Certificate of Freesale Document

Certificate of Free Sale

A Certificate of Free Sale is a document required by certain countries for certain commodities such as medical devices, pharmaceuticals or plants. It certifies that the specified imported goods are freely and normally sold in the exporting country’s open markets and have approval to be exported.

With regard to medical devices, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency will provide a Certificate of Free sale if the following are available:

1. Proof of Manufacture
2. A CE mark and corresponding certification from the manufacturer
3. The location of the manufacturer in the UK
4. CE marked equivalence provided by the manufacturer if the device is non-CE marked for being sold outside the EU.

With regard to plants, a Certificate of Free Sale is an attestation that a plant protection product complies with Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 and may be freely sold in the UK, and can exported to countries which do not have their own regulations. This is a free service provided by the Chemicals Regulation Division (CRD), which is part of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE).

The certificate allows for additional information to be added such as manufacturing sites, exporter, distributor etc. This information is optional at the request of the exporter, but can only be placed under the section that reads ‘The following information has been supplied by the applicant and has not been verified by the Health and Safety Executive’.

Certificates are embossed with the official CRD seal and issued within three working days of notice.You should not need a certificate of free sale to export plant protection products between countries within the EU.

A Notary will carry out checks on the certificates with the relevant agencies to ascertain its authenticity and can then either notarise the original certificate or a copy of it if it is required to be used abroad.