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library · field guide

New import paperwork lands July 2026.

From July 2026, plants for planting brought in from outside the EU carry a heavier declaration: proof that measures were taken against regulated non-quarantine pests. If you import a liner from Kenya or a young plant from a third country, the change lands at your goods-in door. Here is what it means, and why it is a records problem before it is a paperwork one.

what is changing

The certificate that crosses the border is getting heavier.

A phytosanitary certificate has always travelled with imported plants. What is new is what it must now assert: not just freedom from quarantine pests, but that measures were applied against the regulated non-quarantine pests that ride on plants for planting.

the plain-English version

What an RNQP is, and why the rule tightened.

The EU plant-health regime, built on Regulation (EU) 2016/2031, sorts pests into tiers. Quarantine pests are the ones the Union works hardest to keep out entirely. Beneath them sit the regulated non-quarantine pests (RNQPs): organisms already present in the EU that do their damage by travelling on plants for planting — the young stock, liners and propagation material a nursery buys to grow on. They are policed by tolerance thresholds on the material that carries them rather than by exclusion.

Historically the RNQP regime bore mainly on movement inside the Union. The July 2026 change extends the expectation to the border: third-country consignments of plants for planting must be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate declaring that the appropriate measures against RNQPs were applied at origin. In plain terms, the exporter now has to say more, and the importer has to capture and stand behind what they say.

If you buy finished plants and grow nothing on, this is a supplier's problem. If you import plants for planting, meaning anything you pot on, propagate from or grow up before it sells, it is yours. And it lands at one predictable moment: the day the shipment arrives.

It arrives at goods-in.

the moment it lands

It arrives at goods-in.

New paperwork is only a burden if you meet it in the wrong place. At goods-in, an inbound shipment is recorded on a goods-receipt or delivery record: a supplier's delivery arriving, and the moment that creates the stock batches the plants become.

That makes goods-in the natural home for the import claim. As the consignment is received, its supplier, its lot reference and its country of origin are captured onto the batch that is being created — the same batch that will carry those plants through every move until they sell. Capture the certificate detail here, once, against the batch, and you never have to reconstruct it later from a folder of loose phytosanitary certificates. The paperwork stops being a filing job and becomes a field on the record.

Not everything that arrives is fit to grow on.

the arrivals gate

Not everything that arrives is fit to grow on.

A tighter border rule is only as good as your discipline at the gate. Good receiving practice gives each received line a disposition, the decision on what happens to it: Accept it into stock, Quarantine it aside pending checks, Return it to the supplier, or Scrap it.

That is exactly the lever an RNQP regime needs. A consignment whose certificate is incomplete, or whose material looks suspect, goes to a quarantine location rather than straight onto a saleable bench, and is held there until it clears. Every disposition is logged, so there is a clear record of why part of a shipment went into stock and part did not. The rule does not ask you to be perfect on arrival; it asks you to be deliberate, and to be able to show it.

the chain of claims

The claim you inherit becomes the claim you make.

An imported liner does not stay an import. You grow it on and issue your own plant passport for it, and that passport can only be as honest as what you captured when it arrived.

This is the reason the import declaration matters beyond the loading bay. A plant brought in from a third country is tracked as the original import, with everything you propagate or grow from it inheriting its provenance. When those plants move on between professional operators, you issue the plant passport that must accompany them: supplier identity, lot reference, the botanical name with its EPPO species code, and the country of origin.

You cannot declare an origin you never recorded, or vouch for material whose arrival you cannot trace. The July 2026 change simply raises the price of a gap at the border: the RNQP assurance you receive on import becomes part of the story your own passport tells downstream. Capture it well and the chain holds end to end — from a certificate at the port to a passport on a trolley leaving your gate.

Origin, tracked down to the batch.

traceability

Origin, tracked down to the batch.

Hold origin at the level that survives every move: the batch or lot, a specific lot of one variant at one location. Drive quantity from every logged movement rather than an editable number, and an imported consignment stays identifiable for its whole life. Its origin travels with it; its movements are never silently overwritten.

The origin claim on the passport says where the plants were last grown. It needs to stay current as stock moves and grows on, so it is worth refreshing rather than setting once and forgetting. And where a demarcation or registration applies, manage phytosanitary registration numbers by site rather than re-typing them per record. The paperwork rides on the plant.

Prepare now, not in the queue at the gate.

before July

Prepare now, not in the queue at the gate.

A regulatory date is a deadline you can see coming. The nurseries that meet July 2026 calmly are the ones that treat it as a records habit: know which of your incoming lines are plants for planting from third countries, tighten what you capture at receipt, and keep quarantine a real step rather than a formality.

Do that and an inspection becomes a search box — the certificate detail sits on the record, the disposition is logged, the passport downstream is already honest. The rule changes what the exporter must declare; it does not have to change how your day runs, if the record was already keeping the trail whole.

atlas core

How Atlas Core handles the July 2026 import rule at goods-in

Everything above is good practice on any system. Here is how Atlas Core makes it the path of least resistance:

  • Capture once, at receipt. Supplier, lot reference, country of origin and RNQP / phytosanitary-certificate detail land on the stock batch at the moment of receipt, never reconstructed later from a folder of loose certificates.
  • Per-line dispositions. Accept, Quarantine, Return or Scrap, with a real quarantine location and every decision logged, so you can show why part of a shipment went into stock and part did not.
  • Movement-based traceability. Quantity is derived from every logged movement rather than an editable number, so an imported consignment stays identifiable and its origin travels with it for its whole life.
  • Passports that inherit provenance. The import's origin, lot, botanical name with EPPO species code and country of origin flow through to the passport you issue downstream, with the origin claim refreshed on a schedule.
  • Registration numbers by site. Phytosanitary registration numbers inherit down the location tree, set once at the top and kept in sync, so an inspection is a report you run.

Read further

See how Atlas Core meets the shipment at the gate.

Goods receipt that captures origin and certificate detail onto the batch, dispositions that make quarantine a real step, and passports that inherit a provenance you recorded — the trail from port to trolley, kept whole. Talk to us about how it fits your nursery.

Talk to us