Is Your Pet's Microchip Actually Registered to You? The Pre-Season Audit and Contact Chain

Find your pet’s chip number, run it through AAHA’s Microchip Registry Lookup Tool, and log into or phone each company the tool names. Then check every field yourself: the tool shows you no owner data. There is no single national microchip registry, so the record can be blank, out of date, filed under a breeder’s name, split across several companies, or parked with a business that has closed. The animal will still scan fine. The failure is clerical, and the only way to find it is to go look.

This is a maintenance job that takes about twenty minutes at a kitchen table. If you are still choosing between identification technologies, our QR code pet tag versus microchip comparison covers that choice. If your pet is missing right now, go to finding a lost pet after a disaster. If that search has come back empty, see a lost pet transported out of the county or state.

If Someone Might Be Searching For You, Read This First

This page tells you to keep a home address current in a microchip registry and to add a veterinarian and an out-of-area contact to the contact chain. Our fleeing domestic violence with a pet page names those same fields as ways an abuser could use this record to find you. If that risk applies to you, stop here, read that page, and talk to an advocate before you enter or update anything below.

What the Chip Holds, and What It Does Not

The AVMA says a pet microchip “contains only a unique identification number. It does not contain your pet’s information or your personal information.” Your name, phone, address, vet, and the person who can take the animal if you are in a hospital bed all live in a registry, a commercial database run by a company that sells microchips, recovery services, or both.

The AVMA describes the reunion chain: staff at a shelter or clinic scan the animal, use the number to identify the registry, and the registry contacts the owner using the information on file. Every link is mechanical except the last, which is a data-entry field that you own and nobody audits for you.

The AVMA also says the U.S. has no single, centralized database for registering pet microchips. AAHA’s tool page explains why: the Animal Welfare Act does not authorize USDA-APHIS to regulate private pet ownership, so it cannot mandate a national standard for pet microchips or scanners. The result, in AAHA’s words, is “multiple microchip companies with multiple scanners, multiple radio frequencies, and multiple registration databases.” AAHA’s 2025 article quotes Tom Sharp, president and chief executive of the nonprofit registry AKC Reunite: “If the microchip is not enrolled, it’s like having a Social Security card with no name on it.”

The failure is clerical, and it has been measured

Ohio State University’s news office reported a JAVMA study in January 2010. Fifty-three shelters across 23 states kept monthly records on microchipped animals from August 2007 to March 2008, covering 7,704 animals. Lead author Linda Lord, then an assistant professor of veterinary preventive medicine, said “the biggest reason owners couldn’t be found was because of an incorrect or disconnected phone number in the registration database.” She added: “The chip is only as good as my ability as a pet owner to keep my information up to date in the registry.”

Our QR tag versus microchip page holds the full breakdown. Two of its categories matter here: some chips were never registered at all, and some were registered in a database different from the manufacturer’s, which is why a lookup can return a name you did not expect.

The data are old. The release describes AAHA’s lookup tool as newly launched, with three of the six major registries then participating. AAHA’s participating list now runs to dozens of companies. More participating databases make a lookup more likely to find your record, and more companies make it more likely your records are scattered across several of them.

Lord also recommended that veterinarians scan chips at annual wellness exams and remind owners to keep registry information current, and that shelters make sure information is in the registry before an animal leaves. Nobody audits the record for you, so do it yourself once a year.

Before You Start: Get the Number in Front of You

Look in this order:

1. The enrollment confirmation from the registry. Some registries need more than the number to let you into the account. AKC Reunite tells owners to have the enrollment confirmation handy, because it “will have your pet’s ID number and Enrollment Key”. Both are required to attach a pet to an online records account.
2. The adoption packet, purchase contract or rescue paperwork. Shelters and rescues often print the chip number there even when they have not transferred the registration.
3. Your veterinary records. The implanting clinic normally records the number, and most clinics will read it back over the phone.
4. A scan. If none of the above turns it up, AAHA says to take the animal to the nearest animal hospital and ask for a microchip scan. AAHA notes that a wellness exam is the natural time and that there is typically no charge.

