Guides / SPS checks at the border · Updated 19 October 2026

SPS checks on food crossing the UK–EU border

A lorry carrying cheese or chilled meat does not clear the UK–EU border on a customs declaration alone. It also has to pass sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on the way out of Great Britain and again on the way in, and vice versa for EU food heading to GB. Here is what those checks actually involve, in both directions, and why they exist.

What "SPS checks" means

Sanitary and phytosanitary checks are controls that verify food, animal products and plant products meet the destination's health, hygiene and biosecurity standards — separate from, and in addition to, the customs declaration that establishes duty, VAT and admissibility. The European Commission's guidance on official controls describes the legal basis as Regulation (EU) 2017/625, under which consignments subject to SPS control are checked at designated Border Control Posts (BCPs) through three distinct steps:

• Documentary checks: verifying the official certificates and other paperwork accompanying the consignment.
• Identity checks: confirming the goods, their labelling, seals and means of transport match what the documents say.
• Physical checks: direct examination of the goods themselves, including sampling and laboratory testing where needed.

Which of these three a given consignment actually gets, and how intensively, depends on a risk category assigned to the product — not on which direction it is travelling.

EU to Great Britain: risk-tiered checks under BTOM

Food, animal products and plant products arriving in Great Britain from the EU are sorted under the UK's Border Target Operating Model into risk categories. GOV.UK's published categorisation for animal and animal-product imports sets out three tiers:

• Low risk: no routine documentary, identity or physical checks, though intelligence-led checks can still happen; no health certificate needed, but a commercial document from the supplier must travel with the goods.
• Medium risk: needs a health certificate from the country of origin's competent authority, and may face documentary, identity and physical checks at a published inspection rate (GOV.UK's framework splits medium risk into three sub-levels, from a 1% baseline up to 30%, depending on the public-health or biosecurity consequence of non-compliance).
• High risk: needs a health certificate and faces physical and identity checks on every consignment (a 100% inspection rate).

Every consignment, whatever its category, must be pre-notified through IPAFFS before arrival; our guide on IPAFFS pre-notification covers that mechanic in detail, including who submits it and how it links to the customs declaration. Medium- and high-risk consignments must then enter Great Britain through a Border Control Post designated for that category of goods — not any crossing the driver happens to choose. For the full breakdown of how the three BTOM risk tiers work for EU food and plant imports, see our guide on the Border Target Operating Model risk categories.

Great Britain to EU: the certificate comes first

Running the same lorry the other way, UK food of animal origin leaving for Poland or anywhere else in the EU is treated by the EU as a third-country import, and the paperwork obligation sits earlier in the journey. GOV.UK's guidance on getting an export health certificate (EHC) explains that an official veterinarian or, for some products, a local authority inspector has to inspect the goods and sign the certificate before departure — it is not something the exporter can complete and sign themselves. The producing business also has to be on the list of establishments approved to export that category of product to the EU; a correctly filled EHC does not help if the originating plant is not on that list.

On arrival, the EU side runs the same three-check structure described above — documentary, identity and physical — at a BCP designated for the product type and its temperature regime (chilled, frozen or ambient). The European Commission's guidance on food and feed import controls confirms that a consignment can only enter the EU once it has passed these checks and a Common Health Entry Document has been issued through TRACES, the Commission's tracking platform. For a full walkthrough of the EHC process — applying through EHC Online, finding a certifying officer and the common reasons certificates get rejected — see our guide to export health certificates for UK food going to the EU.

Why the checks exist in the first place

Both sides run this system for the same underlying reason: once the UK left the EU's single market for goods, a shared veterinary and phytosanitary area no longer automatically covers food crossing the border, so each side needs its own evidence that imported food meets its health and biosecurity standards before it is released. The European Commission frames this as confirming that imports meet the same requirements applied to food produced within the EU itself, across the whole production and export chain, not only at the final paperwork stage. The UK's risk-tiering exists to focus the heaviest physical inspection resource on the highest-risk products (meat, dairy, fish, live animals) while leaving genuinely low-risk goods to move with lighter routine control.

What happens if a consignment fails a check

The European Commission's guidance is direct about the consequence: where goods do not meet the requirements, the authority can order destruction, re-dispatch outside the EU, special treatment, or another appropriate measure. On the GB-bound side, the published risk categories work the same way in reverse — a consignment that fails documentary or identity checks at the BCP does not get waved through because the rest of the load looks fine. In practice, most failures at either border trace back to one of a short list of causes: a certificate that does not match the product in the load, a producer that is not (or is no longer) on the approved list, missing pre-notification, or a consignment routed to a BCP that does not accept that category of goods.

A short pre-dispatch checklist

• Confirm the risk category your product falls into on the destination side, before you book transport.
• Check whether a health certificate is needed, and who is qualified to sign it.
• Confirm the producing or exporting business is on any required approved list.
• Pre-notify (IPAFFS for GB-bound goods, TRACES/CHED for EU-bound goods) within the required time limit.
• Check the BCP on your route is designated for your product type and temperature regime.
• Keep the EORI number and customs declaration separate in your mind from the SPS paperwork — both are needed, and neither substitutes for the other.

The customs declaration itself, as distinct from the SPS layer described here, is covered in our guide to how CDS import declarations work; where goods travel under transit before reaching an inland office, see T1 transit from the UK to the EU. For the Polish-side experience of receiving a food import from the UK, including the documents a Polish buyer typically expects, see Easy Clearance's guide to SPS checks on food imports from the UK.

Related guides

• Border Target Operating Model: risk categories for EU food and plant imports

• Export health certificates for UK food going to the EU

• Importing honey from Poland and the EU into Great Britain

Sources

• Risk categories for animal and animal product imports from non-EU countries to Great Britain (GOV.UK)
• Get an export health certificate (GOV.UK)
• Import controls of food and feed Q&As (European Commission)

General information, not legal, tax or customs advice. Rules change; confirm current requirements on gov.uk or with a registered agent before you ship.