Keeping a Horse or Donkey in Portugal in 2026: A Practical Guide to the Compulsory DIE Passport, the Microchip in the Left Side of the Neck, the 7.92 Euro Fee, and the Paper Route That Closed on 1 July

You have bought a quinta with a paddock, or agreed to keep a friend's mare over the winter, or been left a donkey with the house. In Portugal none of those is an informal arrangement. Every horse, donkey, mule and zebra held in the country must carry a lifetime identification document, must have a microchip in the left side of its neck, and must be attached to a registered holding. The person responsible is not the owner on paper but whoever has the animal, and the fines for getting it wrong start at 250 euros.

This guide sets out who must do what, by when, at what price, and what changed on 1 July 2026 when the paper route closed.

The law you are actually under

Three layers stack on top of each other.

The national layer is Decreto-Lei n.º 123/2013 of 28 August, which set up the Portuguese system of equine identification and registration, named the Direção-Geral de Alimentação e Veterinária (Directorate-General for Food and Veterinary Affairs, DGAV) as the competent authority, and wrote the penalty regime. Read the text and you will notice it refers throughout to Regulation (EC) No 504/2008. That regulation was repealed in 2015 and its successor was repealed in turn. The operative EU rules today are the Animal Health Law, Regulation (EU) 2016/429, Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/2035, and above all Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/963, which is what DGAV itself now cites. The Portuguese decree has not been updated to match, so its cross-references point at instruments that no longer exist while its fines and its enforcement machinery still apply.

The practical consequence is that the deadlines you must meet come from the EU regulation, not from the old national text, and a good deal of Portuguese guidance still circulating online is describing a regime that lapsed years ago.

Who counts as the detentor

Article 2 of the decree defines the detentor, the keeper, as any natural or legal person who owns, possesses or is in charge of an equine animal, with or without payment, temporarily or permanently, including during transport, at markets, and during competitions, races or cultural events.

That is deliberately wide. If you are looking after somebody else's horse this month, you are the keeper this month, and the obligations attach to you. The decree then says plainly that keepers are responsible for the correct identification and registration of their animals within the deadlines.

The DIE: one document, one animal, one lifetime

The document is the Documento de Identificação de Equídeos (Equine Identification Document), universally called the DIE or simply the passport. DGAV describes it as unique, lifelong and obligatory for every equine, and states the consequence bluntly: without it the animal is not identified.

It comes in two colours, and the colour is not decorative.

• Blue. For equines entered in a studbook recognised in Portugal by DGAV. The recognised books are the Puro Sangue Lusitano, Sorraia, Garrana, Puro Sangue Inglês, Puro Sangue Árabe, Anglo-Árabe, Anglo-Lusitano, Luso-Árabe, Cruzado Português, Português de Desporto, Luso-Warmblood, Pónei da Terceira, Pónei Português, Burro de Miranda and Burro da Graciosa.
• Green. For equines of production and income, meaning every animal not entered in a studbook. Most working donkeys, most crossbreds and most companion horses without papers are green-book animals.

Where you apply depends on the colour. Green and blue passports generally go through DGAV's regional units, the Direções de Serviço de Alimentação e Veterinária. The one exception is the Lusitano: blue passports for the Cavalo Lusitano are issued through the Associação Portuguesa de Criadores do Cavalo Puro Sangue Lusitano (APSL), the breed association, not through DGAV.

The deadline: twelve months, or thirty days off the farm

Article 21 of Regulation (EU) 2021/963 requires the keeper to ensure the animal is identified within a period set by the member state that may not exceed twelve months after the date of birth, and in any case before the animal leaves its establishment of birth for a period exceeding thirty days.

Whichever comes first governs. A foal born in April that stays home has until the following April. A foal born in April that is sold and moved in June must be identified before it goes.

You will still find Portuguese pages stating that foals must be identified by six months of age or by 31 December of the year of birth, whichever is later. That was the rule under the older regime and it is not the rule now. DGAV's current page states the twelve month and thirty day test and cites Article 21 for it.

There is one structural exception worth knowing: breed societies with studbooks for purebred breeding animals may require identification to be carried out on the foal at foot of its dam, which is earlier, not later.

The microchip, and where it goes

The first time an equine is identified it must be electronically marked with an implanted transponder. This is a veterinary act and the vet is the responsible party for the procedure.

The technical requirements are specific. The chip must be a passive read-only transponder using HDX or FDX-B technology, compliant with ISO 11784, readable by an ISO 11785 compatible reader at a minimum distance of 12 centimetres. The code is 15 digits: the first four are the country code, 0620 for Portugal, the fifth is reserved, the sixth to eighth identify the manufacturer, and the last seven are the animal's serial number.

The site is fixed by law: the middle third of the left side of the neck, between the poll and the withers, in the area of the nuchal ligament next to the mane.

