Charges and fees announced for REACH registration

ERJ staff report (DS)

Brussels - The EC and ECHA have decided on the fees payable under the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals) legislation. The full scheme of fees and charges will be published in the next few days, according to the Commission.

The basic registration fee will range from Euro 1600 for substances produced in volumes below ten tonnes, to Euro 31 000 for those above 1000 tonnes. There will be up to 90 percent discounts for smaller firms and 25 percent reduction for firms that cooperate together on registrations.

A lower registration fee has been fixed for the registration of intermediates because the associated workload for the Agency would be much lower than for the other registration dossiers. Other fees are payable for notification of certain research and development activities, certain confidentiality requests and for appealing against decisions of ECHA.

The EC said it has tried to reduce the burden on smaller companies, and is allowing discounts of 30 percent for medium companies, 60 percent for small sized companies and 90 percent for micro enterprises.

The definition of each size-category is based on thresholds relating to headcount, annual turnover and balance sheet total.

The definition of Medium small and micro companies is that a Medium company should have less than 250 employees and an annual turnover of 50 million Euros or less and an Annual Balance Sheet total of 43 million Euros or less; a Small company should have less than 50 employees and an annual turnover of 10 million Euros or less and an Annual Balance Sheet total of 10 million Euros or less; a micro company should have less than 10 employees and an annual turnover of 2 million Euros or less and an Annual Balance Sheet total of 2 million Euros or less.

The fees payable to European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki, which will manage these operational processes. Fee revenue will partially finance the operations of ECHA, with the remaining finance coming from a Community subsidy. The fees will be reviewed by 2013 at the latest.

If a manufacturer or importer of a chemical fails to pre-register a chemical or preparation by 1 December 2008 he cannot continue manufacturing or importing it until he has submitted a registration dossier. Users of chemicals cannot continue using substances which have not been pre-registered or registered by their supplier.

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Press release from EC