Reporting cattle movements

In Scotland, cattle keepers are legally required to report all cattle movements using ScotEID. ScotEID works on behalf of the Scottish Government to ensure that traceability is strictly regulated for biosecurity, food safety and disease control.   

All cattle births, deaths and movements must be reported to the ScotMoves+ system. Additionally, movements ‘within-business’ must be reported to the ScotMoves system.

Any time cattle move onto or off a holding, the movement must be recorded.

External movements (sales, shows, markets, or hires)

When an animal changes keepership or moves to a public event, the movement must be recorded on the paper passport, and the passport must accompany the animal. The movement must be reported to ScotEID within 3 days of the movement date.

It is the responsibility of the departing keeper (where the animal has left) to report the OFF movement. The ON movement must be reported by the keeper receiving the animal (where the animal has moved to).   

Approved Scottish markets and abattoirs will report both movements on your behalf, however, ensuring compliance remains the keeper's ultimate legal responsibility.

For private sales where a market facilitates the sale on your behalf (with no livestock going through the sales ring), you must check whether the market is reporting the movements. Again, ensuring compliance remains you the keepers, ultimate responsibility. 

For those livestock keepers who exhibited livestock at summer agricultural shows it is important to ensure that cattle movements have been correctly recorded on ScotEID. As well as ensuring that all movements have been recorded electronically, the individual animal’s paper passport must be completed with on and off movements to and from the show, especially for those about to start selling cattle at the autumn sales. Passport continuation sheets can be downloaded and printed from ScotEID. 

While some show organisations may have recorded animal movements on behalf of exhibitors, it is ultimately the responsibility of the livestock keeper to ensure that all movements have been correctly recorded. Now that the 2026 summer show season is now mostly over it is a good time to check that all associated show moves have been correctly recorded on and off your holding and on and off the show ground CPH.

If you have concerns or queries regarding show movements, please contact ScotEID. 

Internal movements (ScotMoves)

If an animal is moving within a business, then the movement can be recorded as a within business movement. Seasonal land parcels must have their own CPH numbers and be linked as "additional holdings" under your ScotEID account. There are no distance restrictions between holdings within Scotland, allowing for regional movement between lowlands and highlands. Movements between your main holding and an additional holding must be logged within 48 hours. As keepership does not change, the keeper records a single notification instead of separate on and off movements. Animal passports do not need to be updated or accompany the animal for ScotMoves internal moves.

Useful contacts

ScotEID: 
Email: help@scoteid.com
Tel: 01466 794323
Website: www.scoteid.com

Sarah Balfour, Beef Consultant, Sarah.Balfour@sac.co.uk

Posted by SAC Consulting on 17/08/2026