. AMC's portal offers Pet Dog Registration and Pet Cat Registration through a mobile OTP login, and its instruction PDF walks through login, form, payment and receipt without stating an amount, so the amount comes from the press. The Times of India reported on 27 August 2026 that AMC 'is currently charging a pet dog registration fee of Rs 2,000 for the window spanning July 1 to Sep 30', that fees 'were gradually hiked in phases from Rs 200 to Rs 500, Rs 1,000, and finally Rs 2,000', and that 19,816 dogs and 263 cats were registered between 1 January 2025 and 25 August 2026. The Indian Express put the count at 19,029 dogs against 16,726 owners on 22 January 2026, roughly 55 percent of the 30,000 to 35,000 pet dogs AMC estimates the city holds. The breeds most often registered were Labradors, German Shepherds, Pomeranians, Siberian Huskies, Shih Tzus, Pugs, Dobermans and Golden Retrievers, so a Labrador Retriever or German Shepherd owner in Ahmedabad is in the largest group the corporation is chasing.

Chandigarh's bye-laws, clause by clause

Chandigarh has the one complete, gazetted, in-force instrument in this guide. The Municipal Corporation Chandigarh Pet and Community Dogs Bye-laws, 2025 were notified in the Chandigarh Administration Gazette on 29 October 2025, in force from publication, superseding the 2010 registration bye-laws. Registration is compulsory for every pet dog above four months: the owner applies in the Schedule A form with an undertaking, a fee of Rs 500 per dog, two recent photographs (a front view of the head and a side view of the dog standing) and a vaccination certificate attested by a vet registered with the Indian Veterinary Council or a State Veterinary Council, 'as soon as the vaccination is completed to avoid any penalty if dog(s) found unregistered';. The corporation issues a metal token for the collar; the registration is valid for five years and renewed for Rs 50 with the vaccination record; a lost token costs Rs 500; a guide dog kept by a blind owner is exempt from the fee.

The same bye-laws cap dogs by house size, from one dog in a house under 5 marla to four dogs above 1 kanal, with the third and fourth required to be adopted Indie or mongrel dogs registered at Rs 50 each. Schedule VIII fixes the fine for an unregistered pet dog at Rs 500 per dog, with impounding for continued violation; clause 23 sets the overall range at Rs 20 to Rs 13,400, adds up to Rs 20 a day for a continuing breach, and charges Rs 250 a day to reclaim a seized dog, which is sterilised and put up for adoption if unclaimed after 10 days.

Clause 20 bans six breeds and any cross of them within the corporation's limits: American Bulldog, American Pit Bull Terrier, Bull Terrier (including the Pakistani Bull Terrier), Cane Corso, Dogo Argentino and Rottweiler. Banned breeds are not registered after notification, existing owners got a 45-day window to register theirs, and a dog already registered before the notification may stay but must be muzzled and leashed 'at all times during walking';. An owner of a Rottweiler, an American Pit Bull Terrier, a Cane Corso or a Dogo Argentino moving to Chandigarh cannot register the dog there; nothing in the Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata or Guwahati documents names a breed.

Kerala works at the panchayat level. The Kerala Panchayat Raj (Licensing of Pigs and Dogs) Rules, 1998, made under section 254 of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994, let a village panchayat 'decide by resolution' that nobody may keep a dog without its licence; once it does, every owner applies to the Secretary with the animal's age, colour and breed and 'a fee of rupees ten' per animal. In the cities the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 applies, and the Kerala High Court summarised it in February 2024: 'Section 437 says that, no person shall keep any dog except with a licence obtained from the Secretary and every owner shall cause his dog to be inoculated against rabies', and section 438 lets the Secretary order the seizure of unlicensed dogs straying in the municipal area. So 'dog license Kerala' has two answers: Rs 10 and optional in a panchayat, mandatory at a locally fixed fee in a municipality, and the Indian Pariah Dog that most Kerala households keep is licensed on the same terms as a pedigree dog.

The rabies certificate is the gating document

Every portal in this guide that lists its documents puts the anti-rabies vaccination certificate first, and three of them tie the licence's validity or the vet's identity to it. The six authorities below say it in their own words.

• Delhi (MCD): 'A valid Anti Rabies vaccination certificate by a registered Veterinary practitioner shall be the pre-requisite for Pet dog Registration', validity co-terminus with the vaccination, and the certificate is mandatory at renewal too.
• Mumbai (BMC): the date of rabies vaccination, the date of leptospirosis vaccination, the treating vet's name and the vet's MSVC or VCI registration number are all mandatory fields, and both certificates are mandatory uploads.
• Chandigarh: a vaccination certificate 'duly attested' by a vet registered with the IVC or a State Veterinary Council at registration, the previous years' vaccination record at renewal, and an obligation to keep the dog vaccinated against rabies and DHPPiL and to produce the certificate on inspection.
• Kerala municipalities: section 437 pairs the licence with the duty that 'every owner shall cause his dog to be inoculated against rabies';.
• Bengaluru (draft): valid certificates for rabies, canine distemper and leptospirosis from registered practitioners, with microchipping at the owner's cost.
• UPYOG cities: the municipal employee's job in the module is to 'validate the pet details and vaccination details submitted by citizen' before approval, so an expired certificate stalls the application at the first desk.

