Personal food, plant and animal product imports
What you need to know if you’re bringing food or other plant or animal products into the UK for personal use.
There are rules about what food products, plants and plant products you can bring into the UK. This is to stop pests and diseases that can affect human, animal and plant health entering the UK.
What products you can bring into the UK depends on where you are travelling from, not where the products were produced or packaged.
The rules apply to any products carried in your personal luggage or sent by post (including those ordered online). They apply if they’re for yourself, bought in a shop (including at an airport), home grown, home made or vacuum packed.
What you can bring from EU countries
If you’re bringing animal and animal products into the UK, then Andorra, the Canary Islands, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Liechtenstein, Norway, San Marino and Switzerland also count as EU countries.
If you’re bringing plants and plant products into the UK, then Andorra, San Marino, Switzerland and the Vatican City also count as EU countries.
You can bring:
- meat
- dairy
- other animal products, for example, fish, eggs and honey
You can bring in any plants or plant products as long as they’re:
- grown in an EU country or Switzerland
- free from pests and diseases
- for your own use or consumption
However, you cannot bring in for planting:
- plants and seeds of Fraxinus (Ash) and Castanea (including Sweet chestnut)
- plants of Platanus (Plane)
What you can and cannot bring from countries outside the EU or Switzerland
If you’re bringing animal and animal product into the UK, then Gibraltar and Cyprus are treated as non-EU countries.
There are extra restrictions for the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland.
You cannot bring in:
- meat and meat products
- milk or dairy products, other than powdered infant milk, infant food, special foods and special pet feed needed for medical reasons
- potatoes and potato seeds
- more than 2kg per person of any mixture of restricted fruit and restricted vegetables
- seeds of Fraxinus (Ash) and Castanea (Sweet chestnut) for planting
- Ash, citrus and vine plants
- loose soil
The products you can bring in, and how much you can bring, are described in the following table.
| Product | Weight allowed per person travelling | Other restrictions |
|---|---|---|
| Fruit and vegetables | 2kg | Maximum 2kg per person applies to any mixture of restricted fruit and restricted vegetables: apple, apricot, aubergine, avocado, bitter cucumber, bitter gourd, blackcurrant, blueberry, celeriac, celery, cherry, citrus fruits (all), cranberry, custard apple, date plum, gooseberry, grape, guava, jambolan, kiwi, kumquat, mango, papaya, passion fruit, peach, pear, persimmon, plum, quince, raspberry, redcurrant, rose apple, strawberry, sweet basil. |
| Live bivalves (for example, mussels and oysters) | 2kg | – |
| Eggs or egg products | 2kg | – |
| Honey | 2kg | – |
| Frogs’ legs | 2kg | Must be the back (hind) part of the frog with the skin and internal organs removed. May be fresh, chilled, frozen or processed. |
| Insect meat | 2kg | – |
| Snail meat | 2kg | Snails must be shelled, cooked and prepared or preserved, for example canned snail meat or snail shells refilled with snail meat. It must be the meat of edible land snails. Live snails, dead snails still in their shells and water snails are not permitted. |
| Fish, dead bivalves and fish or fishery products | 20kg total weight, or the weight of one fish, whichever weight is the heaviest | Fresh fish must be gutted. Fishery products include processed fish (which must be dried, cooked, cured or smoked) lobsters and prawns, and caviar not from certain protected species for example, salmon caviar. |
| Powdered infant milk, infant food, and special foods needed for medical reasons | 2kg | Only if the product does not need refrigeration before consumption, it’s in commercially branded packaging, and the packaging is unbroken unless in current use. |
| Special pet feed needed for medical reasons | 2kg | Only if the product does not need refrigeration before consumption, it’s in commercially branded packaging, and the packaging is unbroken unless in current use. |
| Seeds for planting (but not potato seeds) | 5 packets | Not all seeds are restricted – for a list of restricted seeds, contact the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). |
| Bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes for planting (excluding potatoes) | 2kg | From listed European and Mediterranean countries only. |
| Other plants or tree seedlings with or without soil | 5 plants | From listed European and Mediterranean countries only. |
| Parts of trees used as decoration such as spray, wreath or Christmas tree | Maximum of restricted foliage forming 1 spray, wreath or 1 cut Christmas tree (up to 3m in height). | From listed European and Mediterranean countries only. |
| Cut flowers and foliage | 1 bouquet of restricted cut flowers (up to 50 stems) | For which flowers are restricted, contact the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA). |
| Natural wood (non-manufactured wood) | Maximum of 5 pieces without bark, each no more than 1 metre in length | For which types of wood and bark are restricted, check with the Forestry Commission. |
What you can bring from Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland
The restrictions for the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Iceland are slightly different from other non-EU countries.
