When is certification needed and when not?

A certificate is needed for Customs clearance and sales.

An EAC (TR CU / TR EAEU) certificate is an important document, which is required when exporting products to the Euraasian Union (EAEU) countries, Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Kazakhstan.

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Certification concerns the following areas:
– Products
– Works and services
– Management systems

Free advice service and best solutions for certification

Contact us now, if you need information about certification or other requirements with regard to Russia or the Customs Union. You can send us your queries by email. We will review them and then reply.

Optimal Solution in Certification

We will conduct a preliminary investigation i.e. a needs analysis, for your company and produce a report with the optimal solutions. We will lay out the details for all needed certificates and follow-up measures required with a list of stages, timetables and prices for certification. We will also advise what certificates are not necessary and recommend further measures.

Product certification and certificates

Product certification is a quality assurance procedure made by an organization independent of the manufacturer and the consumer which certifies in writing that this product meets the requirements set for it. The certificate is an official document that the goods can be used to ensure both quality and safety. The requirements are defined in the applicable technical regulations (TR). There are two types of certification documents:

– Certificate, ie certificate of conformity
– Declaration of conformity

EAC, GOST R, GOST K, and BelCT certificates

Compliance with the technical regulations of the Customs Union forms the highest level of certification for which a certificate is issued – the abbreviation of which is “EAC”.

The Eurasian Economic Union is known as the Customs Union.

There are two types of EAC documents: the certificate, ie the certificate of conformity, and the declaration, ie the declaration of conformity.

If there are no technical regulations of the Customs Union governing the product(s) to be certified, the national regulations are followed, ie GOST R for Russia, GOST K for Kazakhstan and BelCT for Belarus.

When is a certificate not needed?

In most circumstances a certificate is required for Customs clearance as well as for sales. There are, however, situations and products which do not require certification. By law, certification is not required for the following:
– used products
– spare parts for equipment if the equipment has been previously certified
– for the test batch
– products of foreign delegations
– the personal property of citizens
– for products not subject to certification or declaration in accordance with the Technical Regulations of the Customs Union and national certification schemes

Letter of exception and/or decision of non-requirement

A certificate is normally required for both Customs clearance and sales. However, there are situations and products for which certification is not needed. In the event that a products does not need certification, we recommend that a document attesting to this fact is applied for.

Letter of exception
A Letter of Exception is to be presented by way of explanation to the Customs and for product sales.

The letter informs that certification for the product is not mandatory and confirms that the certification procedure is not required for this product.

The Letter of Exception is provided as a reply to the company’s letter of inquiry. Only an accredited certification facility may provide the letter of exception.

The Letter of Exception is made on an official form for this purpose and confirmed with an official stamp and signature.

Decision of non-requirement – current procedure

Since the beginning of 2018, Russian Customs does not accept the letter with decision of non-requirement.

Nevertheless, currently, the requirement is to obtain the Decision of non-requirement which the certification body provides to the client. The applicant for the decision of non-requirement may only be a company registered in the Customs Union – not a foreign producer.

In this procedure, the applicant sends to the certification facility a normal certification application and associated documentation for the product, e.g. spare parts – a certificate for the main product, information about it, when and where the main product was previously imported and a list of the spare parts.

After this, the certifying facility will render their decision that the product in question does not belong within the mandatory certification parameters.