Write the number down in two places that are not your phone. Our pet emergency binder page covers where the paper copy belongs, and the waterproof pet document kit page covers keeping it legible.

Digit counts. The AVMA says U.S. microchips typically transmit a number that is nine, 10 or 15 digits long, and AAHA’s tool asks for the 9-, 10- or 15-digit number. A 9- or 10-digit number is not a broken 15-digit number or a typo. It is an older, non-ISO chip, and the lookup handles it. AAHA says the 15-digit chip is the international standard (ISO 11784:1996 and ISO 11785:1996) and advises anyone who travels or moves outside the U.S. with a pet to consider one. The AVMA says a non-ISO chip may not be readable unless a universal scanner is used that can detect multiple frequencies, and that universal scanners are widely used by U.S. veterinary clinics, shelters and animal control agencies. This page does not state any country’s import rules; check the destination’s own authority, and see health certificates for crossing state lines during an evacuation for the domestic side.

Step One: Run the AAHA Lookup

The AVMA sends owners to one place by name: AAHA’s Microchip Registry Lookup Tool, or your veterinarian’s help identifying the registry. The tool lived for years at petmicrochiplookup.org. As of August 5, 2026, that domain returned a permanent redirect to AAHA’s own page. If the old URL is written in a binder or a pet-sitter sheet, write the new one next to it.

AAHA’s instructions: enter the microchip number without spaces or punctuation to get a list of registries to contact for pet owner information, then start with the first company listed (the most recent registry) and contact each to ask whether it has the owner’s information.

Two limits matter.

The tool does not show you your own data. AAHA states that it “does not disclose pet owner information or allow pet owners to update their pets’ microchips.” A block headed Attention Pet Owners! repeats that the page is not a place to register or update a microchip and says to contact a pet registry service for that. AAHA also says it does not manage microchip registries and cannot assist pet owners with microchip-related issues.

The tool does not see every company. It searches only companies that choose to participate. AAHA publishes the participating list on the same page, across two categories, microchip registries and pet recovery services. A silent result does not prove a chip is unregistered. It means the participating databases did not return it.

What the output means. The list of registries with information on file appears in chronological order, with the most recent update first. If the chip has not been registered with any pet recovery service registry, the result defaults to the manufacturer or distributor. The top of the list is the record most likely to reflect the present, but if the current holder of the animal never touched a record, the top can still be somebody else.

Step Two: Read the Result Against These Outcomes

What you do next depends on what came back.

What the lookup returned	What it usually means	Your fix route
One registry you recognize	The record exists and you have probably touched it before	Log in and audit the fields yourself. The lookup cannot see them
One registry you do not recognize	A clinic, shelter, rescue or breeder enrolled the chip under their own account	Contact that company, confirm whose name the record is in, start a transfer if it is not yours
Several registries at once	Often a shared-code chip, or a chip registered more than once	Work down the list from the top, per AAHA. Then make sure the record you control is the current one
A manufacturer or distributor only	Per AAHA, the default result when no participating registry holds a registration	Register the chip now, with a registry that accepts your chip’s brand
A company that no longer operates	The registry shut down and was disconnected from the tool	Re-register with a different company. AAHA says the chip does not need replacing
A failed search	Per AAHA, a registry could not be checked	Re-run it later. Draw no conclusion from it

One registry, and you recognize it

Good news, and not the end of the job. The lookup told you where the record lives, not whether it is right. Go to Step Three and read every field.

One registry, and you have never heard of it

This is the most common way a chip fails a family that did everything else correctly. Somebody enrolled the chip, and it was not you.

The AVMA says many shelters implant microchips in adopted animals, so adopters should ask the shelter for the number and register it in their own name. AAHA names a second version for low-cost clinics, quoting veterinarian Paige Andersen: “With microchip clinics, the owner has to log on (to a microchip registry) to get all your information registered.” Ask your veterinary team whether they registered the chip and where, “since there are dozens of microchip registries.”

