If you import food into the UK, you’ve probably heard the news: Export Health Certificates will be scrapped, border checks will be removed, red tape gone, hundreds of pounds will be saved on every consignment. On the face of it, the UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement — due to take effect in mid-2027 — sounds like the end of the post-Brexit border friction that food importers have wrestled with for years.
But the headlines tell only part of the story, and the part they leave out is the part that will cost importers money if they get it wrong.
At Fn Customs, Food controls are part of our daily work. We submit IPAFFS notifications, coordinate health certificates, and manage Border Control Post clearances for food consignments arriving from across the EU and beyond. So when a change of this magnitude is announced, we read the detail rather than the headline — and the detail reveals a more complicated picture than “no more checks.” Some of the savings are real. Some are overstated. And one crucial fact is being quietly lost in the noise: even after food checks go, customs clearance does not.
This article lays out what has actually been agreed, the savings the government is promising, the concerns experts across the industry are raising, and — most importantly — what food importers should be doing now to prepare for a border that will look very different in 2027.
What Has Actually Been Agreed?
In May 2025, the UK and EU announced their intention to create a common framework designed to align UK and EU rules on food safety, animal health, and plant health, and to remove much of the border friction introduced after Brexit.
The headline measures are significant:
Removal of Export Health Certificates (EHCs). Currently, exporting many animal products to the EU requires an EHC — a certificate signed by an official veterinarian or inspector, costing time and money on every consignment. Under the agreement, these would be removed for goods moving within the SPS zone.
Removal of routine border checks on certain products. Goods such as dairy, fish, eggs, and red meat are currently subject to 100% documentary checks and a proportion of physical inspections at the border. Under the agreement, routine checks on a range of these products — moving in both directions — would be stopped.
Easier GB–Northern Ireland movement. The agreement is intended to reduce the paperwork and checks required for goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, easing one of the most contentious areas of post-Brexit trade.
Reopened EU markets for UK exporters. Certain UK products that have effectively been shut out of the EU since Brexit — including burgers, fresh sausages, and certain shellfish from domestic waters — would be able to access the EU market again.
Timing: The government has stated its intent for the agreement to take effect in mid-2027. Critically, this timing is subject to the outcome of ongoing negotiations, and exact arrangements may change. DEFRA has acknowledged that some businesses will need longer to adjust and has committed to working with them through the transition.
Important: The mid-2027 date is an intention, not a certainty. The precise scope, timing, and product coverage all depend on negotiations that are still in progress. Any business planning around this agreement should treat the date as provisional and watch for official updates.The Savings the Government Is Promising
It’s worth being fair about the genuine upside here, because for many businesses it is real.
The most frequently cited figure is a saving of up to £200 per consignment through the removal of Export Health Certificates. For an exporter sending multiple consignments a week to the EU, that adds up quickly over a year.
Beyond the direct certificate cost, the agreement promises to remove a layer of administrative burden that has weighed on agri-food trade since Brexit. UK food and drink exports to the EU fell by around 21% between 2018 and 2024, with imports also down. The friction at the border — paperwork, certification, delays, and the cost of getting any of it wrong — has been a significant part of that decline. Reducing it could help reverse the trend.
The hospitality sector has welcomed the deal as a route to more affordable, higher-quality food and drink. Farming bodies have cautiously welcomed the prospect of easier exports. And for businesses moving goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the simplification could remove a genuine and long-standing headache.
So the upside is real. But it is not the whole picture — and several respected voices across the industry have raised serious concerns.
The Concerns Experts Are Raising
Not everyone is celebrating, and the objections are not coming from the fringes. They are coming from port health authorities, farming organisations, and trade bodies with deep knowledge of how the border actually works.
Biosecurity at a dangerous moment. This is the concern raised most consistently. Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and African swine fever (ASF) are circulating in parts of Europe. The National Pig Association has warned that the deal must not become a reason for the government to take its eye off the threat posed by illegal imports of animal products, cautioning that fewer checks could lead to a weakened biosecurity position at precisely the wrong time.
Standards concerns and the discovery of unfit meat. Port health authorities have pointed to the discovery, since Brexit, of significant quantities of unfit meat originating from the EU. Ashford Port Health Authority has argued that this demonstrates that EU standards do not always match those achieved in the UK — and has expressed concern at the prospect of removing checks against that backdrop. His authority has been vocal in defending the protective role that border controls play.
