Certificate of Free Sale

The Certificate of Free Sale is a document that confirms products such as plants, pharmaceuticals and medical devices can be sold in other exporting countries’ open markets. It is issued by the UK Government to exporters however it is not an official endorsement of the products named in the certificate.

It is a document required by many countries before products can be exported into that market.

A Certificate of Free Sale is used as an attestation to prove that plant protection products comply with Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 and is allowed to be sold in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

These products can be exported to countries that do not have their regulations. There is also no charging fee for this service led by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE).

The certificate enables information to be included on manufacturing, exporter and distributor sites. However, this information is not required and can be requested from the exporter.

The information is usually situated underneath the ‘The following information has been supplied by the applicant and has not been verified by the Health and Safety Executive’ section on a product.

A Certificate of Free Sale will state a certificate number, an order date, and an expiry date. It will state who manufactures the products and may include a schedule of the products that may be freely sold.

Certificates of Free Sale are currently only issued in electronic format by the MHRA.

If your company intends on importing goods and exporting them in international trading markets, you may be required to have your Certificate of Free Sale notarised, whilst, also applying for an apostille certificate.

A notary public will conduct checks on the Certificate of Free Sale with the Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to ascertain its authenticity and notarise the certificate if it is required to be used abroad.

An apostille certificate is used to authenticate a Certificate of Free Sale issued by a UK court or signed by a notary public in the UK for overseas purposes. The apostille is an official government certification confirming that the Certificate of Fee Sale has been certified. This provides reassurance to the recipient of the certificate in a different jurisdiction that it is valid.

The Hague Convention in 1961 introduced apostille stamps as a form of legalisation for different types of documents such as a certificate of free sale. Apostille certificates are accepted by over 120 member countries of the Hague Convention.

If the Certificate of Free Sale is going to be used in a country that has not signed up to the Hague Convention it will need to be further legalised by the Embassy of the country in which it will be used.

To apostille a Certificate of Free Sale, you will need an original email from MHRA attaching the Certificate of Free Sale.

To obtain an apostille, you will need to submit your Certificate of Free Sale to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Legalisation Office (FCDO).

There are two Legalisation Office counters – one in London (Premium Service) and one in Milton Keynes (Standard Service). We offer a premium same-day apostille service for urgent matters and standard 3-5 working day apostille service if you are not in a rush.

Notary.co.uk can assist you with our fast and cost-effective services and walk you through every step of the process:

1. Contact us and tell us what you need. We will ask you to complete our online Client Registration Form and explain how we will complete the identification and verification process.
2. You can forward us the original email from MHRA in which the Certificate of Free Sale is attached as a PDF.
3. Our team will check the email and confirm with MHRA that the document is authentic. One of our notaries will then issue a notarial certificate confirming that the Certificate of Free Sale is authentic.
4. The document will then need to be apostilled by the FCDO on either our Premium or Standard service. If you need consular legalisation, we will also complete that process for you.
5. Once the legalisation has been completed, we will share a PDF of the apostilled document. You can then collect it from our office for free, we can post it to a UK address or we can courier it abroad via DHL.

If you need your Certificate of Free Sale notarised or issued with an apostille or consular legalisation, we’ll be able to support you with our exceptional services.