The certificate has to be current on the day you apply, and the annual booster is the practical clock for renewal in Delhi, Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru's draft. The dates that make a certificate valid, the difference between a primary course and a booster, and what Indian clinics actually stamp are in the dog vaccination schedule for India. The MCD's own counter shows the cost of getting the paperwork wrong: 71 of 1,085 applications in the current financial year were rejected, and the SOP's stated grounds are a missing or an unclear document Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Your nearby vet decides which vaccine and which date apply to your dog; the portal only checks that the certificate is current.

UPYOG and the online route: what runs where

UPYOG is the Union housing ministry's shared platform for municipal e-services, run by the National Institute of Urban Affairs, and pet registration is one of its 20 modules; its own pages name no city that runs it, and every large city in this guide runs a portal of its own.

UPYOG stands for Urban Platform for deliverY of Online Governance. Its home page reports, as on August 2025, 32 MoUs signed with States and Union Territories, 70 empanelled partners, 20 modules and more than 3,400 urban local bodies engaged, and names the NIUA as the anchor institution of the National Urban Digital Mission that runs it. The pet registration module is 'a user-friendly, web and mobile-based platform tailored for local government bodies to regulate pet ownership effectively'; a citizen files the application with documents, a counter employee can file it on the citizen's behalf, a ULB employee validates it and forwards it for approval, the citizen pays for the approved application, downloads the receipt, and finally downloads the pet certificate from their login. The approver is a 'veterinary doctor or Ulb officials', and the citizen pays only after approval, the reverse of Delhi, where payment comes with the application Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

Which cities run it is not something UPYOG says. Neither the module page, the home page nor the module documentation names an adopting corporation, and this guide records that absence rather than guessing UPYOG V2.0 documentation, Pet Registration. What can be said is what the big cities use instead: Delhi on a National Informatics Centre portal, Mumbai on the BMC's MyBMC portal, Hyderabad on CURE, Ahmedabad on its AMC modules site, Pune on services.pmc.gov.in, Kolkata on its own KMC portal and Chennai on the GCC's system Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (MyBMC) Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Amdavad Municipal Corporation Pune Municipal Corporation Kolkata Municipal Corporation Greater Chennai Corporation. A smaller town in a state with a UPYOG MoU is the likely place to meet the module; its citizen login at upyog.niua.org asks you to pick the city first.

Five steps hold on every portal in this guide, whichever software sits behind it.

1. Find your city's veterinary or health department page on the corporation's own domain, .gov.in or .nic.in, and read the fee there; if the page prints none, expect to see it only after login, as in Hyderabad and Kolkata.
2. Scan the anti-rabies certificate, an identity proof, an address proof and the photograph the city wants, each under 2 MB, before you start; Delhi and Mumbai both cap uploads at that size Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (MyBMC).
3. Register the mobile number the OTP will go to; Delhi asks for the Aadhaar-linked one.
4. Pay online and keep the receipt; AMC's instructions include a 'Charge Back Tracking' step for failed payments because they happen.
5. Download the certificate, put the number or token on the collar, and diarise the booster date, which is the renewal date in practice.

Where the ranking pages get the licence wrong

The two blogs that rank for this query publish figures no municipal document supports, and one implies a document India does not issue. The corrections below each name the document that contradicts them.

VOSD's guide, dated January 2021 and still on Google's first page, cites Mumbai's rule as 'Maharashtra Municipal Provincial Act, Section 14, rule number 22(a) sub-clause 386' with a first-time fee of Rs 75 and a renewal of Rs 50, and says Pune's municipality 'is open to advance registration for ten years for a fee of Rs 500';. No provision of that name exists in the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act, whose dog sections are 191A and 191B and whose form the BMC serves today under section 191A Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (MyBMC), and the PMC page that exists today prints no pet fee at all. VOSD's Rs 500 for Delhi is right.

Supertails, December 2024, says fees 'vary by city and range from Rs 100 to Rs 500 in most cases', that 'in some cities like Chennai and Delhi, municipal pet registration requires proof of microchipping', and carries a section titled 'Getting a Pet Passport in India'. Ahmedabad's Rs 2,000 and Kerala's Rs 10 sit outside that range Kerala Panchayat Raj; Delhi's document list has four items and a microchip is not one of them; and India issues no pet passport, a point the FAQ below takes up with the DGFT's own notice. The INKC page that ranks alongside them sells a private pedigree registration and has nothing to do with a municipal licence.

The blogs are ageing rather than lying: municipal fees sit still for a decade and then move by council vote, as Ahmedabad's did tenfold inside twenty months. Read the fee from the corporation, in the year you apply.