How to Import Hard Cheese from Ireland to the UK: Controls, Documents and Checks, Step by Step

How to Import Hard Cheese from Ireland to the UK: Controls, Documents and Checks, Step by Step

Hard cheese from Ireland is POAO. That single classification decides your CHED type, your IPAFFS pre-notification, and whether it's checked at all.

If you import hard cheese from Ireland to the UK and you're working out exactly what has to happen — and in what order — this is the practitioner's walkthrough. Hard cheese is a dairy product, which makes it a product of animal origin (POAO), and the Republic of Ireland is a third country for Great Britain import purposes. That combination puts your consignment squarely inside sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) import controls: an IPAFFS pre-notification, a CHED-P, and an export health certificate (EHC) signed in Ireland, with check selection governed by the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) and verified at a border control post (BCP). None of these are optional, and the sequence matters. We live in the detail so you don't — here's the whole route, in order.

A note before we start: this is practical guidance, not regulated advice, and SPS rules change. Check the current position for your specific commodity and route on GOV.UK, or ask us.

Why is hard cheese from Ireland treated as a controlled import?

Hard cheese from Ireland is treated as a controlled import because dairy is a product of animal origin (POAO), and the Republic of Ireland is a third country for GB import purposes. Per GOV.UK's guidance on importing POAO, dairy from outside GB sits within SPS controls — so an EHC, an IPAFFS pre-notification and a CHED-P apply, regardless of any tariff position.

This is the point that trips importers up most often. "It's just cheese from Ireland" is where the held consignments start. The UK–EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement removed tariffs on qualifying goods, but it did not remove SPS checks. Your Irish cheddar can be duty-free and still need the full import-control route. Duty and SPS are two separate systems: one is about what you pay, the other is about animal and public health. Hard cheese can clear the first and still be held by the second.

It also doesn't matter that Ireland is geographically next door, or that the cheese moved freely before the BTOM brought EU POAO into staged controls. For GB import purposes, the legal status is third-country POAO, and that status — not your supplier's reassurance or your freight forwarder's habit — sets the controls.

What documents do you need to import hard cheese from Ireland?

To import hard cheese from Ireland you need three core documents in place: an export health certificate (EHC) signed by a certifying officer in Ireland, an IPAFFS pre-notification raised by the importer or their agent before arrival, and a CHED-P generated from that pre-notification. The commodity is classified under a dairy commodity code, which drives the declaration.

Each does a distinct job, so it's worth being precise about them:

• Export health certificate (EHC). This is the official certificate, signed in the exporting country, attesting that the consignment meets GB import health requirements. For dairy it follows the relevant model health certificate. Per APHA's role in SPS certification, it must be signed by an authorised certifying officer before the consignment leaves Ireland — there is no retrospective EHC. The exporter arranges this, not you.
• IPAFFS pre-notification. The Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System (IPAFFS) is the GB platform where the importer (or their agent) pre-notifies the authorities of the incoming consignment. This is the importer's responsibility — your supplier sends the cheese; they don't raise your IPAFFS notification.
• CHED-P. The Common Health Entry Document is the entry document generated in IPAFFS. The suffix tells you which regime applies: CHED-P for products of animal origin (your cheese), CHED-A for live animals, CHED-D for certain feed and food of non-animal origin, CHED-PP for plants and plant products. Hard cheese, as POAO, takes a CHED-P.

Alongside these you'll have the usual commercial paperwork — commercial invoice, packing list, transport documents — and a customs declaration on CDS (the Customs Declaration Service) for the duty and import-VAT side. The SPS documents and the customs declaration run in parallel; clearing one does not clear the other.

What is the step-by-step process to import hard cheese from Ireland?

The step-by-step process runs in a fixed order: classify the cheese and confirm the establishment is approved, the Irish exporter secures the EHC before dispatch, you raise the IPAFFS pre-notification within the deadline before arrival, the CHED-P is generated and matched, the consignment is risk-assessed for checks at the BCP, then it's released.

Here is the full sequence as it actually plays out.

Step 1 — Classify the cheese and check the establishment. Confirm the correct dairy commodity code for your hard cheese — classification determines the duty treatment and feeds the IPAFFS declaration. Confirm too that the Irish producing/dispatching establishment is an approved establishment eligible to export to GB; the establishment number goes on the EHC and must match downstream.

Step 2 — The exporter secures the EHC in Ireland. Before the cheese moves, the Irish exporter applies for the model health certificate for dairy and has it signed by a certifying officer. The certificate records the product, net weight, establishment number and consignment details. Get this right at source: everything downstream is checked against it.

Step 3 — Raise the IPAFFS pre-notification (before arrival). You — or your appointed agent — create the pre-notification in IPAFFS. Your IPAFFS pre-notification has a deadline before arrival, not after. The notification must reflect the EHC and the physical consignment exactly: commodity code, establishment number, net weight, number of packages. This is where mismatches are introduced, and mismatches are what hold loads.

Step 4 — The CHED-P is generated and matched. IPAFFS produces the CHED-P from your pre-notification. This is the entry document that travels with the reference the BCP and the carrier need. The EHC, the CHED-P and the pallet must tell the same story.

Step 5 — Customs declaration on CDS. In parallel, the import customs declaration is lodged on CDS. If the cheese qualifies for preferential (duty-free) treatment under the UK–EU agreement, that's where the claim and the proof of origin sit. Duty-free does not skip any SPS step.

