AlpacaKeepSo you have a couple of alpacas in the paddock, or you are about to, and a quiet worry has crept in: do you need to register your alpacas, and are you supposed to be keeping records? The honest short answer is that in most of Europe you do have to register your holding (the land the animals live on), even for two pet alpacas, and keep a few simple records. The UK is lighter for camelids (no mandatory CPH number, though you register as a keeper to move animals), and the United States and Australia set most rules state by state.
Try not to panic. Registering your holding is a bit like getting a postcode for your animals, so the vet service can find them fast if there is ever a disease outbreak nearby. The herd register you keep is a logbook, not a tax return. Once it is set up, the ongoing work is a few minutes a month.
One distinction matters before anything else. Registering your holding and animals with the government is a legal duty. Registering an alpaca's pedigree with a breed society is optional and is about lineage, shows and breeding. This guide is about the legal duty only. We keep pedigree paperwork out of it on purpose.
Last reviewed: June 2026. Rules change and vary locally. This is a plain-language summary, not legal advice. Always confirm the current rules with the authority named in your country section before you act.
Use the menu to jump straight to your country.
The 30-second answer
If you only have time for one line, here it is per country. The binding detail lives further down.
This is a shortcut. Read your full country section before you rely on it.
The three things almost every country asks for
Across very different legal systems, the same three buckets keep showing up. Hold this mental model in your head and the country detail gets much easier to follow.
- Holding registration. Register the premises or holding where the animals live with the relevant authority, usually before you bring animals in.
- Herd and movement register. Keep a logbook of who is on the farm, plus every arrival, departure, birth and death.
- Medicine record. If your animals could ever enter the food chain, keep a record of every medicine used and its withdrawal period.
The other recurring theme is retention: most places want records kept for several years after the last entry. A safe rule of thumb is to keep everything for at least 5 years and you are covered almost everywhere.
This is a mental model, not the law. The binding detail (which authority, which form, exactly how long) lives only inside each country section. Never apply one country's rule to another.
United Kingdom
Do this first: unlike cattle and sheep, camelids are not on the list of livestock that legally require a County Parish Holding (CPH) number, so you do not need a CPH simply to keep alpacas on your own land. Some keepers still get a free one from the Rural Payments Agency, and you may need one if you keep animals on land you do not control or join certain schemes, but it is not the mandatory first step it is for other livestock.
To move animals, register as a keeper with APHA and get a herd mark. This is how camelid keepers are brought into the traceability system, so movements can be tracked. The official camelid guidance (for example the bluetongue camelid guidance) works on the basis that you are a registered keeper.
Records to keep: an animal register (species, numbers, and the ID of your animals) plus movements on and off the holding, births and deaths. On how long, do not assume a settled figure for camelids in England and Wales. At least 3 years is the usual livestock standard, and you should confirm the exact camelid retention period with APHA. Northern Ireland is moving to its own phased traceability rules on a separate timetable (keepers to register and individual identification being introduced in stages), so if you are in NI, check the NI-specific dates rather than assuming the GB position.
A reassuring nuance, carefully bounded. Alpacas are not in the food chain by default, so they do not need cattle-style passports. But do not assume there are never any movement licences. Camelid movements do require licences inside current bluetongue control zones, and those zones shift, so treat this as status-dependent and check the current disease-control position before you move animals.
On microchipping: it is standard practice and is required for British Alpaca Society pedigree registration, but that registration is voluntary and entirely separate from the legal CPH and APHA duty.
Finally, if any animal could ever enter the food chain, keep the medicine and veterinary records too. More on what goes in that log below.
European Union (the framework behind the IT, DE and AT sections)
Under the EU Animal Health Law (Regulation (EU) 2016/429), camelids are listed kept terrestrial animals. That means operators must register their establishment with the national competent authority before keeping them, and keep records of animals and movements. Animals may only move from a registered or approved establishment.
The record-keeping duty sits in Article 102 of that regulation, and Article 102 itself sets the retention floor at not less than 3 years. Your national authority can set a longer period, but never shorter.
Each member state then runs its own national database and forms to deliver this. Italy uses the BDN, Germany uses the ViehVerkV register, Austria uses VIS. That is exactly why the duty looks similar across the EU but the form names and authorities differ. Read your own country section below.