Before implanting anything, the vet must scan for a transponder already in place, look for clinical signs suggesting a chip was surgically removed, and check for any alternative mark the animal carries. If a previous identification turns up, DGAV takes over. If it is confirmed that a chip or mark was removed from a Portuguese-born animal without documentation, DGAV issues a replacement passport rather than a fresh one, which as we will see below has consequences the owner may not welcome.

The resenho

Alongside the chip, the passport carries a resenho, a full graphic and descriptive outline of the animal: white markings, colours, whorls, scars and, where needed, the shape of the chestnuts. This is not tradition for its own sake. The EU regulation explains the reasoning openly: a transponder alone has proved insufficient to guarantee identity, and the drawing exists to prevent the fraudulent slaughter of animals that had been excluded from the human food chain.

What changed on 1 July 2026

The Registo Nacional de Equídeos (National Equine Register, RNE) now runs on a new platform, RNE/GesEqus, which replaced the previous system to bring it into line with the current EU requirements.

DGAV ran a transitional period during which Modelo 1139/DGAV and Modelo 1140/DGAV could still be handed in on paper, at the regional DGAV office covering the keeper's location. That transitional period ended on 1 July 2026. Paper registration has been discontinued. Even during the transition, DGAV was careful to say that submitting the paper form did not relieve the vet of the duty to register the remaining identification data on the platform.

Where a vet does not complete the registration on GesEqus, or where an operator needs help with the platform, the route is the DGAV unit covering the establishment. DGAV maintains a dedicated team and a mailbox for GesEqus questions.

Before any of this: the holding

You cannot register a horse to nobody. DGAV's own instructions for the passport application warn that the marca de exploração, the holding mark declared on the form, must match the species and the maximum capacity of the holding's registration or licence, and that the mark is tied to the owner's tax number.

In practice that leaves three positions:

• You hold a registered exploração with a holding mark of your own, under the framework created by Decreto-Lei n.º 142/2006 of 27 July, which established the Sistema Nacional de Informação e Registo Animal (National Animal Information and Registration System, SNIRA).
• You are an associated producer of somebody else's holding.
• Your animal lives at a centro hípico, a riding centre, in which case a declaration authorising the animal's permanence at that establishment stands in place of your own holding mark.

If you are registering a small holding for the first time, the mechanics of the process are the same ones we set out in the guide to keeping chickens and other small livestock, and the DGAV register you will meet is the same one described in the guide to keeping bees. If you have only just bought the land the animals will stand on, it is worth checking whether the parcel is properly recorded first: our guide to registering rural land on BUPi covers the free window that closes on 30 September.

What it costs

DGAV publishes the prices.

• Green DIE, for an equine of production and income: 7.92 euros.
• Blue DIE, for a registered equine: 15.85 euros.
• Duplicate or substitute: an additional 31.69 euros on top of the normal fee.

Read that third line carefully, because it is broader than it looks. DGAV treats as duplicates or substitutes not only passports reissued because the original was lost, but every passport applied for outside the legal identification window. Missing the twelve month deadline therefore costs roughly five times the price of doing it on time for a green-book animal, before anything else that follows.

Payment at DGAV can be made in cash, by Multibanco or by bank transfer, and the available options vary by office, so confirm with the service you are applying to. Applications made through APSL are priced by APSL. Where all the necessary information is in hand and in order, DGAV quotes an urgent turnaround of 48 hours.

Buying or selling: four days

To change the owner of an equine you must go to a DGAV regional unit within four days, carrying:

• the green or blue book, for an animal born in Portugal, or the identification document from the country of origin if it was not;
• the original owner-change form, properly completed and signed, in the case of a green book, or the breed association's registration slip in the new owner's name in the case of a blue book;
• a declaration authorising the animal to remain at a riding centre's holding, where that applies, and otherwise proof that the new owner has a holding mark or is an associated producer of one;
• copies of the identity documents of everyone named on the form, for verification only.

The underlying EU obligation is that the ownership section of the passport is kept current. A passport in the previous owner's name is not a technicality. It is the animal being, in the regulator's terms, incorrectly registered.

Losing the passport: duplicate or replacement

This is where an administrative slip turns into a permanent change in the animal's status.

Under Article 25, a duplicate is issued where the original is lost but the animal's identity can still be established, typically through the transponder code, and also where the animal was never identified within the legal deadline. Under Article 26, a replacement is issued where the original is lost and the identity cannot be established at all.

In both cases the general rule is that the animal is excluded from slaughter for human consumption. There is one narrow escape: where a duplicate is issued within thirty days of a declared and substantiated loss, and the keeper can satisfactorily show that no medicinal treatment has compromised the animal's status, the competent authority may instead record a minimum six month suspension rather than a permanent exclusion.

Thirty days is a short window for a piece of paper somebody has misplaced. If the passport goes missing, report it immediately rather than after a search.

The food chain question, which is really a medicines question

Every equine in the EU is treated as intended for slaughter for human consumption unless it has been irreversibly excluded by a signed entry in Part II of Section II of the passport.

