Fish and Crustaceans

Information on how authorised use can be used to bring fish and crustaceans into the UK.

Authorised use can be used to bring certain fish or crustaceans into the UK when they’re being used for: 

  • processing 
  • use in the industrial manufacture of products

What goods are eligible

Eligible goods can be identified in chapters 3 and 16 of Authorised use: Eligible goods and authorised uses.  

Any imported fish and crustaceans under authorised use must be processed for human consumption.

Industrial manufacturing

When the fish are for use in the industrial manufacture of products they must be: 

  • cooked or otherwise prepared or preserved, for example, fish fillets covered with batter or breadcrumbs, tuna fish which has had a marinade added or cooked fish 
  • boiled, steamed, grilled, fried, roasted or otherwise cooked 
  • prepared or preserved in vinegar, oil, fish marinades (fish prepared in wine, vinegar and so on with added spices or other ingredients), fish sausages or fish paste 
  • prepared or preserved, for example, finely homogenised fish, pasteurised or sterilised fish 
  • prepared following certain processes

Processing

Authorised use can be used for fish and crustaceans that are intended for one or more of these operations: 

  • dicing 
  • filleting 
  • production of flaps 
  • cutting of frozen blocks 
  • splitting of frozen interleaved fillet blocks

Fish and crustaceans intended solely for one or more of the following operations are not eligible: 

  • cleaning 
  • gutting 
  • heading 
  • cutting (other than the eligible operations mentioned) 
  • sampling 
  • sorting 
  • labelling 
  • packing 
  • chilling 
  • freezing 
  • deep-freezing 
  • thawing 
  • separation 
  • treatments carried out at a retail or catering establishment

Prawns

To qualify for authorised use, prawns under tariff heading 0306 need to be subjected to an industrial process, which would result in their classification under tariff heading 1605, for example, incorporation in pies, vol-au-vents or curries. 

The manufacture of prawn sandwiches must be undertaken at a factory level for onward supply, and must be of the type sold in supermarkets, shops and restaurants. However, sandwich making undertaken at a retail or catering establishment is not eligible.

Tariff Quotas

Some fish are subject to tariff quotas. Quotas allow a limited amount of goods to be imported at a lower duty rate. Once the quota has been used up, the duty will revert to the out-of-quota rate, which may be the third-country duty or a preferential rate.

Quotas can be non-preferential (open to many countries) or preferential (restricted to a particular trading partner). Read UK Trade Tariff: duty suspensions and autonomous tariff quotas for fish products for a list of commodity codes subjected to quotas.