Loss of an intelligence-led system that was beginning to work. Much of the frustration centres on timing. The UK’s Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) introduced a risk-based, intelligence-led approach to import controls — checking goods according to assessed risk rather than checking everything. Port health authorities have pointed to genuine progress, including the use of AI-assisted checks at Ashford Border Control Posts that improved efficiency while controlling costs. The concern is that simply aligning with the EU could discard these hard-won gains rather than building on them.
Loss of regulatory independence. The International Meat Trade Association, while acknowledging the deal will reduce trade barriers, has raised concerns about “dynamic alignment” — the principle that the UK would follow EU rules as they evolve. The worry is that this means surrendering the regulatory independence the UK gained after Brexit, particularly in relation to rest-of-world imports that have benefited from more proportionate controls under BTOM.
Are the savings really there? Perhaps the most striking objection — and the one most relevant to importers planning their operations — is the argument that the promised savings are overstated. Port health voices have pointed out that customs controls will still be required regardless of the SPS agreement, and that vehicles will still regularly need to visit inland border facilities such as Sevington. If that’s true, the picture of a frictionless border may be more optimistic than the reality.
Which brings us to the single most important point in this entire debate — and the one we want every food importer to understand clearly.
Customs Clearance Doesn’t Go Away
Food checks and customs clearance are two different things. The SPS agreement addresses one of them. It does not abolish the other.
It is entirely understandable that “removal of border checks” gets read as “no more paperwork.” But that is not what is on the table. The SPS agreement concerns sanitary and phytosanitary controls — health certificates, port health inspections, IPAFFS notifications for the products in scope. It does not remove the customs framework that sits alongside them.
Even in a best-case 2027 scenario, the following remain in place for goods moving between the UK and EU:
Customs declarations. Import and export declarations through the Customs Declaration System (CDS) are a customs requirement, not an SPS one. They are unaffected by the SPS agreement.
Duty and VAT. Import VAT and any applicable customs duty are assessed and collected through the customs process. Removing health certificates does nothing to remove the obligation to declare and account for VAT and duty correctly.
Origin and preference. Claiming preferential (zero) duty under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement still depends on meeting and evidencing rules of origin. Get this wrong and you face underpaid duty, post-clearance demands, and potential voluntary disclosure obligations — none of which the SPS deal touches.
Commodity classification. Goods still need correct HS codes. Misclassification still carries the same financial and compliance consequences it always has.
The physical border infrastructure. As port health authorities have themselves noted, vehicles may still need to attend inland border facilities for customs purposes even where SPS checks have been removed.
In other words, the part of our work that protects importers from overpaying duty, misdeclaring goods, claiming origin incorrectly, or falling foul of HMRC compliance requirements is entirely unaffected by the SPS agreement. If anything, as SPS friction reduces and trade volumes potentially recover, getting the customs side right becomes more important, not less.
Tip: If your understanding of 2027 is "we won't need customs support any more," budget for a rude surprise. The SPS agreement may remove your health certificates and routine port health checks. It will not file your customs declaration, calculate your VAT, validate your origin claim, or classify your goods. Those obligations — and the cost of getting them wrong — remain exactly where they are today.What Food Importers Should Do Now to Prepare
DEFRA’s own guidance is clear: every business in the agri-food sector should start preparing now, even though the final shape of the agreement is still being negotiated. Here’s how we’d suggest approaching it.
1. Don’t dismantle anything yet. The mid-2027 date is provisional and subject to negotiation. Continue to meet your current SPS and customs obligations in full. Nothing has changed yet, and assuming otherwise is the fastest route to a held consignment.
2. Map which of your products are actually in scope. The agreement covers specific categories. Identify which of your imports involve SPS controls today, and which would be affected if the agreement takes effect as described. This tells you where your operations might change — and where they won’t.
3. Separate your IPAFFS costs from your customs costs. Many importers don’t have a clear breakdown of what they currently spend on health certificates and port health charges versus what they spend on customs clearance, duty, and VAT management. Understanding this split now will tell you what you might genuinely save in 2027 — and what you’ll still be paying regardless.
4. Strengthen your customs compliance, don’t relax it. Origin, classification, and valuation will remain just as important after 2027 as before. If anything, with potentially higher trade volumes, the cost of a systematic error scales up. This is the right time to review your classifications and origin evidence, not to ease off.
5. Watch for official updates. The detail will emerge through the negotiation process. Treat headlines with caution and rely on DEFRA’s official guidance for confirmed information.
6. Talk to your customs agent about your specific exposure. Every importer’s situation is different depending on products, origins, volumes, and routes. A specialist can tell you exactly what the agreement would and wouldn’t change for your business — rather than leaving you to guess from the headlines.