Call the company the lookup named. Ask whose name is on the record and what its process requires to move it to yours. If you adopted, bought from a breeder, or took an animal from a friend who was rehoming, assume the record is not yours until the company says otherwise. Our newly adopted pet emergency checklist and foster pet emergency checklist sit next to this problem. A foster animal may legitimately need to stay registered to the organization while it is in your house.

Why this is an off-season job. A transfer has other people’s response windows inside it. AKC Reunite says that after a transfer request it will email or mail the Primary Contact on file for approval, that “The Primary Contact has 30 days to respond”, and that if there is no response within 30 days the transfer is processed. It says the entire transfer process can take up to 35 days, and that it will consider additional information such as surrender documents, court orders, and adoption and sale agreements.

Those are AKC Reunite’s terms for its own enrollments, not a rule for every registry. The lesson is the shape: a transfer can mean waiting on a third party with no reason to hurry, which is fine to start in February and terrible to start when a watch has been issued. Our hurricane pet preparedness page covers the wider pre-season sequence.

Several registries at once

Do not treat this as an error. AAHA’s guidance is to call the first company on the list and work your way down. There are two ordinary reasons.

A shared manufacturer code. AAHA notes that some chips are not traceable to a single manufacturer or registry maintenance company, and that many of these start with 900. ICAR, which ISO appointed in 2007 as the registration authority for animal RFID manufacturer codes under ISO 11784 and ISO 11785, publishes two kinds of code. The shared code 900 “can be granted to more than one manufacturer,” with a restricted range of identification codes allocated to each registered product. The unshared codes, 901-998, can be granted only to one manufacturer, after official proof that it sold a minimum of one million ICAR-certified transponders per year for two consecutive years. So a 15-digit chip beginning 900 was made by one of several manufacturers sharing that code, and the lookup gives you the candidates instead of guessing.

The chip was registered more than once. Registration is voluntary, free at several companies, and open to any brand at some. 24Petwatch advertises free registration for any brand of microchip, and Free Pet Chip Registry describes itself as usable by anyone with any brand of microchip. Nothing stops a shelter, then an adopter, then a later owner from each creating a record with a different company, and all of them can be live at once.

The record a shelter reaches first is not necessarily the record you control. Where you find a record with your details, confirm it is current. Where you find one with someone else’s, ask that company what it takes to close or transfer it.

A manufacturer or distributor, and nothing else

AAHA says microchips are occasionally implanted but not registered to specific pets, and in that case the lookup lists companies that may have sold the chip. Contacting them for trackback information on the purchaser may lead to the owner’s details, which is the route a shelter takes.

For you, with the animal in the room, the fix is to register it. Several registries say they accept any brand and charge nothing. 24Petwatch says it offers free microchip registration with no mandatory fees for standard services. Free Pet Chip Registry says it has no registration fee, no maintenance fee and no fee to update contact information. Read the terms on the company’s own page before you commit. The AVMA’s framing is the one to keep: implantation is only the first step, and the chip must be registered and kept current to give you the best chance of getting your pet back.

The registry no longer exists

This is not hypothetical. AAHA’s tool page carries a standing notice: “Save This Life has ceased operations; therefore, it was disconnected from the registry database.” It tells owners to contact their veterinarian for their chip information and re-register with a different company if necessary. AAHA’s FAQ says it could not reach the company after multiple phone calls and disconnected its registry from the lookup tool. It says chips starting with 991 or 900164 may need re-registering with another registry, and: “You do not have to replace the chip; you have to reregister it with your current contact information”.

The implant is fine. The company that knew who you were is gone. Avid Identification Systems runs a page titled Help for Save This Life (STL) Pets, which says Avid is offering registration discounts for pets and families affected by the shutdown.

Registries also change hands without shutting down. The Michelson Found Animals Foundation announced on July 21, 2021 an agreement with Pethealth Inc. covering its microchip registry operations. Its notice says the Found Animals Registry has been sold and that all registry accounts were adopted by 24Petwatch.

