How to import Atlantic salmon into the UK from the Faroe Islands: the controls, documents and checks, step by step

How to import Atlantic salmon into the UK from the Faroe Islands: the controls, documents and checks, step by step

Atlantic salmon from the Faroes is fishery product of animal origin — it needs a CHED-P raised in IPAFFS before the boat or truck lands.

That single fact reshapes how you plan the whole import. The Faroe Islands are not in the EU and not in Great Britain, so salmon from there clears as a third-country product of animal origin (POAO) — closer, in process terms, to importing from Norway than from Ireland. That means an export health certificate (EHC) signed in the Faroes, a common health entry document (CHED-P) pre-notified in IPAFFS, a customs declaration in CDS, and the prospect of a check at a border control post (BCP) under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM). This guide walks the route end to end, and flags where rules change so you can confirm the current position for your specific salmon line.

A note before we start: this is practical trade guidance, not regulated advice. Where the detail matters to your money or your licence, get the specific commodity line and route signed off — by us or by your own adviser.

Is the Faroe Islands an approved country for importing salmon to the UK?

Yes. GOV.UK lists the Faroe Islands as an approved third country for fishery products, which is the precondition for importing Atlantic salmon at all. But approval is the start of the process, not the end. Approval means the route is possible; it does not exempt you from pre-notification, an export health certificate, or a potential BCP check.

This is the first place importers get caught. "Approved" gets read as "easy", and the salmon gets booked as if it were an internal EU movement. It isn't. The Faroe Islands sit outside both the EU and GB customs and SPS territory, so every consignment of Faroese salmon is a full third-country POAO import. You also need to confirm the specific Faroese establishment — the processor or vessel — is on the list of approved establishments for export to GB. Country approval and establishment approval are two separate checks, and both have to hold before goods move. Check the current approved-country and approved-establishment lists on GOV.UK for fishery products before you commit to a supplier.

What documents do I need to import Atlantic salmon from the Faroe Islands?

You need three documents working together: an export health certificate (EHC) completed by the Faroese competent authority, a CHED-P pre-notification raised in IPAFFS, and a customs declaration submitted in CDS. The EHC and the CHED-P must describe the same consignment — commodity, weight, establishment and treatment — or port health can hold the goods.

Take each in turn, because the failure points differ.

The export health certificate (EHC). Fishery products move on a model EHC that the exporting country's competent authority completes and an official vet (or authorised officer) signs. Your supplier sending you "the paperwork" is not the same as a valid EHC. The certificate has to be the right model for the product, completed in full, and signed by the right official in the Faroes before the goods leave. The original travels with the consignment. If the model is wrong, or a field is blank, or the signatory isn't the recognised competent authority, the certificate is invalid — and an invalid certificate is a hold.

The CHED-P (raised in IPAFFS). The CHED-P is the pre-notification you, as the GB importer (or your agent), raise in the IPAFFS system before the salmon arrives. CHED-P is the type used for products of animal origin — distinct from CHED-A (live animals), CHED-D (certain feed and food of non-animal origin) and CHED-PP (plants and plant products). The CHED-P is what port health and APHA work from to decide whether to check your consignment. The details on it — the commodity code, the establishment, the net weight, the BCP of entry, the expected arrival time — must match the EHC exactly.

The customs declaration (in CDS). Separately, the goods need an import declaration in the Customs Declaration Service (CDS), with the correct commodity code and a declared customs value. This is the fiscal side — duty, VAT and the customs entry — and it runs in parallel with the SPS side, not instead of it.

That parallel is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this trade. Booking the customs entry does not get your salmon released. Without a matched CHED-P, port health can still hold it at the border. Customs clearance and SPS clearance are two different gates, run by two different sets of rules, and your goods pass only when both are green.

What is a CHED-P and when do I raise it in IPAFFS?

A CHED-P is the common health entry document for products of animal origin. You raise it in IPAFFS as a pre-notification before the consignment arrives at the GB border — the rule is pre-arrival, and late notification is its own cause of delay. For fishery products from a third country, the CHED-P is mandatory regardless of whether the goods are then physically inspected.

The timing discipline matters more than it first looks. IPAFFS expects the pre-notification ahead of arrival, with enough lead time for port health to plan any check. Raise it too late and you've created a delay before the salmon has even docked — a self-inflicted hold with nobody to escalate to but yourself. The pre-notification also has to nominate a border control post that is designated to handle fishery products / POAO. Not every BCP takes every commodity class; routing a chilled-salmon consignment to a BCP that can't process POAO is a planning error that strands the goods.

Practically, the sequence upstream is: confirm the Faroese establishment is approved → agree the correct EHC model with your supplier → choose a route into a POAO-capable BCP → raise the CHED-P in IPAFFS against those details → ensure the EHC, once signed, matches what you declared. Before the salmon leaves the Faroes, those things have to line up. When they slip out of order — CHED-P raised before the EHC is settled, then the EHC comes back with a different weight — you get a mismatch, and a mismatch is a check or a hold.

Will my salmon be physically checked at the border?

Maybe — it depends on the risk category set for the commodity under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM), and on selection at the border. Under BTOM, POAO imports carry a risk category (low / medium / high) that sets the rate of documentary, identity and physical checks. Fishery products' category determines how often, on average, your consignments are pulled for inspection.