Italy
Do this first: register your allevamento or stabilimento (your holding) in the BDN (Banca Dati Nazionale, the anagrafe zootecnica) with your vet. Camelids (alpaca, llama, guanaco, vicuña, camel, dromedary) have had to be registered since the 2018 and 2019 rollout. The dedicated BDN section for camelids went live on 10 June 2019, and all holdings, including amateur ones, were due to register by the end of 2019.
Identification: an electronic transponder (microchip) is implanted by a vet and recorded in the BDN within 7 days of application, with an outer limit of within 6 months of birth. Both windows matter, so do not remember only the 7 days.
Records and movements: keep a registro di carico e scarico (the registro detentore, the holder's register) of your animals and their movements. Animal movements are recorded with the Modello 4, now computerised inside the BDN. Use the real terms; there is no separate bespoke "registro alpaca."
The legal stack and enforcement. Picture three layers: the EU Animal Health Law at the top, then D.Lgs 134/2022, then the 2023 ministerial operational manual on identification and registration that puts it into practice. The part that should get your attention: corrective measures and sanctions for non-compliance apply from 1 January 2025, so this is now actively enforced rather than a paper duty. (If you want to cite the exact 2023 decree label, verify it first, because the operational manual is the practical reference.)
Your vet is your ally here. Most Italian alpaca owners set this up once with their ASL vet and then just keep the register current.
Germany
Do this first: every keeper of New World camelids, including hobby keepers, must report (anzeigen) the holding to the competent Veterinäramt under the Viehverkehrsverordnung (ViehVerkV). Yes, even for two pet alpacas.
There are two records you may need to keep, and they live under two different laws. Keeping them straight saves a lot of confusion.
Box 1: the herd register (ViehVerkV)
Keep a Bestandsregister. It records the total number of animals held on 1 January each year per species, plus all arrivals and departures (Zugänge und Abgänge) with the name and address of the previous owner or buyer and the date. The current camelid basis is in the ViehVerkV at paragraphs 26 and 45 (per the official Veterinäramt leaflet). Paragraph numbers do get renumbered, so confirm the current ones with your Veterinäramt, and ignore the outdated community numbering you may see floating around.
Box 2: the medicine record (medicine law, not ViehVerkV)
If your animals could serve food production, every use of pharmacy-only or prescription medicine goes into a Bestandsbuch / Arzneimittel-Nachweis. It is kept together with the vet's medicine documents for 5 years after the last entry and produced on request. Its legal basis is the medicine law (Tierarzneimittelgesetz, Tierhalter-Arzneimittel-Nachweisverordnung, and Article 108 of EU Regulation 2019/6), not the Viehverkehrsverordnung. The Bestandsregister and the Bestandsbuch are two different records under two different laws. Do not merge them.
Two quick asides, not the main event. Commercial (gewerbsmäßig) breeding or keeping can require a permit under paragraph 11 of the Tierschutzgesetz in some areas, so check locally. And register with the regional Tierseuchenkasse where that applies to you.
Austria
Do this first: report keeping New World camelids to the competent district authority (the Bezirksverwaltungsbehörde, via its Veterinärabteilung) and register. The data goes into the national VIS (run via Statistik Austria and AGES).
Reporting window: report the start of keeping within 7 days, and report arrivals and departures within 7 days as well. The duty applies to hobby and small holdings too, not just commercial breeders.
Identification: a microchip is common. Identification rules apply under Austrian animal-identification law, and you should confirm the exact requirement (and the exact register contents and retention period) with your Bezirksverwaltungsbehörde rather than relying on a remembered regulation name.
Switzerland
Two things are clearly established for Switzerland. New World camelids (Lamas, Alpakas) born after 1 November 2022 must be marked with a microchip within 30 days of birth. And anyone keeping llamas or alpacas must be able to show a Sachkundenachweis, a proof of competence. This is a mandatory federal requirement (BLV), with trained farmers exempt.
Beyond that, holdings register with the canton and then get portal access at agate.ch, and camelid movements use an accompanying document (Begleitdokument). Treat the holding-registration and Begleitdokument specifics as confirm-with-your-cantonal-vet-office, because camelids are not shown on every cantonal page on the exact same animal-movement-database track as cattle and sheep.
Your cantonal veterinary office is the place to confirm exactly what applies to you.
