MIAAirport Guide

Service animals at MIA

Flying through Miami with a service dog: the DOT form your airline can ask for, how TSA screens a working animal, and the relief areas before and after security.

A service dog in a vest sitting at the doorway of an animal relief area
Service animals

Get your airline’s DOT service animal form done before you fly. At the checkpoint, tell the TSA officer your dog is a service animal, and plan relief stops around MIA’s four indoor rooms after security. Under US flight rules, only a trained dog counts as a service animal.

Your airline can ask for a DOT form before you fly

The federal rule for airlines defines a service animal as a dog, of any breed, individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. That includes psychiatric service dogs. Emotional support animals, other species and service dogs in training are not service animals under the rule. For emotional support animals, MIA’s advice is to check your airline’s own policy.

What the rule lets your airline ask of you:

The airline can What it means for you
Require DOT’s Service Animal Air Transportation Form It must be completed on or after the date you bought the ticket
Ask for that form up to 48 hours before departure Applies if you booked more than 48 hours ahead
Require DOT’s Service Animal Relief Attestation Form on a flight scheduled for 8 hours or more You confirm the dog won’t need to relieve itself, or can do so without a sanitation problem
Require the dog to be harnessed, leashed or tethered At all times, in the airline’s areas of the airport and on board
Seat the dog on your lap or in your foot space If the dog would crowd another passenger, the airline must offer you another seat in the same class where it fits, if one is free, before refusing it
Limit you to two service animals Per passenger

How TSA screens a service dog

  • Tell the officer your dog is a service animal. TSA won’t separate you from it.
  • The metal detector. You walk through with the dog, or send it through separately on its leash.
  • Gear is screened. That includes collars, leashes, backpacks and vests. Items you need to control the dog, or that show it’s on duty, don’t have to come off.
  • If it alarms, you and the dog get more screening, including a pat-down. The dog’s check can be visual, a pat-down or both. The officer asks for your help before touching the dog. Don’t touch the dog, other than holding the leash, until the officer finishes.
  • Food and medicine for the dog go through the X-ray or are inspected.
  • Leaving to relieve the dog? You’ll be screened again when you return, but you can ask to go to the front of the line.

Need help planning the screening? TSA Cares takes calls on (855) 787-2227, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. and weekends and holidays from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time. TSA asks you to call at least 72 hours before you fly.

Where your dog can relieve itself at MIA

Where Before or after security
Concourse D, near gate D34 After
Concourse F, near gate F7 After
Concourse G, near gate G11 After
H–J connector, across from the InMotion store After
Level 1, across from Door 5 (North Terminal, D) Before, outdoors
Level 1, across from Door 15 (Central Terminal, F) Before, outdoors
Level 1, across from Door 28 (South Terminal, J) Before, outdoors. Listed as temporarily closed for construction.

MIA lists no indoor room in Concourse E. Each indoor room has a patch of Astroturf with sprinklers and a drain. Cleaning supplies are there for you to tidy up after your dog. Using one saves you going back through the checkpoint. MIA publishes no opening hours for the rooms. Late at night, check which checkpoint is open on our security page: Checkpoint 9 for H and J, the way to the H–J connector room, is listed as open 24 hours.

What else MIA offers

  • Wheelchair or other help to the gate: ask your airline. MIA says each airline coordinates its own wheelchair assistance.
  • Arriving from abroad with your dog? Our guide to flying into Miami with a pet covers the import rules for dogs.
  • A calmer space before boarding: MIA’s multi-sensory rooms are after security in Concourse D, just past Checkpoint 4, and in the H–J connector, open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Sources