There are three kinds of check, and it helps to know what each means:

• Documentary check — port health verifies the CHED-P against the EHC and the rest of the paperwork. This can happen on any consignment.
• Identity check — an officer confirms the goods at the BCP match what's declared (seals, labels, species, the establishment mark).
• Physical check — the consignment is opened and examined, and may be sampled (for example, for temperature, or laboratory testing).

Selection is risk-based, not guaranteed on every load — but you have to plan as if a check could happen, because you can't predict the specific consignment that gets pulled. APHA and your local port health authority make that call. Not your freight forwarder. A forwarder books space and lodges entries; they do not own your SPS compliance, and assuming they do is how importers discover, at the BCP, that a step was missed.

One more myth worth killing here: "frozen so it can wait" is the wrong instinct. A frozen-salmon consignment held at a BCP still burns time, cold storage cost and risk by the hour, and a fresh consignment burns shelf life on top. With a perishable, the clock starts the moment it's loaded. Every documentation gap eats margin before the salmon reaches a buyer. BTOM risk categories and check rates change as the model is phased in — confirm the current category and requirements for your salmon line before you book.

Does chilled salmon differ from frozen salmon at the border?

Chilled and frozen Atlantic salmon take the same CHED-P and the same broad import controls, but the temperature and treatment you declare change how port health handles the consignment and which commodity code applies. The declared state has to be true and consistent across the EHC, the CHED-P and the customs entry.

Fresh/chilled salmon, frozen salmon, fillets and whole fish classify under different commodity (tariff) headings, and the right code drives both the customs treatment and the SPS requirements that attach. Declare frozen on the customs entry but chilled on the CHED-P and you've created exactly the inconsistency that triggers a documentary failure. Get the commodity code wrong and you risk the wrong duty, the wrong SPS rules, and — if it's caught later — a correction or a reclaim. Confirm the precise code for your product form against the current UK tariff before you ship; the difference between two adjacent headings can change what the consignment needs.

A worked example: a chilled Faroese salmon consignment, end to end

Walk one consignment through to see how the pieces connect.

A GB importer agrees a regular supply of fresh whole Atlantic salmon from a Faroese processor. Before the first order, they check two GOV.UK lists: the Faroe Islands as an approved country for fishery products, and the specific processor as an approved establishment. Both hold.

At order stage, they confirm the correct commodity code for fresh whole salmon against the UK tariff, and agree with the supplier exactly which EHC model the Faroese competent authority will issue. They choose a route into a GB port whose BCP is designated for POAO.

Before the goods move, the importer (or their agent) raises the CHED-P in IPAFFS — commodity code, net weight, the approved establishment, the chosen BCP, and the expected arrival time — and submits it ahead of arrival. The Faroese official completes and signs the EHC; the importer checks the EHC details match the CHED-P line for line. The customs declaration is prepared in CDS against the same commodity code and a declared value.

On arrival, port health works from the CHED-P. This consignment is selected for a documentary and identity check; because the EHC matches and the establishment mark is correct, it clears SPS. The customs entry clears in CDS. Both gates green, the salmon is released, and the cold chain holds.

Now the counter-version: the EHC comes back showing a slightly different net weight than the CHED-P declared. Port health sees a mismatch, queries it, and the consignment waits — chilled — while it's resolved. Nothing was "wrong" in bad faith; one number didn't line up. That's the whole game. The work is in making the documents agree before the salmon is at the border, not explaining the difference after.

What does this interact with — duty, labelling and the rest?

Importing Faroese salmon doesn't happen in isolation. The same consignment touches the tariff (the commodity code that sets duty and VAT), labelling (species, treatment, country of origin, and any allergen and storage information for the GB market), and your traceability obligations as a food business. Each has its own rules.

On duty and origin: don't assume preferential treatment without checking. Whether a tariff preference applies to Faroese salmon depends on the current trade arrangement and the product meeting the relevant rules of origin — "it came from Europe" is not a rule of origin. Confirm the duty position for the specific code and origin rather than guessing.

On labelling: salmon sold on the GB market carries food information requirements — name of the food, treatment (e.g. previously frozen, where relevant), and the rest of the GB food information rules. If you're also moving product onward, the destination market's rules apply too. Get the label checked against every market the product lands in before it goes to print.

On traceability: as the importer you're a food business operator in the GB chain, with the records and due-diligence obligations that brings. The CHED-P and EHC are part of that paper trail, not a substitute for it.

The point of naming these is candour, not scope-creep: you should know they exist so nothing surprises you at the border or after it. Borders are complicated. We aren't — but the way we make them simple is by mapping the whole chain before the first consignment moves, not by pretending the adjacent rules don't apply.

The short version

Atlantic salmon from the Faroe Islands is a third-country POAO import. You need an export health certificate signed by the Faroese competent authority, a CHED-P pre-notified in IPAFFS before arrival, and a customs declaration in CDS — and the CHED-P and EHC have to match. The goods may be checked at a POAO-capable border control post, at a rate set by the commodity's BTOM risk category. Customs clearance and SPS clearance are separate gates; you pass when both are green. Rules and codes change, so confirm the current position for your specific salmon line before you book.

Something held, or moving soon? The Falsum Helpdesk triages live customs and SPS issues — support.falsum.co.uk. And if you're planning the route rather than fighting a hold: tell us the goods and the route — we'll tell you exactly what you need.

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