Are dogs and cats allowed in the apartment in Vietnam?

Firstly, Article 35 of Decree 99/2015/ND-CP stipulates prohibited acts in management and use of apartment buildings, in Clause 3, the following acts are mentioned: raising, breeding animals in the apartment building.

Thus, the law prohibits raising and releasing livestock and poultry in the apartment building area. So it is necessary to determine whether dogs and cats are considered livestock or poultry.

According to Article 2 of the Law on Animal Husbandry 2018 of Vietnam, it stipulates:

- “Cattle” means any mammal with 4 legs domesticated and raised by humans.

- “Poultry” means any winged animal with 2 legs and feather domesticated and raised by humans.

- “Other farm animal” means any animal other than cattle, poultry and not on the list of endangered and rare species or the list of endangered and rare forest animals or ordinary forest animals or aqua creatures or the list of forest wild animals provided in the Appendix of Convention on international trading in endangered wild animals and plants.

In Appendix II, issued together with Circular 23/2019/TT-BNNPTNT guiding a number of articles of the Law on Livestock regarding livestock production, dogs and cats are classified as other animals.

In addition, in Appendix II: Reference form for regulations on management and use of apartment buildings, issued together with Circular 28/2016/TT-BXD, it also stipulates prohibited acts in management and use of apartment buildings including:

- Prohibited acts in management and use of apartment buildings that must be performed are specified in Article 6 of the Law on Housing No. 65/2014/QH13 and Article 35 of Decree No. 99/2015/ND by the Government's CP dated October 20, 2015 details and guides the implementation of a number of articles of the Housing Law and relevant laws.

- Other acts that adversely affect the community and apartment users shall be considered and decided by the apartment building conference.

Thus, from the above, it can be seen that dogs and cats do not belong to the list of livestock and poultry. Therefore, it is completely legal to keep dogs and cats in apartment buildings.

However, to ensure the common interests of each resident, each apartment complex will often have different regulations for keeping dogs and cats. There are even places where it is forbidden to keep dogs and cats in apartments. At this time, each individual using the apartment is required to follow the regulations, and each dog and cat owner himself needs to have a sense of keeping the general hygiene of the space where he lives.

Key word: Cattle in Vietnam | Poultry in Vietnam | Law on Animal Husbandry of Vietnam | apartment in Vietnam | pet in Vietnam |

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