A pet died in mainland China. The statutes say 动物 — never 宠物
There are three layers here, and only the first is national. The Animal Epidemic Prevention Law sets one floor: the body must be disposed of safely, and nobody may dump it. Below that, each city's dog regulations decide whether the ground is even an option — and they disagree, sharply: Shanghai forbids burying a dog at home and requires the body to go to a designated facility, while Guangzhou forbids graves but still contemplates owners handling the body themselves. Above both, the trade itself has no dedicated licence at all.
Laws change. Everything below was checked against the sources at the foot of this page on the date shown there.
The first hours
Keep the body cool
Lay them on a towel or a training pad in the coolest room you have. Outside Shanghai and a few other cities, air conditioning is not universal and summer heat is the first practical problem; a shaded balcony is not cool enough. Do not press ice directly against the skin.
Check what your city requires before you decide anything
This is the step that catches people out. In Shanghai the body must go to a designated harmless-disposal facility (无害化处理场所) and self-burial is expressly forbidden. In Guangzhou you may not set up a grave for a dog, but the regulation assumes owners may handle the body themselves if they can do it properly. The city you live in, not the country, answers this.
Do not put the body out with the rubbish
Dumping a dead animal is prohibited nationally, and cities add their own penalty on top. Shanghai's city-appearance rules separately forbid throwing out the carcass of a pet, and the fine is imposed by the urban management officers (城管), not the agriculture department.
Ask what the facility actually is
A public harmless-disposal centre and a commercial pet crematorium are different things with different paperwork. Ask where the furnace is, whether the cremation is individual, whether ashes come back, and for the business licence — and, if they describe themselves as a harmless-disposal facility, the animal epidemic prevention certificate.
What the law actually says
Almost every English-language article about China and pets cites the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law and stops there. That is the wrong stopping point: the national law is a disease-control statute with a very narrow floor, and the rules people actually run into are municipal.
One national floor: dispose of it properly, never dump it
Article 57 requires anyone engaged in raising, slaughtering, trading, isolating or transporting animals to carry out harmless disposal (无害化处理) of dead animals, or to entrust a disposal facility — and states that no unit or individual may buy, sell, process or casually abandon a dead animal. Article 98(7) sets the penalty at 3,000 to 30,000 yuan, rising to 30,000–100,000 with suspension for serious cases. Note what the article is for: preventing disease. It is not a burial code and says nothing about grief, ceremony or where a grave may be.
中华人民共和国动物防疫法 (Animal Epidemic Prevention Law) — articles 3, 57, 58, 98 · 2021-05-01
The word 宠物 does not appear in the statute
Article 3 defines 动物 as livestock and poultry plus “other animals raised or captured by people”. A dog or a cat is an “other animal raised by people”, so the law covers it — but the text never uses the word pet, and the duties are written for 动物 and 畜禽. That is why Article 58, which orders the sub-district office or township government to collect and trace dead animals found in public places or villages, is worded for 死亡畜禽: a dead dog on a pavement is not textually what that sentence is about.
中华人民共和国动物防疫法 (Animal Epidemic Prevention Law) — articles 3, 57, 58, 98 · 2021-05-01
Shanghai: the body must go to a designated facility
Article 29 of the Shanghai dog regulation requires the owner to send the body to a designated harmless-disposal facility in line with animal-disease rules, requires an animal clinic to do the same when the animal dies there, and states plainly that owners and clinics “may not bury the body themselves or throw it away”. Article 49 backs it: failure to deliver the body brings an order to dispose of it, with the cost charged to the owner and a fine of 300–3,000 yuan; dumping a dog's body is enforced by the urban management officers at 20–200 yuan for an individual and 5,000–50,000 yuan for a unit.