Step 6 — Risk assessment and check selection. When your hard cheese reaches the BCP, the system already knows whether it's been selected for a documentary, identity or physical check. That outcome was set upstream by the consignment's risk category under BTOM. Dairy from the EU is risk-categorised by Defra's Border Target Operating Model — and that category, not your forwarder, decides your check frequency.

Step 7 — Release. If documents reconcile and any selected check passes, the consignment is released to enter free circulation in GB. If there's a mismatch, it waits — and for a perishable, perishable risk compounds by the hour.

How do BTOM risk categories affect your cheese?

BTOM risk categories affect your cheese by setting how often it's checked at the border. Per Defra's Border Target Operating Model, POAO is grouped into high, medium and low risk, and the category drives documentary, identity and physical check frequency. The category attaches to the commodity and origin — not to you — so confirm it for your exact product.

What this means in practice is that two importers bringing in similar cheese face the same baseline check regime, because the regime follows the goods. You don't negotiate it. What you can control is whether your paperwork survives a check when one is selected — and that comes back to the EHC, the IPAFFS pre-notification and the CHED-P all matching each other and the physical consignment.

Because BTOM has been introduced in stages and categories can be reviewed, don't rely on what applied last year. If you last imported Irish cheese before the staged SPS checks went live, the route you remember may now be wrong. Check the current risk category for your commodity, or ask us to confirm it.

A worked example: a pallet of Irish cheddar

Take a single pallet of vacuum-packed mature cheddar from an approved dairy in Cork, sold duty-free to a GB wholesaler. Here's how the route runs end to end.

Before anything moves, the importer confirms the dairy commodity code and checks the Cork establishment is approved to export to GB. The exporter applies for the dairy EHC; a certifying officer in Ireland signs it, recording the establishment number, the product description and the net weight of the cheddar.

With the EHC in hand, the importer's agent raises the IPAFFS pre-notification ahead of the arrival deadline — entering the same commodity code, establishment number and net weight that appear on the EHC. IPAFFS generates the CHED-P. In parallel, the customs declaration goes onto CDS, claiming preferential origin so no duty is due.

At the BCP, BTOM has risk-categorised the consignment and the system flags whether it's selected for a check. Say it's pulled for an identity check: an officer reconciles the CHED-P and EHC against the pallet. Everything matches — product, establishment, weight — and the cheddar is released.

Now the failure version. The EHC says 480kg; the IPAFFS pre-notification says 460kg because someone keyed the net weight from a different document. The identity check finds the discrepancy. The consignment is held while it's resolved — and a chilled product doesn't wait for free. The cheese never changed. The paperwork did. That gap is the single most common reason loads sit.

What does it cost — and what do you actually pay for?

The costs of importing hard cheese from Ireland fall into separate buckets: duty and import VAT via your CDS declaration (duty often nil under the UK–EU agreement for qualifying goods), the EHC certification cost in Ireland, BCP check and handling fees, and your agent's fees. We won't quote figures here — they vary by route, port and provider, and quoting a number that's wrong for your case helps no one.

What's worth understanding is why you're paying. The EHC cost buys the official health attestation. The BCP fees cover the border infrastructure and any physical inspection. The customs charges are the duty and import VAT (with VAT typically recoverable by a VAT-registered importer through normal accounting). Confirm the current charges for your specific port and commodity before you commit — and remember a held consignment carries its own cost in spoilage and missed delivery windows that no fee schedule shows.

How does this interact with labelling and the rest of your import?

Importing hard cheese from Ireland interacts with food labelling rules under retained Food Information to Consumers (FIC) requirements, with commodity-code classification for duty, and with your CDS customs declaration. Clearing the SPS controls gets the cheese across the border; selling it compliantly is a separate discipline you should line up in parallel.

In short, the import controls in this piece are necessary but not sufficient. Before the cheese reaches a UK shelf, the FIC labelling rules apply — mandatory particulars, allergen emphasis, the responsible food business operator's GB address, and any specific dairy requirements. If you're repacking or relabelling, that's its own workstream. And the commodity code you classified for SPS and duty has to be the right one — an incorrect code can mean overpaid duty you could reclaim, or underpaid duty you'll owe. Getting these aligned at the start is far cheaper than unpicking them after a hold or an audit.

What's the most common mistake importers make?

The most common mistake is assuming duty-free means paperwork-free. The UK–EU trade agreement removed tariffs on qualifying goods; it did not remove SPS controls. Importers who treat Irish cheese as a domestic move skip the EHC, IPAFFS or CHED-P — and that's precisely what holds the consignment at the BCP.

The second most common mistake is a mismatch between documents — the EHC, the CHED-P and the physical pallet disagreeing on weight, establishment number or product description. The third is sequencing: trying to act after arrival when the EHC has to be signed before dispatch and the IPAFFS pre-notification raised before arrival. None of these can be backfilled at the border. Get them right upstream, and the route is routine.

Bringing it together

Hard cheese from Ireland is third-country POAO, so it travels the full SPS route: an EHC signed in Ireland before dispatch, an IPAFFS pre-notification you raise before arrival, a CHED-P matched to both, a CDS declaration in parallel, and check selection set by its BTOM risk category. Borders are complicated. The route itself isn't — once you know which system does what, and in what order.

The rules here change, and the detail varies by commodity and route. Treat this as the map, not the final word, and confirm the current position for your exact product on GOV.UK before you ship.

Something held, or moving soon? The Falsum Helpdesk triages live customs and SPS issues — including consignments stuck at a BCP. Tell us the goods and the route, and we'll tell you exactly what you need. support.falsum.co.uk

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