How to import poultry meat into the UK from Thailand: the controls, documents and checks, step by step

How to import poultry meat into the UK from Thailand: the controls, documents and checks, step by step

Thai poultry meat is high-risk POAO. That means a CHED-P, an export health certificate, and a BCP check before it clears.

If you're importing poultry meat from Thailand to the UK, you're moving a high-risk product of animal origin (POAO) into Great Britain — and that puts you squarely inside the sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) controls run under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM). Three things govern whether your consignment clears: whether Thailand and the specific Thai establishment are approved to export poultry meat to GB, whether you hold a valid export health certificate (EHC) signed by the Thai competent authority, and whether you've raised the correct Common Health Entry Document — a CHED-P — in IPAFFS before the goods arrive at an approved Border Control Post (BCP). Get any one of those wrong and the consignment is held. This piece walks the whole chain, step by step.

A note before we start: this is practical guidance, not regulated advice, and the rules for poultry POAO change. Always check the current position for your specific commodity and route on GOV.UK — or ask us — before you book.

Can you legally import poultry meat from Thailand to GB at all?

You can import poultry meat from Thailand only if Thailand is listed as approved to export that commodity to GB, and only from individual establishments that appear on the GB-approved establishment list. Country approval is necessary but not sufficient — the specific slaughterhouse, cutting plant or cold store on your paperwork must be listed too.

GOV.UK publishes the list of third countries and their establishments approved to export animals and animal products to GB. Before you agree a price, confirm two things on that list: that Thailand is approved for the exact poultry product you're buying (raw, cooked, mechanically separated meat and so on can be treated differently), and that your supplier's establishment approval number appears against poultry meat. "Cleared last time" doesn't guarantee it clears this time — establishments get added and removed, so check the current listing for this shipment, not the one you saved last quarter.

If the establishment isn't listed, no certificate and no CHED-P will rescue the consignment. Eligibility is the foundation everything else sits on.

What does BTOM mean for poultry meat from Thailand?

Under the Border Target Operating Model, every product of animal origin is assigned a risk category — high, medium or low — and that category sets your documentary, identity and physical check requirements at the border. Poultry meat is treated as high-risk POAO, which means the fullest set of controls applies: a health certificate, pre-notification, and the prospect of identity and physical checks at the BCP.

BTOM is the framework that replaced the previous phased import-controls regime, and Defra is responsible for the risk categorisation. Because the risk picture can move, the check frequency for a given commodity and country isn't fixed forever. The practical consequence for you as an importer: a high-risk classification means you front-load the work — certificate, notification and an approved entry point all need to be sorted before the goods reach GB, not at the border. Check the current BTOM risk category for poultry meat from Thailand on GOV.UK before you plan the route, because it determines how often your consignments get physically opened and inspected.

What is an export health certificate and who signs it?

An export health certificate (EHC) is the official document, signed by an official veterinarian of the Thai competent authority, that attests your poultry meat meets GB import conditions. It travels with the consignment and is the basis on which GB allows the goods in. Without a valid, correctly signed EHC for the right commodity, the consignment cannot clear.

The GB government publishes model health certificates for each commodity, including poultry meat. Your Thai exporter's official vet must complete and sign the current published version of the correct model — not a superseded one. Using an out-of-date certificate model is one of the cleanest ways to get held, because the certifying statements on older versions may not match the conditions GB now requires.

Two details matter here. First, the certificate model depends on the product: raw poultry meat, heat-treated cooked poultry, and poultry meat products each map to different model certificates and different attestations about treatment and origin. Second, the EHC is issued in the exporting country — so the work of securing it sits with your supplier and their official vet, but the consequences of getting it wrong land on you at the GB border. Tell your supplier exactly which product you're importing and confirm which model certificate they're using before the goods are certified, because a certificate cannot be amended after the fact at the BCP.

What is a CHED-P and who raises it?

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 POAO consignment is arriving. For poultry meat from Thailand, you (the importer or your representative) must raise it before the goods arrive, declaring the commodity, the treatment, the EHC reference and the BCP the consignment will enter through.

This is the step importers most often get wrong, because of a common assumption: your freight forwarder books the transport slot, but raising the correct CHED-P in IPAFFS is on you, the importer of record, or whoever you formally appoint to do it. If you assume the forwarder handles the SPS pre-notification and they assume you do, nobody raises it — and the consignment is held on arrival.

The CHED comes in types matched to the goods: CHED-A for live animals, CHED-P for products of animal origin, CHED-D for high-risk food and feed not of animal origin, and CHED-PP for plants and plant products. Poultry meat is POAO, so it's a CHED-P. Raise it in IPAFFS (the Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System), the GB service for pre-notifying SPS consignments. The pre-notification has to go in within the required window before arrival — check the current notice period for POAO on GOV.UK, as it's one of the details that gets revised.

Why must the EHC and the CHED-P match exactly?

Most poultry holds at GB BCPs come down to one mismatch: what the EHC says versus what the CHED-P declares. The commodity description, the treatment, the establishment number, the quantities and the certificate reference on your IPAFFS pre-notification must line up with the physical certificate travelling with the goods. Any discrepancy is grounds for a hold while it's resolved — and for perishable poultry, the clock is unforgiving.

Think of the CHED-P as your declaration of what's in the box and the EHC as the official attestation of the same thing. The BCP's job is, in part, to check that the two agree and that the goods in front of them match both. If your CHED-P says "raw poultry meat" and the EHC certifies "heat-treated poultry meat product," that's a mismatch. If the establishment number on the certificate isn't the one you entered in IPAFFS, that's a mismatch. None of these are exotic — they're the everyday causes of avoidable holds.