上海市人民政府 — 依法养宠办事指南 (dog deaths and penalties) · 2026-07-08
Guangzhou: no graves, but self-disposal is contemplated
Article 38 of the Guangzhou dog regulation takes a different line. No unit or individual may casually abandon a dog's body, and no one may “set up a grave to bury a dog's body” — an explicit prohibition on pet graves, which is rarer than you would expect. But the same article then says that anyone unable to handle the body properly should send it to a sanitation unit for harmless disposal, and that such a unit may not charge for handling a dog's body and must issue a certificate. In other words: no grave, but the owner handling it is not ruled out.
广州市养犬管理条例 第三十八条 — no graves, free disposal · 2015-12-23
There is no pet-funeral licence, and no single regulator
The Shanghai Agriculture Commission said this in writing in June 2026, in answer to a legislative proposal: pet funerals (宠物殡葬) are “a commercial concept, not a legal concept”; apart from the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law and its harmless-disposal requirement, “the state and this city have no other laws, regulations or policies on pet funerals”; the only administrative licence involved in the sector is the business licence issued by the market regulator; and at national level there is “no clear competent department”. Where a facility does operate as a harmless-disposal site, Article 98(1) of the national law applies and an animal epidemic prevention certificate is required.
上海市农业农村委员会 — 对市人大建议的答复 (pet-funeral regulation), 2026-06-01 · 2026-06-01
Where the body can go
Four routes, and only one of them has a government body behind it.
The municipal disposal system
In Shanghai, the city animal harmless-disposal centre has accepted dead pets since 2005, added three pet-only processing units in 2024 and now receives animals seven days a week; it reports more than 330,000 pets handled. The city also runs a collection network of one disposal site, two urban drop-off points and around 440 contracted clinics and third-party collectors. Outside Shanghai, ask your district agriculture bureau what exists locally — provision varies enormously.
A commercial pet crematorium
No dedicated licence exists, so the only document you can ask for is the business licence — plus the animal epidemic prevention certificate if they claim to be a disposal facility. Ask where the furnace physically is, whether the cremation is individual, what comes back and in what, and get the price in writing. “Individual cremation” is a commercial promise here, not a regulated term.
Through your veterinary clinic
In Shanghai, a clinic where the animal dies is legally required to send the body to the designated facility, so the clinic is a genuine route rather than a courtesy. Elsewhere, ask the clinic which facility they use and whether you can go directly instead.
Your own ground
Decided by the city. Shanghai forbids it outright; Guangzhou forbids a grave while leaving room for an owner to handle the body properly; many smaller cities say nothing at all. Where it is not prohibited, keep well away from wells, streams and drinking-water protection zones, and go deep — but check the local rule first, because in the cities that do regulate this, the prohibition is the point.
How this is regulated
Disease control at the national level, dog rules at the city level, and a trade that no one has been assigned to oversee.
Agriculture departments handle disposal, not funerals
The Animal Epidemic Prevention Law is administered by agriculture and rural affairs departments, with animal health supervision bodies enforcing it. They regulate the disposal of carcasses as a public-health matter. They do not license funeral services, and they do not arbitrate what a crematorium charges.
中华人民共和国动物防疫法 (Animal Epidemic Prevention Law) — articles 3, 57, 58, 98 · 2021-05-01
Urban management enforces the dumping rules in cities
In Shanghai the 城管 (urban management) officers, not the agriculture department, enforce the prohibition on throwing out a pet's body, and complaints go through 12319 or the 12345 hotline. The split matters in practice: the agency you call depends on which rule was broken.
上海市人民政府 — 依法养宠办事指南 (dog deaths and penalties) · 2026-07-08
Nationally, no department owns this
The June 2026 answer lists the bodies with a fragment of the problem — public security, market regulation, environment, agriculture, greening and city appearance, health, fire — and concludes that at national level there is no clear competent department and the division of duties is unsettled. That is an unusually direct admission, and it explains why the industry looks the way it does.
上海市农业农村委员会 — 对市人大建议的答复 (pet-funeral regulation), 2026-06-01 · 2026-06-01
No approval track for a pet cemetery
Because the only licence in the sector is the business licence, there is no permit that authorises land to be used as a pet cemetery. Land use, forestry and drinking-water protection rules still apply on their own terms, and a cemetery promising perpetual care has no regulated trust fund behind that promise.