And it has happened again. A PetPlace release dated December 11, 2025 says the 24Petwatch Microchip Registry will officially move to PetPlace.com in 2026 and that the 24Petwatch.com site will shut down by the end of March and redirect to PetPlace. As of August 5, 2026, 24petwatch.com redirected to petplace.com/pet-microchip-registry, and 24Pet’s own registry page described the registry as being on PetPlace.com. The release says account holders need take no action at this time, and that when it is time to access accounts through PetPlace they will receive a secure link by email prompting a password reset.

An owner who registered with Found Animals a decade ago has had their record moved once already, and the door moved again. The animal did not change, and the registry still holds the record, but the website you would have typed is not the one that answers. If a binder, fridge sheet or sitter card says 24petwatch.com, write petplace.com next to it.

A password-reset email is exactly what a phishing message imitates. If a message tells you to reset a microchip registry password, reach the registry by typing its address yourself, the way you would with a bank.

A failed search

AAHA defines a failed search as meaning the registry could not be checked for the number you entered, that this is out of AAHA’s control, and that you should try again later. It is a plumbing problem, not a finding that your pet is unregistered or that the chip is bad. Re-run it another day.

The scan itself comes back empty

The AVMA says scanning has failure modes of its own. The most frequently reported issue is migration, in which the chip moves from its implantation site. Usually this does not affect the pet’s health, but it can make the chip harder to find if a complete scan is not performed. Things that can interfere with detection include animals that will not stay still, long or matted hair near the site, excessive fat deposits in the implant area, and a metal collar or a collar with a lot of metal on it. The AVMA says universal scanners detect all frequencies, including ISO-compliant 134.2 kHz and non-ISO 125 kHz and 128 kHz chips. So repeat a null scan with a full-body pass on a universal scanner before you conclude anything, and ask your veterinarian to scan the chip during routine checkups to confirm it can still be detected and read.

If your pet has two chips, the AVMA says they will not interfere with each other, and adds: “make sure you keep the registry information updated for each microchip.” Two chips means two audits.

Step Three: Audit the Fields Inside the Record

Nothing so far has verified a single character of your own contact information, because AAHA’s tool is not permitted to show it to you. Log into the registry the lookup named, or phone it, and go field by field. Prefer the login. Every registry covered in the costs section below publishes a free way to change your own details online, and Avid publishes a processing fee for a staff-assisted address change taken by phone.

The AVMA’s instruction at registration works as an inspection standard now: make sure all of your information is correct, especially your phone number(s), email and address.

Run this list against each animal.

Identity of the animal

• Is this record attached to the right animal? In a multi-pet house, a transposed digit puts the wrong chip on the wrong profile. Our multi-pet emergency planning page covers the wider bookkeeping problem.
• Species, breed, color, sex, and altered status. A shelter worker checks these against the animal in front of them.
• A current photograph, if the registry supports one. AKC Reunite lists adding a photo among what an online records account can do.
• Distinguishing marks in words, not just in a picture.

Identity of you

• Is the primary contact you? Not your ex, the rescue, the breeder, or a previous address.
• Mobile number, entered correctly and in service.
• An email address you actually read. One tied to a former employer or a defunct provider is a silent dead end.
• Home address. Update it the week you move.

The reach-past-you layer

• Alternate or emergency contacts. Most owners leave this blank, and the next section is about it.
• Your veterinarian’s name and phone. AAHA lists the veterinarian’s contact information among the fields a registry account will ask for.
• Any medical note the registry allows. The AVMA notes that the chip itself carries no medical information, but some registries let owners store it.

The account itself

• Can you log in today? Test it now, not during an evacuation. If the account needs a document you no longer have, such as AKC Reunite’s enrollment key, find out tonight.
• Does the registry’s contact preference match reality? If it only calls and you only text, say so where the registry lets you.

When you finish, write the date next to the chip number in your pet emergency binder. A date turns a one-time check into a maintenance record.

What the Registry Does With Your Details

People leave fields blank on purpose because handing a phone number and address to a company they have never heard of feels like a bad trade. A half-filled record fails the same way an out-of-date one does, so it is worth answering the worry.

