Guidance

Border controls for non-food products

Guidance for businesses on OPSS border controls.

From:: Office for Product Safety and Standards
Published: 5 January 2021
Last updated: 26 July 2024 — See all updates

This guidance is for businesses operating at the border importing non-food products.

The Office for Product Safety and Standards’ (OPSS) objective at the border is to detect, deter and disrupt the importation of unsafe products whilst taking every step to maintain the flow of compliant products into the UK.

OPSS works closely with HMRC to target and select products that are considered a high risk of being unsafe or non-compliant.

Consignments arriving in the UK are subject to controls by market surveillance authorities including Trading Standards to ensure that they meet the requirements of all applicable product safety legislation before being released onto the market.

Routing codes

Where a consignment hits an OPSS control it can be identified by its routing code. The second character on the route code identifies OPSS interest and whether there is also other government department (OGD) involvement.

If an entry is showing as ‘Route 1’ or ‘Route 2’ but there is no letter suffix after the routing number, or if the routing number does not match any shown in the table below, the entry is not for the OPSS Borders Profiling Team. If this is the case and you require further assistance, please contact the NCH directly: nch@hmrc.gov.uk.

Route	Meaning and involvement	Uploading of import documents to Government portal by importer / freight agent
1S	OPSS / Trading Standards	To OPSS
2S	OPSS / Trading Standards	To OPSS
1U	OPSS / Trading Standards and Customs (NCH)	To OPSS and NCH
2U	OPSS / Trading Standards and Customs (NCH)	To OPSS and NCH
1V	OPSS / Trading Standards and Border Force	To OPSS and at the Frontier
2V	OPSS / Trading Standards and Border Force	To OPSS and at the Frontier

Documents to be provided for clearance

If you have been advised an entry for your goods has been selected for product safety checks and has been suspended by HMRC please ensure that you have submitted documentation to the Customs Declaration System (CDS) via secure document upload.

Documents to be supplied include as a minimum:

Import Declaration Report
Bill of Lading/Airway Bill as applicable
Invoice and packing list

If you are experiencing issues with accessing or uploading documents to the Government Portal, please follow the below link and complete the online form:

Report problem submitting declaration using customs declaration service.

Releasing goods

Every effort is taken to reduce the time consignments are suspended from the free circulation procedure. Unless your consignment is referred to a Market Surveillance Authority for further checks, it will be released within three working days (or four for Northern Ireland) in line with Market Surveillance legislation.

You will be notified when the status of your consignment changes.