How Do You Import Poultry Meat into the UK from Poland? The Controls, Documents and Checks, Step by Step

How Do You Import Poultry Meat into the UK from Poland? The Controls, Documents and Checks, Step by Step

Poultry meat from Poland is POAO — high-risk. It needs a CHED-P, an export health certificate, and a booked slot at a BCP.

That one sentence is the whole import in miniature. Poultry meat is a product of animal origin (POAO), which means it sits inside the UK's sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) controls — not just customs. So importing it from Poland involves two parallel tracks running at once: the customs declaration (commodity code, duty, the CDS entry) and the SPS controls (an export health certificate signed in Poland, a CHED-P pre-notified in IPAFFS, and a check at a border control post (BCP) when it reaches the GB border). Get the customs side perfect and miss the SPS side, and a chilled consignment still doesn't clear. This piece walks the whole thing backwards and forwards so an operations lead can see exactly where their process needs to start — and who owns each step.

Why is importing poultry meat from Poland not "simple EU trade"?

Brexit didn't make EU food imports paperwork-light. Poultry from Poland now needs more documentation than a shipment from outside Europe used to. Since the end of the transition period, EU-origin POAO entering Great Britain is subject to full SPS import controls under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) — the same kind of controls long applied to rest-of-world goods.

The instinct that "it's the EU, so it's frictionless" is the most common — and most expensive — misread an importer can carry. Free trade under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement removes most tariffs on qualifying goods, but it does nothing to remove SPS controls. Animal-health and public-health rules are separate from duty. Poultry meat is high-risk POAO, so it carries the full documentary, identity and (where flagged) physical check regime. Per GOV.UK's guidance on importing animals and animal products, the controls that apply are set by the goods themselves — their species, their product type, their risk category — not by whether the country of origin is inside or outside the EU.

So the starting point isn't "what's the duty?" It's "what do the SPS rules require for this commodity, on this route, right now?"

What is the export health certificate, and who signs it?

The export health certificate (EHC) is the official document, signed by a competent authority in Poland, certifying that the poultry meat meets GB import conditions. It must be issued and signed by an official veterinarian before the consignment leaves Poland. It is not a UK form the importer fills in on arrival.

This is the step most new importers get wrong, because it inverts where the work starts. The EHC isn't generated on the GB side — it originates at the Polish establishment, under the Polish competent authority, before the goods are loaded and dispatched. The official vet inspects, certifies and signs against the conditions in the model certificate that applies to that commodity. The exporter in Poland (your supplier) is the one who arranges it, but as the GB importer you have a direct commercial interest in making sure it happens correctly and on time — because a missing or wrongly completed EHC is not something you can fix retrospectively at the border.

There is no backdating a vet's signature. If the certificate wasn't signed before dispatch, or the wrong model was used, or the dates and seal don't line up, the consignment can be refused. For chilled or fresh poultry, that refusal lands on a perishable product that's already been on a lorry for hours.

Check the current model EHC for poultry meat on GOV.UK for your specific commodity and route before each shipment — the certificate version in force can change, and APHA publishes the models that apply.

What is a CHED-P and how does IPAFFS fit in?

A CHED-P is the Common Health Entry Document for products of animal origin — the pre-notification you raise in IPAFFS to tell GB authorities a consignment of poultry meat is on its way. For POAO, the relevant CHED is the CHED-P (the "P" is for products). It must be submitted before the goods arrive at the GB border.

Here's how the systems relate, because the acronyms blur together fast:

• IPAFFS (Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System) is the GB online platform where you make the pre-notification.
• CHED-P is the document IPAFFS produces for your POAO consignment — your formal declaration that the goods are coming, what they are, where they're from, and which BCP they'll enter through.
• The EHC is the underlying certificate from Poland that the CHED-P references.

You raise the CHED-P in IPAFFS, attaching or referencing the EHC details, and it generates a unique reference number that travels with the consignment. The CHED-P is the SPS equivalent of "knocking on the door before you arrive" — it lets port health and APHA at the BCP know what's coming and decide what checks to apply.

For poultry meat, the CHED-P pre-notification must be in IPAFFS at least one working day before your Polish consignment arrives at the GB border. Treat that as a minimum, not a target — building the notification at the last minute is how avoidable errors creep in. Always confirm the current notification window for your commodity, because BTOM timings have been phased and can be adjusted.

Who is actually responsible for the import paperwork?

The importer of record is responsible for the IPAFFS pre-notification and for ensuring the EHC is valid — not the haulier, and not, by default, the freight forwarder. Your freight forwarder books the transport. Raising the CHED-P and holding the EHC is your responsibility as importer of record.

This is worth stating plainly because the assumption that "the forwarder handles all the documents" causes real holds. A freight forwarder or customs agent can be instructed to raise the CHED-P on your behalf — many do, and it's a sensible delegation — but the legal responsibility for an accurate IPAFFS pre-notification sits with the importer of record. If the notification is wrong, it's your consignment that's held and your relationship with the BCP that takes the strain.

