How to License Your Pet in Winnipeg

Yes. This is the part that catches people coming from cities that license dogs only. Winnipeg licenses both dogs and cats. The City's Responsible Pet Ownership By-law (No. 92/2013) requires a current licence for every dog and every cat over six months old, and there is no indoor-cat exemption. If your cat never goes outside, it still needs a licence.

The fees are gentler for cats than dogs, but they exist. A sterilized cat licence is $15.75 a year and an intact cat licence is $69. So if you have adopted a Winnipeg cat, you do have a small annual licence to buy and renew. The rest of this guide covers both species, with notes wherever the rules differ.

Every dog and every cat over six months old must have a City of Winnipeg licence, under the Responsible Pet Ownership By-law. There is no exception for indoor cats, and the rule applies the same way to both species.

If you have just adopted an adult dog or cat, the licence is due now, not eventually. A puppy or kitten gets licensed once it reaches six months. The licence renews every year. A two-year licence option is available, though the City does not publish the two-year price, so confirm it with the City if you want to pay two years at once.

Online (fastest): apply or renew at petlicensing.winnipeg.ca.

By phone: call 311.

In person: the Winnipeg Animal Services Agency at 1057 Logan Avenue, which administers licensing, impound, and adoptions.

By mail: Winnipeg also accepts licence applications and renewals by mail.

You provide your contact details and your pet's information, and you receive a numbered tag. Dogs must have the licence on the dog. A cat with a registered microchip or tattoo does not have to physically wear the tag, but a licence is always required. There is no microchip-in-lieu-of-licence option for either species.

It is easy to read “mandatory pet licence” as a cash grab. The benefit attached to it is the reason to do it gladly.

Winnipeg offers a free first ride home for a licensed dog wearing its valid tag. If your dog gets picked up, the City releases it back to you free of charge if it is reclaimed by the end of the next business day, the first time it happens per licensing period. The licence and the tag are what make it possible, because the tag is how an officer finds your number in the first place.

The licence also buys your dog time. A dog wearing a valid licence is held for 10 days, while a dog without one is held for only 3 days. That longer window can be the difference between getting your dog back and not. For an adoption-minded city, the licence fee also helps fund the animal services system that takes in and rehomes the next stray, the same pipeline that put your adopted pet on this site.

This one is important and often missed by people moving to Winnipeg. Pit-bull-type dogs are prohibited in Winnipeg under the Responsible Pet Ownership By-law. They cannot be owned and they cannot be licensed at any price.

The ban covers the American Pit Bull Terrier, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, the American Staffordshire Terrier, and dogs that look like them. This is a breed ban, not a licence tier, so there is no pit bull licence available. If you are adopting and considering a dog that might be identified as a pit-bull type, check before you commit, because the dog cannot legally live in Winnipeg.

Do not confuse this with the dangerous-dog licence ($110), which is a separate thing. That licence applies to individual dogs that have been formally designated dangerous, regardless of breed. The pit bull ban is about breed; the dangerous-dog licence is about an individual dog's record.