Animals – applying for a permit for breeding, keeping and trading animals

Numerous activities involving animals - particularly of a commercial nature - require a permit. In particular, these are: • Breeding and keeping vertebrates for experimental purposes and comparable activities, • Keeping animals in an animal shelter or similar facility, • Persons and associations that, for example, bring dogs and cats to Germany and place them with other people here, • Zoos or similar facilities for the exhibition of animals, • Training of guard dogs for third parties, • Animal markets, • Commercial animal breeding and keeping (exception: agricultural livestock), • Commercial animal trading, • Commercial riding and carriage-driving operations, • Commercial exhibition of animals, • Commercial pest control involving vertebrates, • Commercial training of dogs or instruction of animal owners, • Animal transport in connection with economic activity, • Professional or commercial stunning and killing of vertebrates. Granting the permit under animal welfare law is a precondition for a facility to be allowed to operate at all. It therefore has a preventive character. Depending on the specific case, further approvals may be required, such as building permit(s), approval of animal experiments, or approvals under species protection law; it is therefore advisable to inquire with the responsible administrative authority (zuständige Verwaltungsbehörde).