So the practical question for any operations team is simple: who, by name, raises the CHED-P, and do they have the EHC details to do it accurately and on time? If the answer is "we assumed the forwarder did it," that's the gap to close before your next shipment.

What checks happen at the border control post?

When poultry meat reaches the GB BCP, it can face three types of check: documentary (every consignment), identity (verifying the goods match the paperwork), and physical (inspecting the goods themselves). Which checks apply, and how often, is set by the commodity's BTOM risk category.

Under BTOM, Defra categorised POAO by risk — and that category sets the intensity of checks:

• Documentary check — your CHED-P and the underlying EHC are reviewed. This applies to every consignment.
• Identity check — officials confirm the goods physically present match what the certificate and CHED-P describe (seals, marks, labelling).
• Physical check — a hands-on inspection of the goods, applied to a proportion of consignments based on the risk category, and which may include sampling.

Poultry meat is treated as higher-risk POAO, so it sits at the more intensive end of the regime. You won't always get a physical check, but you must arrive at a BCP equipped to handle one, route through the correct BCP for your commodity, and present the consignment in a state that allows inspection. Every hour a chilled poultry consignment sits held at the BCP compounds the cost. The paperwork that prevents it is raised days earlier — which is exactly why the EHC-at-origin and the timely CHED-P matter so much.

Check the current BTOM risk categorisation for your specific poultry product on GOV.UK, because categories and check frequencies are reviewed and can move.

What about the customs side — commodity codes and the CDS entry?

Running alongside the SPS controls is the customs entry: the consignment needs a correct commodity code, a customs declaration submitted through CDS, and any duty accounted for. A correct commodity code isn't enough on its own — without a valid EHC and CHED-P, poultry meat doesn't clear, code or no code.

The customs and SPS tracks are separate but interlocking. On the customs side:

• Commodity code — poultry meat classifies under specific codes that determine duty treatment and flag the SPS requirements. The code drives what controls the system expects to see.
• Customs declaration — submitted via the Customs Declaration Service (CDS), declaring the goods, value, origin and code.
• Duty and origin — under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, qualifying goods of EU origin can attract preferential (often zero) tariff treatment, but only if you can demonstrate origin correctly. "EU trade is duty-free" is a half-truth: it depends on the goods meeting rules of origin and you holding the evidence.

The two tracks must agree. The commodity code on the customs declaration, the description on the CHED-P, and the product certified on the EHC all need to describe the same thing. Mismatches between them are a classic cause of holds — the systems flag the inconsistency, and a perishable consignment waits while it's resolved.

A worked example: a chilled poultry consignment, Poland to GB

To see how it fits together, trace one consignment of chilled poultry meat from a Polish plant to release in GB.

1. Before dispatch (Poland). Your supplier arranges the EHC. An official veterinarian inspects and certifies the consignment against the current model certificate for chilled poultry meat, and signs it before the goods are loaded. You confirm the EHC model is the current one for your commodity and route.
2. Pre-notification (you, as importer of record). At least one working day before arrival, you — or your appointed agent acting on your instruction — raise the CHED-P in IPAFFS, referencing the EHC and nominating the BCP the goods will enter through. IPAFFS issues the CHED-P reference.
3. Customs entry. In parallel, the customs declaration goes in via CDS against the correct poultry commodity code, with origin evidence to claim preference under the TCA if the goods qualify.
4. Arrival at the BCP. The consignment routes to the nominated BCP. It faces a documentary check (always), possibly an identity check, and possibly a physical check depending on its BTOM risk category. Because it's chilled, time matters — the documentary groundwork done days earlier is what keeps it moving.
5. Release. With the CHED-P cleared, the EHC accepted, and the customs entry finalised, the consignment is released for onward movement.

Note where the real work sits: steps 1 and 2 — at origin and before arrival. By the time the lorry is at the border, the outcome is largely already decided by paperwork raised days earlier. That's the practitioner's mindset: the border is where you find out whether the upstream work was right, not where you do it.

What do you actually need before your first Polish poultry import?

In plain terms, before that first consignment moves, you want:

• The right commodity code for your specific poultry product, confirmed (it drives both duty and the SPS flags).
• An EHC arranged with your Polish supplier, on the current model, signed by an official vet before dispatch.
• A CHED-P raised in IPAFFS by a named person on your side (or an instructed agent), within the notification window.
• A nominated, appropriate BCP for your commodity on your route.
• A CDS customs declaration with origin evidence if you're claiming TCA preference.
• Clarity on ownership — who raises the CHED-P, who holds the EHC details, who liaises with the BCP.

What you don't need is to treat this as something only a forwarder can touch, or to assume EU origin removes the SPS work. The systems are learnable, and once the process runs cleanly the first time, it repeats.

Rules on EHC models, BTOM risk categories and notification windows do change — so check the current position on GOV.UK for your exact commodity and route before each campaign, rather than relying on a process that was correct last year.

Importing poultry meat from Poland is a two-track exercise — SPS controls and customs, running in parallel, with the decisive work done at origin and before arrival. Borders are complicated. We aren't.

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

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