What do you do with a horse passport when the horse dies?
The passport must be returned to the organisation that issued it within 30 days of the horse's death.
The passport must be returned to the organisation that issued it within 30 days of the horse’s death. GOV.UK puts it plainly: “Within 30 days of the horse’s death, return its passport to the PIO that issued it.” A PIO is a Passport Issuing Organisation — the body whose name is printed inside the front of the document.
They will then, in GOV.UK’s words, “update their records and invalidate or destroy the passport”. Some organisations will return an invalidated passport to you if you ask, which matters to owners who want to keep it; that’s worth requesting when you send it rather than afterwards.
It’s an easy thing to miss in the week after a loss, which is the only reason this page exists. The disposal side is covered separately in what happens to a horse after death, and a horse left without its field companion raises a welfare question of its own: whether a horse kept alone gets lonely.
When the admin is done and you want something of the horse kept rather than filed, we make memorial prints and keepsakes to order.
