UK importers – registration of professional operators

28 May 2020

Guidance for how professional operators can register with either a UK or proxy address is now live on the plant health portal.

This follows FPC’s challenge of the ruling that companies had to be registered in the UK in order to meet the new plant health import requirements. We are pleased that Defra has taken on board our concerns and is now providing options.

Defra is emailing professional operators who are currently on record with a foreign address so that they are alerted directly to the change. Registration of third country importers will no longer be accepted by Defra after 30 May 2020. Failure to fulfill the new requirement by 30 July 2020 will lead to de-registration of the trader account on PEACH.

There is a direct link on the PEACH homepage (click) to the guidance on the portal, but you will find it easier to check the guidance on what you need to do by using this link – click HERE.