Should You Update Your Dog's Microchip Info Before a Trip?

By Jessica Ennis, DVM, CVA

Destinations · August 23, 2026 · 5 min read

A microchip only reunites you with your dog if the phone number behind it still rings, so treat "update it" as a pre-trip task, not a someday task.

The limitation almost nobody plans around isn’t whether their dog has a microchip. It’s whether the phone number attached to it still works.

A microchip is not a GPS tag and it is not, on its own, a way to contact you. It’s a passive number, roughly rice-grain sized, sitting under the skin between the shoulder blades. A scanner reads that number. What happens next depends entirely on a database lookup, and that database is only as good as the last time someone typed a current phone number into it.

In my practice, the calls I remember are never about dogs without chips. They’re about dogs with chips that led nowhere. A family drove two states over for a wedding, their Beagle mix slipped his leash outside a rest stop in Tennessee, and the shelter that scanned him found a chip registered to a phone number that had been disconnected for over a year — the number from before they’d moved apartments. It took four days, a lot of phone calls, and a lucky social media post to get that dog home. The chip worked exactly as designed. The registration behind it hadn’t been touched since the day it was implanted.

Myth vs. reality: what a microchip actually does

The myth is that a microchip is a tracking device that alerts you the moment your dog wanders off. The reality is closer to a permanent, unpowered barcode. Per the American Veterinary Medical Association, when a lost pet is found, a shelter, animal control agency, or veterinary clinic scans the chip to get its ID number, then looks that number up to find the registry it belongs to.

That’s the part most owners miss: a pet’s microchip is registered with an individual microchip company’s registry, not with the vet who implanted it and not with any single national database. If you’ve moved, changed your phone number, or switched vets since implantation, the registry has no way of knowing unless you tell it.

Before you book the sequence I walk clients through

I keep this short on purpose, because owners are more likely to actually do a three-step list than a twelve-step one.

• Find your registry. If you don’t remember which company your dog’s chip is with, ask your vet to scan the number, then run it through the AAHA lookup tool.
• Log in and check every field, not just the phone number. Confirm your current address, an alternate emergency contact, and your vet’s information.
• Update it at least two weeks before you leave, so any confirmation email or verification step has time to clear before travel starts.

The AAHA Universal Pet Microchip Lookup Tool works by checking the databases of participating registries to determine which one holds a given chip’s registration, then returns a list of those registries with their contact information. It does not display your personal contact information to whoever runs the search, and it doesn’t let you edit anything directly — it just tells you where to go to make the update.

What the registry actually needs from you

Once you know your registry, expect to update more than a phone number. According to AAHA, registrants typically enter the pet’s name, breed, gender, color, age, and any relevant medical notes, along with the owner’s name, phone number, email, home address, an alternate emergency contact, and the veterinarian’s contact information. AAHA specifically recommends reviewing and updating that information at least twice a year, timed to something you’ll actually remember, like spring and fall.

Before a trip specifically, I tell clients to check three things: the phone number you’ll actually be reachable at while traveling, an emergency contact who is not also traveling with you, and your regular vet’s current phone number, since that’s often the fastest way for a shelter to reach someone who can vouch for the dog. If you’re flying, it’s worth doing this alongside a broader pre-flight check — our guide on airline pet policies covers the paperwork side, and getting your dog comfortable in a carrier ahead of time matters just as much; see how to get your dog used to a travel carrier before flying.

The counterargument, and where I still land

The honest pushback here is that most trips go fine. Most dogs never slip a leash, never bolt at a rest stop, never get spooked by a fireworks show three states from home. Updating a microchip registration takes ten or fifteen minutes, and it’s easy to file that under “I’ll do it eventually” precisely because the payoff is invisible on the vast majority of trips.

I understand that reasoning. I still don’t take it. The scenario where a chip matters is, by definition, the worst day of a trip — a bolted door, an open tailgate, a startled dog in an unfamiliar parking lot two states from home. That’s not the moment to discover the phone number on file is your old apartment’s landline. The AVMA designates August 15th as National Check the Chip Day specifically because owners tend to set and forget this, and travel is one of the more reliable moments to trigger a real update, since you’re already thinking about logistics.

A road trip with two dogs, a flight with a connection, or a longer international itinerary all raise the stakes further, simply because more things can go sideways and you’re farther from home if they do — worth a look at our guides on road-tripping with two dogs and traveling internationally with your dog if either applies to your trip.

I’ve had clients ask whether a GPS collar makes the microchip redundant. It doesn’t — a GPS collar can fall off, lose battery, or lose signal, and a microchip can’t be removed by a struggling dog or a broken buckle. They solve different problems, and neither replaces the ten minutes it takes to confirm your registry has your current phone number.

One more scene that’s stuck with me: a Golden Retriever named Otis, nine years old, whose owners boarded him with a pet sitter for a week-long trip and updated the microchip registry’s emergency contact to the sitter’s number before they left. Otis got loose chasing a rabbit on day three. The shelter scanned him, called the sitter within the hour, and he was back on his own couch by dinner. Nothing dramatic happened in that story, which is exactly the point — the system worked because someone had entered a phone number that was actually going to be answered that week.

In short: a microchip is only useful if its registration is current, registries don’t update themselves, and travel is a good forcing function to check.

For related context, read How to Get Your Dog Used to a Travel Carrier Before Flying.

For related context, read Airline Pet Policies: What to Check Before You Book.