上海市农业农村委员会 — 对市人大建议的答复 (pet-funeral regulation), 2026-06-01 · 2026-06-01
On private companies
Businesses in this sector are ordinary commercial services, and engaging one is lawful. No agency here publishes an approved list of providers, and none has vetted their standards. Because of that, this page does not list, rank or recommend any of them, and does not reproduce their addresses, phone numbers or prices — a list on a page like this one would read as an endorsement we are in no position to give. The public contacts below are the ones worth using.
Public resources
- Animal Epidemic Prevention Law (animal epidemic prevention, full text)Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Articles 3, 57, 58 and 98 are the ones that matter for a dead pet.
- Shanghai — guide to lawful pet keeping (dog deaths and penalties)Shanghai Municipal Government. Quotes article 29 of the dog regulation and the article 49 penalties, and names the agency to call.
- Shanghai Agriculture Commission — answer on pet-funeral regulationJune 2026. The clearest official statement that pet funerals are a commercial rather than legal category, plus what the city's disposal centre does.
- Guangzhou dog regulation, article 38Published by the Guangdong provincial government. The prohibition on graves, and the free-of-charge disposal duty.
Frequently asked questions
Can I bury my pet in the garden in mainland China?
It depends on the city, and in the largest cities the answer is no. Shanghai's dog regulation forbids owners from burying a dog's body themselves and requires it to go to a designated disposal facility. Guangzhou forbids setting up a grave, while still contemplating that an owner may handle the body properly. Nationally there is no burial rule at all — only the duty to dispose of the body safely and the ban on dumping it.
What happens if I dump the body?
Article 98(7) of the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law provides for a fine of 3,000 to 30,000 yuan for failing to handle a dead animal as required or abandoning it, rising to 30,000–100,000 yuan plus suspension in serious cases. Cities add their own: in Shanghai, throwing out a dog's body brings 20–200 yuan for an individual and 5,000–50,000 yuan for a unit, imposed by the urban management officers.
Does a pet crematorium need a licence?
There is no pet-funeral licence in mainland China. The Shanghai Agriculture Commission's 2026 answer says the only administrative licence in the sector is the business licence from the market regulator. If a facility operates as a harmless-disposal site (无害化处理场所), article 98(1) of the national law requires an animal epidemic prevention certificate — worth asking for, but it certifies disease-control conditions, not service quality.
Is there an official channel, or is it all commercial?
In Shanghai there is a public one. The city animal harmless-disposal centre has taken dead pets since 2005, added three pet-only units in 2024, runs seven days a week and reports over 330,000 pets handled, fed by a network of one disposal site, two urban drop-off points and roughly 440 contracted clinics. Elsewhere, provision is decided locally — your district agriculture bureau is the honest first call.
Does my vet have to deal with the body?
In Shanghai, yes: if the animal dies at a clinic, the clinic is required by article 29 to send the body to the designated facility. Outside Shanghai, clinics commonly arrange collection but are not under the same explicit duty, so ask which facility they use and whether you may go directly.
Do dogs and cats count as 动物 under the national law?
Yes. Article 3 covers livestock and poultry plus other animals raised or captured by people, and a dog or cat is an animal raised by people. What they are not is 畜禽: the Shanghai Agriculture Commission notes that dogs and cats are not on the national livestock and poultry genetic resources catalogue, which is exactly why the disposal system had to be extended to pets by administrative effort rather than by the livestock rules.
Sources
- 中华人民共和国动物防疫法 (Animal Epidemic Prevention Law) — articles 3, 57, 58, 982021-05-01
- 上海市人民政府 — 依法养宠办事指南 (dog deaths and penalties)2026-07-08
- 上海市农业农村委员会 — 对市人大建议的答复 (pet-funeral regulation), 2026-06-012026-06-01
- 广州市养犬管理条例 第三十八条 — no graves, free disposal2015-12-23
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Last checked: 2026-10-24 · If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us — we date every correction instead of quietly editing it.