Personal Care Products Council
Certificates of Free Sale - COVID-19 UPDATE:
JULY UPDATE:
The District of Columbia office that authenticates legal documents has reopened. All certified statement and certificate of free sale requests that only require apostilles can now be legalized. PCPC has resumed processing these and will provide to companies by mail only. For those countries that require legalization by the embassy, we will continue to send notarized copies by mail as well as electronically.
In response to a global advocacy effort by PCPC and international associations, and in recognition of current COVID-19 circumstances, certain countries have agreed to accept export documents, including Certificates of Free Sale, without legalization/stamps or government authentication.
Following expiration of this temporary policy, importers will be required to submit the physical, original document with the normal legalization and required signatures/stamps. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and closure of government offices, PCPC had been unable to process Certificates of Free Sale documents
that require legalization until this policy change.
Accordingly, companies may request certificates from PCPC by following the normal procedures for submitting applications and payments electronically. All certificates, which will continue to be notarized by PCPC, will be sent to companies by mail as well as electronically. PCPC will mail companies original, legalized documents as soon as possible after government offices resume their operations.
For those countries that have not yet formally indicated acceptance of the temporary policy, we encourage companies to include the PCPC/international association advocacy statement. However, please note that PCPC cannot guarantee or assume responsibility for imports that use documents adhering to the temporary policy. PCPC and international cosmetics industry associations will continue to advocate formal acceptance of the temporary policy by all countries that require Certificates of Free Sale.
We continue to process Certified Statements (Certificates of Good Manufacturing Practice) that do not require legalization per our normal procedures.
Questions can be submitted to certificates@personalcarecouncil.org.
The Personal Care Products Council (PCPC) is the leading national trade association representing cosmetic and personal care products companies and serving as the voice on scientific, legal, regulatory, legislative and international issues for the $488 billion global industry. |