A curtain-sider leaves a Dutch cheese warehouse at 4pm and books the Eurotunnel for the next morning. The buyer in Birmingham expects pallets on the shelf by Thursday. If the IPAFFS notification was not lodged the working day before, the load can be stopped before anyone reads the invoice. Importing dairy to the UK is not a customs job with a veterinary footnote — it is a veterinary job with a customs footnote, and the order matters.
What importing dairy to the UK involves after Brexit
Cheese, butter, milk powder, cream and colostrum are products of animal origin. A consignment must satisfy four things at once, and failing one stops the truck:
- the risk category assigned to your specific commodity code;
- a health certificate on the correct GB model, where one is required;
- production in an establishment approved to export to Great Britain;
- an IPAFFS pre-notification and entry through a point of entry with a border control post (BCP).
The customs declaration sits on top. Imports arriving from Ireland are not subject to the same routine checks; everything else from the EU is.
Your commodity code decides the risk category
Under the Border Target Operating Model, animal products fall into three bands: low risk, no routine inspection; medium risk, split into sub-categories with inspection rates from 1% to 30%; high risk, 100% inspection. Raw and non-raw dairy are not treated alike, so you cannot reason from the product name — look the commodity code up in Defra’s risk categorisation spreadsheet.
The consequence is practical: a medium-risk consignment needs a health certificate, issued in the country where the product was last exported, processed or checked, and may also need an official importer declaration. A low-risk consignment needs only a commercial document. An unnecessary certificate is wasted fees; a missing one is a rejected load.
The health certificate and the approved-establishment trap
There is no single dairy certificate. Defra publishes separate GB models by product and origin — milk-RM for raw milk, milk-RMP for raw-milk-derived products, milk-HTB and milk-HTC for heat-treated dairy, MILK-LHT for lower heat-treated products, C/CBP for colostrum. Your supplier’s certifying officer picks the model; your job is to check it matches what is on the pallet. Great Britain accepts verifiable PDF GB health certificates from the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, so the paper original need not chase the truck.
The quieter risk is the establishment list. Dairy must come from a plant approved to export to Great Britain, published as an official dataset, and importers are expected to verify the listing before shipment. If the plant is not listed when veterinary checks are carried out, the consignment is likely to be held, and can be rejected and re-exported or destroyed. Two minutes of checking, and it is the cheapest due diligence in the process.
IPAFFS pre-notification and the border control post
The importer or import agent submits the notification in IPAFFS at least one working day before the consignment is expected to arrive, and IPAFFS returns a number in the format CHEDP.GB.YYYY.XXXXXXX. If the system is new to you, our step-by-step walkthrough of IPAFFS notifications covers registration and the fields that trip people up.
The consignment must arrive at a point of entry with a relevant BCP. You learn what checks apply through IPAFFS or the Goods Vehicle Movement Service, and authorities send a text and email two hours before the transporter’s estimated arrival. That window is why the notification cannot be an afterthought at the port — by then the routing decision has been made.
What the border costs: the common user charge
Since 30 April 2024, commercial consignments through the Port of Dover or Eurotunnel eligible for sanitary and phytosanitary checks at Sevington BCP attract the common user charge: £29 per commodity line for medium-risk animal products, £10 for low-risk. It is capped at five commodity lines per CHED even where the document holds more, so a medium-risk CHED tops out at £145. The charge follows the CHED, so it lands on whoever lodged the notification — settle that in your supplier terms before the first load.
Don’t forget the customs declaration
The veterinary side does not replace the customs side. You still need a GB EORI number, the right commodity code from the UK Integrated Online Tariff, and an import declaration on the Customs Declaration Service — with the CHED reference in data element 2/3 so the two systems reconcile. Duty and import VAT follow from the commodity code and your origin evidence. On a perishable load this is where handing the GB import declaration to a customs agent earns its fee: an error on chilled cheese costs shelf life, not admin time.
Will the UK–EU SPS agreement make this go away?
Eventually, in large part — but not yet. The UK and the EU announced on 19 May 2025 that they would pursue a new sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, and Defra’s stated position is that “it is our intent that the agreement will take effect in mid-2027”. Export health certificates — which the government notes can cost up to £200 per consignment — will then no longer be required, and routine Port Health Authority checks currently applied to dairy, fish, eggs and red meat imports will be removed. Guidance began rolling out from May 2026. Until it is in force, every requirement above applies in full.
Checklist before your first dairy consignment
- Confirm the commodity code and its risk category in Defra’s risk categorisation spreadsheet.
- Confirm the EU establishment is on the list of plants approved to export to Great Britain.
- Agree which GB model health certificate applies and check it matches the product.
- Register for IPAFFS — import agents register under their own business details.
- Submit the notification at least one working day before arrival; record the CHEDP number.
- Route the vehicle to a point of entry with a relevant BCP; watch for the two-hour message.
- Budget the common user charge: £29 per line medium-risk, £10 low-risk, five-line cap.
- File the CDS import declaration with the CHED reference in data element 2/3.
Mini-FAQ
How far in advance must I pre-notify? At least one working day before the consignment is expected to arrive.
Does every consignment need a health certificate? No. Medium-risk consignments do; low-risk need only a commercial document. The band depends on the commodity code, so check per product.
What if the supplier’s plant is not on the approved list? The consignment is likely to be held and can be rejected and re-exported or destroyed. Verify before loading.
Who pays the common user charge? It is charged against the CHED submitted in IPAFFS, so it falls on whoever lodged the notification unless your terms say otherwise.
Sources (gov.uk): Import animal products for human consumption to Great Britain; Common user charge: rates and eligibility; Import Information Note MKDR/1; Risk categories for animal and animal product imports to Great Britain; UK–EU SPS Agreement — information for businesses; IPAFFS guidance.
Information only, current as at 2 September 2026. Requirements change — confirm the position on gov.uk before you ship, and check the risk category for your own commodity code.
