Do Indoor Cats Need Vaccinations?

Indoor cats are still generally vaccinated in the UK, though the conversation differs from an outdoor cat's. Some risks travel indoors on your shoes; others are essentially cat-to-cat and drop away sharply for a cat who never meets another. Which vaccines your cat should have is your vet's decision — what you can do is make sure they know how the cat actually lives.

The risks that come indoors anyway

Feline panleukopenia is remarkably durable in the environment and can be carried into a house on footwear and clothing. That is the classic argument for vaccinating a cat who has never set foot outside.

Herpesvirus and calicivirus — the two commonly bundled as "cat flu" — spread between cats, but a great many indoor cats are not as isolated as their owners believe. Consider whether your cat will ever:

• Go to a cattery, or stay with someone who has cats
• Be visited by a sitter who has been handling other cats
• Meet a new cat if the household changes
• Escape, which indoor cats do, usually at the worst moment
• Need a vet stay, where other cats are present

The vaccine where indoor genuinely changes things

Feline leukaemia virus spreads largely through prolonged close contact between cats — grooming, sharing bowls, fighting. For a genuinely single-cat, genuinely indoor household, the exposure route is much narrower, and this is the vaccine most often discussed as optional in that situation. It is still a discussion with your vet rather than a decision to make alone, particularly since a cat's circumstances change.

"Indoor" is not a permanent state

This is the part that catches people out. Indoor cats become outdoor cats when you move somewhere with a garden. They become boarding cats when you finally take a holiday. They become multi-cat households when someone brings home a kitten. Each of those changes the picture, and none of them prompt a conversation with the vet unless you start one.

Recording how your cat lives

CorePaw's digital passport has living environment as a proper field — indoor, outdoor, or indoor and outdoor — sitting alongside the microchip and insurance details. It is there because it is clinically relevant: it changes the parasite conversation and the vaccination conversation, and it is exactly the sort of context a vet meeting your cat for the first time will not otherwise have.

The app is species-aware throughout rather than being a dog app with cats bolted on. A cat's tracker is called Activity rather than Walks. Its toilet tracker reads Litter. The vaccine information covers cat vaccines — FVRCP, FeLV, chlamydophila, rabies — as well as dog ones, and the AI vaccination-card scan reads cat cards too.

What to take to the appointment

If you want a useful conversation about which vaccines make sense, arrive with the facts: the full vaccination history with dates and products, whether the cat goes out, whether there are other cats, and whether boarding or travel is likely this year. The vet health summary PDF covers the first of those in one tap; the rest is worth thinking about before you go in.

See also: what the abbreviations on a cat's vaccination card mean.

General information, not veterinary advice. Your vet decides what your cat needs.