The fix is procedural, not clever: certify the product, then build the CHED-P from the certificate, field by field, before the goods leave Thailand. The documents should describe one consignment, not two.

What happens at the Border Control Post?

At the BCP, GB authorities carry out checks proportionate to the risk category: a documentary check (always), and identity and physical checks at a frequency set by the BTOM risk picture for poultry meat. Port health and the relevant authorities verify the EHC, confirm the CHED-P matches, and — when selected — open and inspect the consignment. The consignment is released only once checks are satisfied.

Two things decide whether this step is smooth. First, the consignment must arrive at a BCP approved to handle poultry POAO. A valid EHC won't save you if the goods land at an entry point not designated for products of animal origin — the port has to match the goods. Confirm the BCP's designation before you route the freight, and declare that same BCP on the CHED-P. Second, because poultry meat is high-risk, expect a higher likelihood of physical inspection than you'd see for a low-risk product, and build the time and handling for that into your plan.

For chilled or frozen poultry, a hold isn't just an administrative delay — the cost of a perishable hold compounds by the hour, in storage, in shelf-life lost, and in the risk of the consignment being rejected outright. That's exactly why the work in front of the border matters more than the work at it.

What about commodity codes, duty and labelling?

Alongside the SPS controls, your poultry meat needs a correct commodity code for the customs declaration, which determines the duty and import VAT payable and feeds the safety-and-security data. The SPS chain (EHC, CHED-P, BCP) and the customs chain (commodity code, declaration on CDS, duty) run in parallel — both have to be right for the goods to clear and for you to pay the correct amount.

The commodity code classifies your exact product — and for poultry, the distinctions are fine-grained: species, cut, fresh versus frozen, bone-in versus boneless, and whether it's been salted, cooked or otherwise processed all change the code. The code you choose drives the duty rate, and it also has to be consistent with how you've described the goods on the CHED-P and the EHC. A product described one way for SPS and another way for customs is a classification problem waiting to surface. Customs declarations are made on CDS, the Customs Declaration Service. If you get the classification wrong and overpay duty, there are routes to reclaim — but it's far cheaper to classify it right the first time.

Labelling is the third strand. Poultry meat placed on the GB market must meet GB food information rules (the retained Food Information to Consumers framework, FIC), including the labelling, allergen and origin requirements that apply to your product and how it's sold. If you're importing to sell on, build labelling compliance in early — relabelling a held or non-compliant consignment after arrival is slow and expensive.

A worked example: a chilled cooked-poultry consignment from Thailand

Picture a GB importer buying heat-treated cooked poultry from a Thai supplier. Here's the chain, run end to end.

Weeks before shipment. The importer confirms on GOV.UK that Thailand is approved for cooked poultry meat and that the supplier's establishment number is on the GB-approved list against that commodity. They check the current BTOM risk category and the correct model EHC for heat-treated poultry, and they identify a BCP approved for POAO on the intended entry route. They classify the product to the correct commodity code and confirm the GB labelling requirements for the retail pack.

Before the goods leave Thailand. The supplier's official vet completes and signs the current version of the correct model EHC for cooked poultry, with the right establishment number and an accurate product description. The importer builds the CHED-P in IPAFFS directly from that certificate — commodity, treatment, establishment, quantities, EHC reference and the chosen BCP all matching — and raises it within the required pre-notification window. They brief the freight forwarder on the confirmed BCP, so the slot and the SPS entry point agree.

On arrival at the BCP. Port health runs the documentary check; the EHC and CHED-P agree, so it passes. Because poultry is high-risk, the consignment may be selected for identity and physical checks; the goods match the paperwork, so it's released. In parallel, the customs declaration on CDS clears against the correct commodity code and the duty is paid.

Outcome. The chilled consignment moves without a perishable hold — not because anything clever happened at the border, but because every dependency was satisfied before the container left Thailand. That's the whole game: walk the import backwards from the BCP, and the check needs a CHED-P, the CHED-P needs an EHC, and the EHC needs an approved establishment.

What documents and checks does each route actually need?

To bring the strands together, here's what a compliant Thai poultry import requires:

• Eligibility: Thailand approved for the specific poultry commodity, and the supplier's establishment on the GB-approved establishment list.
• EHC: the current published model certificate for your exact product, signed by the Thai competent authority's official vet.
• CHED-P: raised in IPAFFS before arrival, matching the EHC field-for-field, declaring an approved BCP.
• An approved BCP: designated to handle poultry POAO, and the same one named on the CHED-P.
• BCP checks: documentary always; identity and physical at the BTOM frequency for high-risk POAO.
• Customs: correct commodity code, declaration on CDS, duty and import VAT paid.
• Labelling: GB FIC compliance built in before the product goes to market.

What you don't need to overthink: this isn't a route you improvise at the border. There's no late fix at the BCP for a wrong establishment, a superseded certificate, or a CHED-P that doesn't match. Almost everything that decides whether a poultry consignment clears is settled before it's even loaded.

Borders are complicated. We aren't. If you're importing poultry meat from Thailand and you want a second pair of eyes on the establishment listing, the certificate model and the CHED-P before you ship — or if you've got a consignment moving or held right now — the Falsum Helpdesk triages live customs and SPS issues. Something held, or moving soon? The Falsum Helpdesk triages live customs & SPS issues at support.falsum.co.uk. Tell us the goods and the route — we'll tell you exactly what you need.

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