How do you import dried fish into the UK from Vietnam? The controls, documents and checks, step by step

How do you import dried fish into the UK from Vietnam? The controls, documents and checks, step by step

Dried fish from Vietnam needs a CHED-P raised in IPAFFS and an EHC signed by the Vietnamese competent authority — before it sails, not on arrival.

Get those two things wrong and the consignment doesn't move, no matter how clean the fish is. This piece walks one consignment of dried fish from a Vietnamese factory to UK release, naming every control, document and check on the way. The entities you'll meet: the commodity code, the fishery product (a product of animal origin, or POAO), the approved-country list, the approved-establishment list, the catch certificate, the export health certificate (EHC), IPAFFS, the Common Health Entry Document for products of animal origin (CHED-P), the border control post (BCP), the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) risk categories, and customs entry via CDS. Rules change — so treat this as the shape of the job, and check the current position for your exact commodity before you commit.

Is dried fish a fishery product the border controls — even though it's shelf-stable?

Yes. Dried isn't ambient as far as the border is concerned. Dried fish is a fishery product and a product of animal origin (POAO), so it sits under sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) controls — not general customs alone. Shelf-stability changes how you store and ship it, not whether the SPS regime applies.

This is the assumption that sends importers down the wrong path. Because the goods don't need refrigeration, people file them mentally with the dry-goods, treat the border as a customs-only event, and discover at the BCP that there's no CHED-P and no EHC. Per GOV.UK's guidance on importing fishery products, fishery products are POAO and require pre-notification and health certification regardless of whether they're chilled, frozen or dried. The drying changes the product; it doesn't exempt it.

A useful test: if it was a fish (or part of one) and it's intended for human consumption, assume POAO and SPS until you've confirmed otherwise. That confirmation comes from the commodity code and the published guidance for your specific product — dried, salted, smoked and brined fish can each sit on different tariff lines with different requirements.

Which country and establishment rules apply to dried fish from Vietnam?

Vietnam is on the approved-country list for fishery products. But the specific factory that processed your fish also has to be on the approved-establishment list — and those are two separate checks. Country approval gets the route open; establishment approval gets your consignment cleared.

This is the single biggest trap on this route. Buying from a Vietnamese exporter doesn't mean the fish was processed in an approved Vietnamese factory. The border checks the establishment that processed and certified the product, not the trader who sold it to you. GOV.UK lists approved fishery establishments by country and by approval number. If your supplier's processing establishment isn't on that list — or the number on the paperwork doesn't match a listed one — the consignment can't clear. Full stop.

So before anything ships, confirm two things in writing from your supplier:

• The approval number of the establishment that processed the fish, and that it appears on the current GOV.UK approved-establishment list for Vietnam.
• That the establishment is approved for the specific product you're importing — approval can be product-specific, and a factory listed for one category isn't automatically cleared for another.

Approved-establishment lists change. The factory that cleared your last shipment may not be listed for the next, so check the live list before the goods leave Vietnam — not after they've arrived.

What documents does a consignment of dried fish from Vietnam need?

A consignment needs an export health certificate (EHC) signed by Vietnam's competent authority, a CHED-P raised in IPAFFS before arrival, a catch certificate for wild-caught fish, and a commercial set (invoice, packing list, transport documents) for the customs entry. Each consignment-specific document has to describe the same goods consistently.

Take them one at a time.

The export health certificate (EHC). This is the health attestation from the exporting country's competent authority, signed by an official certifier, confirming the fish meets the importing country's requirements. The model EHC for fishery products is published by APHA — and your Vietnamese exporter's certificate has to match that model. EHC model certificates get updated. If your exporter signs an out-of-date model, the consignment can be held no matter how clean the fish is, so confirm they're working from the current model before they certify.

The catch certificate. UK import controls treat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing seriously. For most wild-caught marine fishery products, a validated catch certificate is a documentary requirement, per GOV.UK, evidencing the fish was caught legally. Whether you need one — and what form it takes — depends on the species and how it was caught, so check the IUU requirements for your specific product. Aquaculture (farmed) product is treated differently from wild-caught.

The CHED-P. This is your pre-notification to the UK authorities that a POAO consignment is arriving — raised in IPAFFS (the Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System). The "P" denotes products of animal origin; you'll also see CHED-A (live animals), CHED-D (food and feed not of animal origin) and CHED-PP (plants and plant products). For dried fish, it's a CHED-P.

The customs entry. Separate from all of the above. The goods need a customs declaration submitted to CDS (the Customs Declaration Service), with the correct commodity code, customs value and any preference claimed. A duty-free tariff line doesn't mean a paperwork-free border: dried fish from Vietnam can owe nothing in duty under a preference and still be held on SPS if the CHED-P or EHC is wrong.

The thread running through all of these: the consignment details have to agree. The catch certificate, the EHC and the CHED-P carry the same product description, weights, establishment and consignment references. One mismatch between them is enough to hold the load.

How do you raise the CHED-P in IPAFFS — and when?

You raise the CHED-P in IPAFFS before the consignment arrives at the UK border. Register for IPAFFS, create the notification against the right commodity code, name the approved establishment and the EHC reference, and select the BCP the goods will enter through. Miss the pre-arrival window and the goods can be refused entry.