That default is not about anyone's intention to eat the horse. It governs what a vet may prescribe. Before treating with certain veterinary medicines, the responsible vet must check the animal's status in the passport and, where the treatment requires a product used under the cascade provisions of Regulation (EU) 2019/6, must irreversibly declare the animal as not intended for slaughter before administering it. A separate and lighter regime applies to the essential substances listed in Regulation (EC) No 1950/2006: those do not exclude the animal permanently, but they trigger a six month withdrawal period, which the vet must record in Part III and must tell the keeper about.

For most private owners the sensible course is to have the exclusion signed at the first opportunity, because it removes the constraint on treatment entirely. It cannot be undone afterwards, which is the point of it.

Moving the animal

The identification document must accompany the animal. It replaces the old transport guides, and it carries the ownership record and the record of vaccinations and medicines administered.

If the passport is with DGAV for an update, you are not stranded. Article 24 allows a temporary identification document, marked as such, permitting movement or transport within the same member state for a period not exceeding 45 days. There is one hard limit on it: an animal travelling on a temporary document may not be taken to a slaughterhouse for slaughter for human consumption.

If the transponder is lost or stops working, the means of identification must be replaced as soon as possible, within a period set by the competent authority that cannot exceed 30 days from the detected loss or malfunction, and in any case before the animal leaves its establishment of habitual residence.

Bringing a horse into Portugal

For an equine that has entered the Union from a third country, the keeper has 30 days from completion of the customs procedure for release for free circulation to apply either for a Portuguese lifetime identification document or for the registration of the existing document in the computer database. If the existing document does not meet the requirements, the authority can complete it. If it cannot be brought into compliance at all, it is not valid for identification purposes and a new lifetime document is issued.

For an animal arriving from another EU member state with a valid document, the practical step is to present yourself to the DGAV division covering your region so the animal is entered in the national database and the documentation is brought up to date.

None of this resembles the process for a dog or a cat, which runs on a different register and a different set of rules; if you are moving with both, see the separate guide to SIAC microchip registration for pets.

When the animal dies

In every case of death or loss, including theft, the keeper must return the lifetime identification document to the competent authority named in the passport within a maximum of 30 days from the date of the death or loss.

DGAV keeps the record for at least 35 years, or a minimum of two years from the animal's death.

The fines

Article 20 of Decreto-Lei n.º 123/2013 sets a single band for the whole of the identification regime: a minimum of 250 euros and a maximum of 3,740 euros for individuals, rising to 44,890 euros for companies.

The conduct it catches includes failing to comply with the marking, identification and registration obligations; duplicating or replacing a passport improperly; missing the identification deadlines; placing on the market or applying unauthorised electronic identification devices; failing to enter the animal's details in the computer database or entering them late; breaching the rules on movement and transport; and failing in the keeper's obligations on the death or slaughter of the animal.

Negligence is punishable, with the minimum and maximum halved. Attempt is punishable too.

Accessory sanctions can be added on top, depending on the gravity of the offence and the fault of the offender: forfeiture of objects belonging to the offender, including the animals; a ban on exercising a profession or activity that depends on a public licence or authorisation; loss of the right to public subsidies or benefits; and loss of the right to take part in sporting events, fairs or markets. Those last three run for a maximum of two years from the date the conviction becomes final.

DGAV investigates, the director-general applies the fine, and 60 percent of the proceeds go to the state.

Enforcement of animal law in Portugal is not theoretical. The GNR recorded 471 animal cruelty and abandonment offences in the first half of 2026 alone, and identification records are frequently the first thing an inspection asks for.

The semi-wild exception

One derogation exists for populations living in a wild or semi-wild state in defined areas, including nature reserves. DGAV may decide that these animals are identified only when they are removed from those areas, including for domestic use. Municipal councils are the ones who inform DGAV that such a population exists, DGAV's regional units then assess and propose, and the director-general decides.

This is the provision that covers Portugal's free-roaming herds. It does not cover a horse you keep on a large piece of land and rarely handle.

A short checklist

• Every equine you keep needs a DIE. No exceptions outside the semi-wild derogation.
• Foals: identified within 12 months of birth, and before leaving the birth holding for more than 30 days.
• The vet implants the chip and registers on RNE/GesEqus. Paper forms stopped being accepted on 1 July 2026.
• You need a holding mark, or associated-producer status, or a riding centre declaration, before the passport can be issued.
• Budget 7.92 euros for a green book, 15.85 euros for a blue one, plus 31.69 euros if you are late or applying for a duplicate.
• Sold or bought an animal: four days to change the ownership record at the DGAV regional unit.
• Lost the passport: report within 30 days or the animal is permanently excluded from the food chain.
• Decide the food-chain question deliberately, with your vet, rather than discovering it at the point of treatment.
• The passport travels with the animal, always.
• On death, return the document within 30 days.

This guide is general information about Portuguese and EU rules as they stood at the start of September 2026. It is not legal or veterinary advice, and the identification act itself must be performed by a veterinarian. Confirm current fees and procedures with the DGAV unit covering your area before you file anything.