The lookup tool is designed not to expose you. AAHA says that to protect pet owner privacy the tool displays the registries with information available, along with their contact information. A stranger who scans your dog does not see your name. They see which company to call, and AAHA says recovery services have trained experts, resources and infrastructure to contact owners of lost pets.

The AVMA says reputable registries have safeguards to protect your personal information from unauthorized access. That is a statement about reputable registries, not a guarantee about any one, so read the privacy policy of the company the lookup actually named.

Some registries commit in writing to not selling your details. Free Pet Chip Registry says your information will not be sold to third parties and that, other than opt-in pet insurance banners inside your account, you will not be solicited.

If a company’s terms are why you are hesitating, choose a different registry rather than leaving the record thin. A blank alternate-contact field protects your privacy from nobody and costs you the layer that works when your own phone does not.

The Contact Chain: Why One Cell Number Is the Weak Link

In a wildfire evacuation or a hurricane landfall, your mobile number is the field most likely to fail, for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Ready.gov says: “Mobile networks can become overwhelmed during emergencies, making it hard to make and get phone calls.” It adds that text messages require less bandwidth and are transmitted more reliably when many people are trying to use their phones at once. The phone may also be at four percent, under water, or on silent at the bottom of a bag.

Ready.gov’s pet preparedness page gives the fix as a direct instruction about what to put on the microchip registration: “Have your pet microchipped. Make sure to keep your address and phone number up-to-date and include contact information for an emergency contact outside of your immediate area.”

Designing the chain

Slot one: you. Mobile number, and a second number if the household has one.

Slot two: the out-of-area contact. Someone far enough away that the same event is not happening to them: a different metropolitan area at minimum, a different state if you can. This is who a shelter reaches when your tower is saturated and your phone is dead. Choose someone who will pick up an unknown number, then tell them they are listed. Give them the chip number, the animal’s description, your vet’s name, and permission to say “yes, that is their dog, here is how to reach them.”

Slot three: someone local who can physically arrive. The out-of-area contact can vouch and relay, but cannot drive to an intake counter. A neighbor, nearby relative or friend outside the evacuation zone covers the case where the animal needs collecting and you are eleven hours away. Our multi-pet emergency planning page and the holiday sitter emergency plan cover how to brief that person.

Slot four: your veterinarian. A clinic has a phone that gets answered and records that confirm the animal exists. AAHA lists the veterinarian’s contact details among the fields registries ask for.

Do the registries have room for all of that?

Several say they do.

• AKC Reunite says an online records account lets an owner add “unlimited Alternate Contacts,” alongside updating contact information at any hour with no annual fees.
• 24Petwatch lists “Set emergency contacts” among the things an owner can do in the standard plan.
• AAHA describes registration fields that include name, phone, email, home address, and contact information for an alternate contact like a trusted family member plus your veterinarian. It says multiple ways to contact you help ensure you can be reunited as quickly as possible.

If your registry allows only one contact, that is a legitimate reason to add a second registration elsewhere, but do it deliberately. Multiple live records are what make a lookup return a list.

Do not pin the record to where you are going

When an evacuation is imminent, some owners update the microchip address to the hotel or relative’s house they are heading for. Do not overwrite the permanent record with a temporary location. The address on a registration matches a found animal to a known household, and a shelter three counties away cannot know it changed for four days in September. Put temporary details in the alternate contact, the notes field if there is one, and on the physical layers that travel with the animal. Our crate and kennel emergency ID card page and the printable pet emergency wallet card exist for that.

Make the Layers Agree

The same contact chain is written down in at least five places in most households, and a finder will use whichever is in front of them. A mismatch between them is worse than a gap. Walk them in this order:

1. The registry record. Done, if you followed the steps above.
2. The engraved tag on the collar. The AVMA says nothing replaces “a collar with up-to-date identification tags.” A tag with a disconnected number is the same failure as a stale registry, and cheaper to fix.
3. The QR tag profile, if you use one. The profile is owner-editable, which also makes it the layer most likely to be forgotten, since nobody sends a renewal notice. See the QR tag versus microchip page.
4. The card in the carrier and the sheet on the fridge. See the crate and kennel emergency ID card and fridge pet alert card pages.
5. The binder and the records you would need to prove any of it. See the pet emergency binder, paper versus digital medical records, and reconstructing pet records when the clinic is gone.