United States
The plain answer: there is no single federal alpaca register. The national scrapie eradication program is mandatory for sheep and goats, not for camelids, so the cattle and sheep style federal ID duty simply does not apply to alpacas.
A premises identification number and individual ID (such as an official microchip) are largely voluntary at federal level for camelids, though you do need a premises ID to use official 840 microchips.
Where federal rules do bite is movement. Moving alpacas across state lines usually needs a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection (CVI) from an accredited vet, plus official individual ID, under Animal Disease Traceability. Many states also require an entry permit.
Most of the ongoing record-keeping rules for US alpaca owners are set by your state, and they vary a lot. Check your state department of agriculture, and keep your own purchase, sale, movement and health records regardless. Even where it is not strictly required, clean records protect you at sale and at the vet.
Australia
Do this first: you generally must have a Property Identification Code (PIC) for the property where alpacas are kept. This is required by state and territory law (for example, it is required by law in Victoria for one or more alpacas), so check your own state rather than assuming a single nationwide rule.
NLIS (electronic) tagging for alpacas is currently voluntary, unlike cattle and sheep. If you do choose to tag, use alpaca-specific tags.
When you move alpacas, you complete a camelid waybill (the National South American Camelid Declaration and Waybill), recording the consigning and receiving PICs. Keep records of purchases, sales and movements, and check the destination state's entry requirements before any interstate move.
The system is lighter than for cattle, but a PIC plus a waybill plus your own records is the baseline everywhere.
What to actually write in your herd register
Strip away the legal language and the duties overlap heavily. Here is a country-neutral checklist you can act on today. This is a checklist to keep, not a template to download.
Per animal
- ID or microchip number (a 15-digit number)
- Name
- Sex
- Species (alpaca, llama, guanaco, vicuña)
- Date of birth
- Dam and sire
- Colour
Movement log
- Every arrival and departure, with the date
- The other party's name and holding
- The reason (purchase, sale, birth, death, agistment)
Annual headcount
- Several countries (Germany among them) want the 1 January headcount per species, so record it once a year.
Medicine log (if food-chain relevant)
- Product, batch, date, dose, route, who administered it, and the withdrawal-period end date. This is the same log your vaccinations and dewormers feed into, so set it up once. See the alpaca vaccination schedule and the alpaca deworming schedule for the treatments that belong in it.
Births and deaths log
- Date, animal, and notes.
Keep everything metric (weight in kg) and consistent with the herd records you already keep. For a fuller walk-through of building the register itself, see how to keep alpaca records, and for the medicine side specifically, alpaca medication records.
How long to keep the records
The rule of thumb is short. At least 3 years under the EU framework (Article 102 of Regulation (EU) 2016/429, and your national authority may set longer). Germany requires the medicine Bestandsbuch for 5 years after the last entry. In the UK, confirm the exact camelid retention period with APHA rather than assuming a fixed figure.
A safe default is to keep everything for at least 5 years and you are covered almost everywhere. Digital copies are fine and are easier to retrieve when an inspector asks. And that last point matters: you must be able to produce these records on request, so they need to be findable, not just stored somewhere.
Doing it the easy way
A spreadsheet can meet the letter of the law. Where it tends to fall down is the exact parts the law actually checks at an inspection: producing the medicine record with the right withdrawal date, showing a movement on the correct date, and giving the 1 January headcount per species without a frantic recount.
This is the gap a purpose-built herd record fills. AlpacaKeep keeps your register, movements, births and deaths, and medicine log with withdrawal dates in one place, and exports them when an authority asks. On the medicine side it is deliberately honest: it records the treatment and the withdrawal end date and flags the animal, then asks you to confirm the period your vet set. Withdrawal periods are a starting point. Confirm with your vet for your medicines and region. It never invents a "clear to sell" date for you. If you keep a sheet today, the migration is straightforward.
AlpacaKeep is a modern web app, so it works on any device with nothing to install, and it is built and run on a real working alpaca farm in Val Gardena, South Tyrol. It is EU-hosted and will be free for up to 8 animals when it launches, with room for multiple users on the same farm.
We are not live yet, but you can lock in your spot. Join the early-access list and be among the first to set up a register that does what the law actually checks for. If you are still at the very start, the starting an alpaca farm guide walks through the whole setup, registration included.