Our View
The SPS agreement could deliver genuine benefits. Reduced friction, recovered export markets, and simpler GB–Northern Ireland movement are real prizes, and the businesses welcoming the deal have good reason to.
But the concerns raised by port health authorities, farming bodies, and trade associations deserve to be heard rather than waved away. Biosecurity at a time when FMD and ASF are circulating in Europe is not a trivial worry. The progress made by DEFRA and Port Health including the efficiency gains from AI-assisted checks at Sevington Border Control Post — represents years of investment and expertise that should not be casually discarded. And the question of whether the promised savings are as large as advertised is a fair one, given that customs controls will remain in place regardless.
Our honest position is this: the SPS checks on food are not bureaucratic box-ticking — they protect public health, and that protection is worth defending.
IPAFFS notifications and border health checks exist for a reason. They are how unfit meat gets intercepted before it reaches a supermarket shelf. They are how diseases like foot-and-mouth and African swine fever — both circulating in Europe right now — are kept out of British farms and food chains. They are how the UK has maintained genuinely high food safety and animal welfare standards. When those checks work, the public never hears about it, because the contaminated consignment was stopped at the border rather than ending up on someone’s plate. That invisibility is exactly why their value is so easy to underestimate — and so easy to trade away in a negotiation focused on cost savings and lorry queues.
We are not arguing that every check must stay exactly as it is. The UK built a risk-based, intelligence-led system under the Border Target Operating Model that was beginning to work — checking goods according to assessed risk rather than checking everything, and using technology to do it more efficiently. That was the right direction. The concern is that aligning wholesale with the EU could throw away those hard-won protections and that hard-won expertise, in exchange for savings that — once you account for the customs controls that remain regardless — may turn out to be smaller than the headlines suggest.
Cheaper and faster are not the only things that matter at a border. Safe food matters. Disease-free farms matter. Public confidence that what’s on the shelf has been properly checked matters. Those are the things the current system protects, and they should not be quietly bargained away. Whether the final agreement strikes the right balance remains to be seen — and that is exactly why importers, and the public, should be paying close attention rather than assuming the headlines tell the whole story.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does the UK-EU SPS agreement take effect? The government has stated its intention for the agreement to take effect in mid-2027. This timing is provisional and subject to the outcome of ongoing negotiations. Official updates will be published as negotiations progress.
Will I still need Export Health Certificates after the SPS agreement? The agreement is intended to remove Export Health Certificates for goods moving within the UK-EU SPS zone. However, until the agreement takes effect, current EHC requirements remain fully in force. Do not stop meeting your current obligations based on the announcement.
Does the SPS agreement mean I won’t need customs clearance any more? No. The SPS agreement concerns sanitary and phytosanitary controls — health certificates and routine port health checks. It does not remove customs declarations, import VAT, customs duty, rules of origin, or commodity classification requirements. Customs clearance will still be required.
Will IPAFFS still be needed after 2027? The scope of IPAFFS requirements depends on the final terms of the agreement, which are still being negotiated. Routine checks on certain products in scope are intended to be removed, but the detail is not yet confirmed. Until then, IPAFFS pre-notification remains a legal requirement for affected goods.
What should my business do right now? Continue meeting all current SPS and customs obligations, identify which of your products are in scope, understand the split between your SPS and customs costs, keep your customs compliance strong, and watch for official DEFRA updates. Speak to a specialist customs agent about your specific exposure.
Need Help Understanding What 2027 Means for Your Business?
The SPS agreement is one of the most significant changes to UK food trade since Brexit — but separating what will genuinely change from what won’t requires a clear understanding of where IPAFFS controls end and customs obligations begin.
At Fn Customs, we help food importers navigate exactly this kind of complexity. As an AEO-authorised customs agency specialising in food and perishable imports, we can review your current operations, identify your true exposure under the proposed agreement, and make sure your customs compliance is robust enough to handle whatever the border looks like in 2027 and beyond.
If you’d like to understand what the SPS agreement means for your specific imports — and what it doesn’t — get in touch with our team for a conversation grounded in the detail, not the headlines.
Useful Government Resources:
- SPS agreement: preparing your business – GOV.UK
- UK-EU SPS agreement: information for businesses – GOV.UK
- The Border Target Operating Model – GOV.UK
- IPAFFS – Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System
Fn Customs Limited is an AEO-authorised customs clearance and freight forwarding agency based in Nottingham, specialising in food and perishable imports into the UK.