The fields matter more than the form does. Ask yourself what your IPAFFS pre-notification actually declares about this dried fish:

• The right commodity code — the code drives the controls and the check rate. The wrong code can route the consignment into the wrong regime or the wrong check category entirely.
• The right establishment — the approval number you confirmed against the GOV.UK list, matching the EHC.
• The right BCP — the goods have to physically arrive at a border control post that's designated to handle POAO. Not every port has one, and that decides where the consignment lands.
• The EHC reference and certificate details — these tie the pre-notification to the health certificate travelling with the goods.

Timing is a hard rule, not a courtesy. The CHED-P has to be submitted within the window set out in the guidance ahead of arrival. Your freight forwarder usually books the customs clearance — but confirming the supplier is an approved establishment, that the EHC matches the current model, and that the CHED-P is raised correctly is your job, not theirs. The forwarder declares what you tell them.

What checks happen at the BCP, and what can hold the consignment?

At the BCP, a consignment of dried fish can face three checks: a documentary check (do the EHC, catch certificate and CHED-P agree and meet requirements?), an identity check (do the goods match the paperwork?), and a physical check (inspection or sampling of the fish itself). How often each applies is set by the BTOM risk category for the product.

The Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) sorts SPS goods into risk categories — and those categories set your check rates and, with them, your BCP charges and the time the goods spend at the border. A classification set before BTOM took effect may now be wrong, so check the current risk category for your commodity rather than relying on what was true a couple of years ago.

What actually triggers a hold, in practice:

• The establishment isn't on the approved list, or its approval number doesn't match the EHC. Documentary failure.
• The EHC is an out-of-date model, missing its official signature, or describes goods that don't match the rest of the set.
• The catch certificate is missing for a wild-caught product that requires one.
• The CHED-P wasn't raised in time, names the wrong BCP, or carries the wrong commodity code.
• The goods don't match the paperwork at identity check — wrong weights, wrong product, wrong marks.

A hold on dried fish doesn't compound by the hour the way a chilled or frozen consignment does — that's the one mercy of a shelf-stable product. But it still incurs storage, re-inspection and demurrage costs, and a refused consignment can mean re-export or destruction. Shelf-stable buys you time at the border; it doesn't buy you out of the controls.

A worked example: one consignment, factory to release

Walk a single load through it. A UK importer is buying 5,000 kg of dried, salted fish from a Vietnamese supplier for human consumption.

Before anything ships. The importer confirms the commodity code for the specific product (dried/salted changes the line), checks Vietnam is on the approved-country list for fishery products, and — crucially — gets the processing establishment's approval number and verifies it on the current GOV.UK approved-establishment list for that product category. They confirm the fish is wild-caught and therefore needs a validated catch certificate, and that the supplier's official certifier will issue the EHC against the current APHA model.

As the goods are prepared. The Vietnamese competent authority issues the signed EHC; the catch certificate is validated; the commercial documents (invoice, packing list, bill of lading) are drawn up. The importer checks the product description, weight and establishment reference are identical across the EHC, the catch certificate and the commercial set.

Before arrival. The importer (or their agent, on their instruction) raises the CHED-P in IPAFFS — right commodity code, the verified establishment, the EHC reference, and a BCP designated for POAO. In parallel, the customs declaration goes to CDS with the commodity code and any preference claimed.

At the BCP. The consignment is presented. The documentary check confirms the EHC, catch certificate and CHED-P agree. If the BTOM risk category for the product triggers it, an identity and/or physical check follows. Documents match, goods match — the CHED-P is cleared.

Release. With the SPS clearance and the customs entry both satisfied, the goods are released for onward delivery.

Every point where this stops is a document or a match: an unlisted establishment, a stale EHC model, a missing catch certificate, a late or mis-keyed CHED-P, or a weight that doesn't reconcile. None of them are about the fish. All of them are decided upstream.

How do the customs and SPS sides fit together?

They run in parallel and both have to be satisfied before release. The SPS side (EHC, catch certificate, CHED-P, BCP checks) clears the goods for entry on health and legality grounds. The customs side (the CDS declaration, commodity code, value and any preference) clears them on duty and import grounds. One doesn't substitute for the other.

This is where the "it's duty-free" assumption bites. The UK and Vietnam have trade arrangements that can reduce or remove duty on qualifying goods — but a preference claim depends on the goods meeting the rules of origin and you holding the right origin evidence. Even with zero duty owed, the SPS regime is untouched: the CHED-P, the EHC and the establishment approval are still mandatory. Treat duty and SPS as two separate gates, each with its own paperwork, and don't let a clean tariff line lull you into thinking the border is clear.

If you're claiming a preference, check the current rules of origin for the product and the evidence required — and keep that evidence on file. Customs entries can be checked after release.

Got a question about your goods specifically? Talk to us.

Importing dried fish from Vietnam is a chain of upstream decisions — the establishment, the certificate model, the catch certificate, the commodity code, the CHED-P — that are all settled before the container sails. Get them right at the factory and the border is a formality. Get one wrong and the consignment waits.

Rules and lists change, and the detail differs by species, process and route. If you've got a consignment moving — or one already held — the Falsum Helpdesk triages live customs and SPS issues: support.falsum.co.uk.

Tell us the goods and the route — we'll tell you exactly what you need.

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