If a GPS collar is part of your setup, it is a sixth layer with its own account and contact fields. Update it in the same sitting; our GPS tracker roundup covers what it does and does not do.

What a Registry Entry Is, and What It Is Not

AAHA says keeping full registration details current “also provides proof of ownership if your pet is stolen by a stranger or taken to a shelter by an angry neighbor or ex.” That is AAHA’s characterization, and it is worth having in your favor.

But registries are careful about what they will stand behind. Free Pet Chip Registry’s footer says it is not responsible for persons misrepresenting ownership or submitting false information and accepts no responsibility during disputes over ownership of an animal. A current registration in your name is strong, useful evidence and the thing most likely to produce a phone call. It is not an adjudication. Who holds an animal, how long a facility keeps it, and what a jurisdiction requires before releasing it are questions for that jurisdiction’s animal services agency and, where it comes to that, a lawyer. Our page on proving a pet is yours and getting it back collects what several agencies and states publish, and the finding a lost pet after a disaster hub routes the search itself. For the local answer, call your county’s animal services office.

What This Costs, and the One Route Where a Fee Appears

The belief that keeping a registration current requires a paid membership is one reason records go stale. Terms differ and are the company’s to change, so the company’s own page is the authority. As of August 5, 2026:

• HomeAgain says: “Free unlimited updates can be made online or by phone to your pet’s profile and your contact information.” It also sells a paid premium membership with recovery and hotline benefits, but describes the updates as free regardless.
• AKC Reunite says an online records account “allows you to update your pet’s enrollment information 24/7/365 with no annual fees”.
• 24Petwatch, whose owner-facing page is now PetPlace.com, says it offers free microchip registration with no mandatory fees for standard services, with updating contact information inside that standard plan, and separately sells premium memberships.
• Free Pet Chip Registry says there is “no fee to update your contact information”.
• Avid lists “Lifetime enrollment with no annual fees (same account holder)” for PETtrac. The parenthesis points at the transfer case.

One exception sits on the route this page keeps recommending. Avid’s PETtrac FAQ says you may update your information at pets.avidid.com at no charge. It then gives a phone number and menu option for a pet recovery specialist and notes that a staff-assisted address change by phone carries a processing fee. Avid publishes that amount on the FAQ page; read it there, and use the login rather than the phone if the login works. The FAQ describes PETtrac enrollment as a one-time fee with no annual fee after it, which is not the same as free.

AAHA’s summary matches: it is typically free or a nominal one-time fee to enroll, so it is free to update details like contact information for the lifetime of your pet. Money reliably appears on a transfer between owners, which several registries treat as a separate, chargeable, paperwork-bearing transaction. Check the fee on the registry’s page before you start.

So updating your own record online was free at every registry listed above. A staff-assisted address change by phone is not free at Avid. Enrollment is a one-time fee at some companies and free at others. A transfer between owners is its own chargeable transaction at several. This page prints no dollar figures; each company publishes its own.

When the Household Changes

The primary contact field assumes a specific person is reachable and willing. The registry does not find out when that changes unless somebody tells it.

A separation or divorce. The primary contact may now be someone who no longer lives with the animal or no longer wants the call. Everything under the unfamiliar-registry outcome applies, including that a transfer may need the current primary contact’s cooperation. AKC Reunite says it will consider documents such as surrender documents, court orders, and adoption and sale agreements, so documentation helps, and the process is that company’s to run.

A death or incapacity in the household. If the person on the record can no longer answer, the record has quietly stopped working. Update the primary contact, and use the alternate-contact slots to name whoever would actually take the animal.

Any change that moves the animal between people. A rehoming to a family member, an adult child taking a pet when they move out, a long-term foster becoming permanent. Each is a transfer.

Write down in advance who is meant to end up with each animal and what you want done. Our pet guardian directive tool builds that document, and the microchip record is where the name in it needs to appear so the registry can act on it. The pet emergency binder page covers keeping the two consistent.

