Some procedures under REACH and CLP require companies to pay a fee to contribute to the cost of the work conducted by ECHA and the Member States competent authorities. Without a proper payment of the fee the respective action like a registration, notification or application is rejected by ECHA.

REACH

Details and the current amount of each fee under <link en legislation-implementation legislation-reach _blank>REACH are defined in Regulation (EC) 340/2008, the REACH Fee Regulation, modified by the Regulation (EU) 2015/864.

The registration title foresees fees to be paid by the registrant for the following:

  • Registration of substances on their own or in mixtures including joint submissions (Annex I REACH Fee Regulation);
  • Registration of on-site isolated and transported isolated intermediates (Annex II);
  • Registration updates in case of an increase of the tonnage range, or a change of the legal personality of the registrants, or any change in the access granted to information in the registration (Annex III). Registration updates due to other reasons are not subject to a fee (see Article 5(1) REACH Fee Regulation and Article 22 REACH);
  • Confidentiality claims for information submitted with the registration (Annex IV): The fee is calculated per item (e.g. degree of purity and identity of impurities, trade name of the substance, relevant tonnage band) for which a request is made. In case of requests concerning (robust) study summaries, a fee is levied for each summary;
  • Notification of a registration exemption for product and process oriented research and development (PPORD) and the extension of such a PPORD exemption (Annex V).

Registrations of substances (including the registration of intermediates) in the tonnage range of 1-10 tonnes/year are exempted from the registration fee, if the registration contains all information required in Annex VII REACH.

All cases (except the PPORD notification) foresee a reduced fee for joint submissions. However, a registrant who decides to submit certain data separately has to pay the fee for an individual submission.

Further information can be found in the REACH IT Q&A section.

A fee has to be paid by the applicant for any application for an authorisation and for any submission of a review report to extend an existing authorisation. In both cases, a base fee is foreseen that covers one substance, one use and one application (see Annex VI and VII REACH Fee Regulation). An additional fee has to be paid for each additional use, for each additional substance of a category or group of substances and for each additional applicant.

A fee has to be paid by the appellant for any appeal against an ECHA decision. Different fees apply for appeals against an ECHA rejection of a PPORD notification or a registration (after completeness check), ECHA data sharing decisions and ECHA decisions on dossier evaluations (see Annex VIII REACH Fee Regulation).

The fee is refunded if:

  • ECHA rectifies its decision; or
  • The appeal is decided in favour of the appellant.

After a favourable opinion by the EU Commission, ECHA can levy other charges for administrative and technical services provided by ECHA at the request of a party and that are not covered by the fees and charges described above. ECHA’s Management Board sets a daily rate for such service charges.

ECHA also levies an additional administrative charge from companies that claimed to be entitled to a reduction (in particular those that wrongly claimed to be SMEs) or a fee waiver but cannot demonstrate their eligibility.

The current charge amounts can be found in the Management Board decisions.

Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) pay reduced fees in all procedures described above. To qualify for this fee reduction, they must fulfil the EU SME criteria and claim their SME status at the time of submission. The SME status will be checked by ECHA and, if wrongly claimed, an additional administrative charge will be levied. In the case of an Only Representative (OR), the size of the non-EU company he represents determines the SME status (and not the company size of the OR).

Detailed information and practical guidance is given on ECHA’s dedicated SME fees webpage.

CLP

A fee needs to be paid by a manufacturer, importer or downstream user for the following:

  • Request for use of an alternative chemical name according to Article 24(1) <link en clp _blank>CLP: The initial fee covers a substance in up to five mixtures. A supplementary fee has to be paid for every ten additional mixtures ;
  • Submission of a proposal for harmonised classification and labelling of a substance according to Article 37(3) CLP.

SMEs pay a reduced fee (for eligibility see ECHA website). Details and the current amount of each fee are defined in Regulation (EU) 440/2010.