| Product | Weight allowed per person travelling | Other restrictions |
|---|---|---|
| Meat and dairy products (other than powdered infant milk, infant food, special foods and special pet feed required for medical reasons) | 10kg per person | – |
| Powdered infant milk, infant food, special foods and special pet feed required for medical reasons | 10kg per person | Only if the product does not need refrigeration before consumption, it’s in commercially branded packaging, and the packaging is unbroken unless in current use. |
| Special pet feed required for medical reasons | 10kg per person | Only if the product does not need refrigeration before consumption, it’s in commercially branded packaging, and the packaging is unbroken unless in current use. |
Greenland: additional restrictions
| Product | Weight allowed per person travelling | Other restrictions |
|---|---|---|
| Live bivalves for example, mussels and oysters | 10kg | – |
| Eggs or egg products | 10kg | – |
| Frogs’ legs | 10kg | Must be the back (hind) part of the frog with the skin and internal organs removed. May be fresh, chilled, frozen or processed. |
| Honey | 10kg | – |
| Reptile and insect meat | 10kg | – |
| Snail meat | 10kg | Snails must be shelled, cooked and prepared or preserved, for example canned snail meat or snail shells refilled with snail meat. It must be the meat of edible land snails. Live snails, dead snails still in their shells and water snails are not permitted. |
Sturgeon caviar
If you want to bring more than 125g of sturgeon caviar in your personal luggage from EU or non-EU countries, you must have a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) permit. This also applies if you send it by post.
Call the Animal and Plant Health CITES team on 0117 372 3700.
The total weight of the caviar counts as part of the 20kg per person allowance for fish and fish products.
Animal skins
Animal hides and skins (with or without hairs or fur) must be tanned or they are illegal products. Tanning means the hardening of hides and skins using tanning agents. There is no limit on the amount you can bring.
Bushmeat
International trade in bushmeat (the meat of wild animals used for food) is either banned completely or controlled by permits.
You cannot import any meat from non-EU countries.
If you import it illegally, you can be imprisoned for up to 7 years and given an unlimited fine.
Penalties for importing banned animal products
If you fail to declare banned products, you could face severe delays and you could be prosecuted.
The EU operates a system of strict controls on legal imports of animal products, including meat. All products from non-EU countries can only be imported through designated border inspection posts at ports and airports, where they undergo veterinary checks by an official veterinary surgeon to make sure import conditions are met.
Border Force is responsible for detecting smuggled goods from non-EU countries at Great Britain points of entry (except in areas designated as border inspection posts). This includes postal imports at postal depots, ports or airports. They are also responsible for enforcing controls under CITES.
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for Northern Ireland (DAERA) has responsibility in Northern Ireland, at border inspection posts and other points of entry.
Seizures
If Border Force think you have brought something into the country illegally, they can take it off you. This is called ‘seizure’.
You must declare any products you are bringing in from outside the EU.
If you declare illegal products to Border Force officers, they will take them away and destroy them. No further action will be taken.
If you have brought too much in, it will be seized. The weight allowance is based on the gross weight including the packaging, for example, fish packed with ice. If the gross weight of the fish and the ice together is greater than the allowance, all of it will be seized.
Border Force will also seize any items that have been cross-contaminated, for example with blood from meat. It takes a pragmatic approach but if clothing or the bag the item is in appear to be contaminated with, they will be seized and destroyed.
If you are concerned the products in the parcel may have been illegally sent to this country or if the products do not appear to be healthy you should notify your local Environmental Health Office. They will send an officer to seize and destroy the parcel.
If you’re not sure about any of the products you are bringing in, speak to a Border Force officer in the red channel or on the red point phone.
Appeals
You can appeal to Border Force if you think your products were wrongly seized. If you’re found to be correct, you’re likely to get compensation. The original products will have been destroyed as all perishable items are classed for immediate disposal.
Exempted food products
You can bring the following products into the UK as a personal import, as they are exempt:
- bread (but not sandwiches filled with meat or dairy products)
- cakes without fresh cream, including Christmas cake, Simnel cake or cakes containing nuts
- biscuits
- chocolate and confectionery – except sweets made with a lot of unprocessed dairy ingredients such as burfi, gulab jamun, halwah or halva, ras malai, rasgullah, ladoos, and chum chum
- unfilled gelatine capsules
- food supplements packaged for the final consumer containing small amounts of an animal product (such as fish oil capsules) and those including glucosamine, chondroitin or chitosan
- meat extracts in liquid or spreadable form (but not pate or meat concentrates, for example, stock cubes, gravy granules or flavouring sachets or any that contain pieces of meat)
- olives stuffed with fish
- pasta and noodles, if processed or cooked (but not if mixed or filled with meat or meat products)
- soup, stocks and flavourings packaged for the final consumer containing meat extracts, meat concentrates, animal fats or fish oils, powders or extracts (but not if they contain pieces of meat or fish)
- any other food product not containing any fresh or processed meat or dairy and with less than 50% of processed egg or fishery products
Last updated 3 July 2019 + show all updates