The Cadence: Put It on a Date You Will Not Miss

The AVMA reduces microchip maintenance to three tasks: make sure the microchip is registered, ask your veterinarian to scan it at least once a year to make sure it is still functioning and can be detected, and keep your registration information up to date. It names the calendar hook: “August 15 is designated as Check the Chip Day each year”. AAHA suggests the same annual habit and adds the extra triggers of traveling with your pet and before loud holidays.

Layer two more on top if you face a defined hazard season:

• Before your season starts. For Atlantic hurricane country, run the audit in the spring, not in August, because a transfer at some registries waits on a third party’s response window. Our hurricane season preparation guide covers what else belongs in that sitting.
• On every change of circumstance. A move, new phone number, new email, new vet, a separation, a new animal, or an animal leaving the household. Our pet emergency kit rotation checklist covers folding this into the same rotation as expiry dates on food and medication.

After a long-distance move, do a full audit and not a field edit, because the address, vet and local contact all change at once. See moving long distance with pets.

The Audit Worksheet

Print or copy this and fill one per animal. The value is in the dates: a blank date column tells you next August which animals you did not get to.

Field	Value	Verified on	Fix needed
Animal’s name
Microchip number (9, 10 or 15 digits)
Second chip number, if any
Registry named by the AAHA lookup
Other registries the lookup returned
Registry account login tested
Primary contact name on the record
Is the primary contact you?
Mobile number on file
Second household number on file
Email on file
Home address on file
Out-of-area contact, name and number
Out-of-area contact has been briefed
Local contact who can collect the animal
Veterinarian on file
Photo on the record
Collar tag matches the record
QR profile matches the record
Carrier card matches the record
Binder copy updated
Chip physically scanned by a vet

The last row is the one people skip. A registry record cannot tell you whether the implant is still readable, and the AVMA’s advice to scan during routine checkups exists because migration and, rarely, failure both happen.

What This Page Does Not Cover

• The lookup output is described from AAHA’s own published description. If your result looks different, trust the screen in front of you and call the company it names.
• Registry terms are as of August 5, 2026 and are the company’s to change. Open the company’s own page before you act on any of them.
• AKC Reunite’s 30-day and 35-day windows are AKC Reunite’s, not an industry standard. No equivalent timeline is claimed for other registries; ask yours.
• The list of registries is not complete. AAHA publishes the companies participating in its lookup, and a company absent from that list may simply not participate. That is why the audit runs through the lookup and then through the company.
• The Ohio State figures come from data collected in 2007 and 2008. They show why a scanned chip can still fail to produce a phone call, but they are not a current snapshot of the registry landscape.
• The 24Petwatch move to PetPlace is reported from PetPlace’s release and the redirect as of August 5, 2026. Whether a particular account has migrated is not known here. Go to the registry by typing its address, not by following an email link.
• Save This Life is reported from what AAHA and Avid published. Per AAHA, it could not reach the company either.
• Import requirements for any country are not stated here.

For how we handle sourcing gaps generally, see our review methodology.

The Twenty-Minute Version

Do these six things tonight.

1. Find the chip number. Two copies, one on paper.
2. Run it through AAHA’s Microchip Registry Lookup Tool and write down every company it returns.
3. Log into the top one. If you cannot, phone it, after checking that company’s own page for whether a staff-assisted change carries a fee.
4. Read every field. Fix the phone number, email, address, and the name on the record.
5. Add an out-of-area emergency contact, per Ready.gov’s instruction, and tell that person they are on it.
6. Write today’s date next to the chip number in your binder, and put 15 August in your calendar as a repeating annual event.

Related Reading

For the search itself, start at how to find a lost pet after a disaster, the hub this page sits under. For the hardware decision, see the QR code pet tag versus microchip comparison. For where the paperwork lives, see the pet emergency binder and waterproof pet document kit guides. For what a facility asks you to produce, see what a pet shelter checks at intake. The rest of the plan is in our pet emergency playbooks hub.