To import goods to the Russian Federation businesspeople should obtain a number of permits, including certificate/declaration of compliance. It should be noted that at present time there are several systems for mandatory assessment of imported products quality in Russia: GOST R certification system, the Customs Union technical regulations, system of sanitary certification, etc.

GOST R certification system is a set of state standards which establish requirements to certain groups of products. This system provides for both mandatory assessment of products quality, and procedure for voluntary confirmation of compliance of goods with the certain standards. List of products (equipment, materials) subject to certification or declaration in this system is established by corresponding list of the 982nd Government resolution. 

Technical regulations system which came into use in the Customs Union since 2002 also establishes requirements for the level of products safety, methods of their packing and marking, rules for compliance assessment and ways of utilization. Permits obtained under this system are valid in all member-states of the Customs Union. As in the case with the GOST R certification system, the CU technical regulations require registration (issuance) of two types of documents: certificates of compliance with the CU technical regulations and declarations on compliance with the CU technical regulations. Purposes, a procedure for development of technical regulations, general rules for compliance assessment of the technical regulations system in Russia are established by the Federal Law On technical regulation. Today the following goods are subject to assessment of their compliance under technical regulations: food, wrappings, most of categories of equipment, clothes, footwear and many others.

Additional certification documents

Additional certification documents which may be required for import and main compliance assessment of products are a fire safety certificate and a certificate on state registration. Fire safety certificate is registered on the basis of standards for fire technical regulation of the Russian Federation, and the CU certificate on state registration is issued in compliance with the requirements of the 299th Resolution of the Customs Union Commission. Let us remind that procedure for state registration is the sanitary and hygienic certification of products.

Period of validity of declarations/certificates obtained under technical regulations or in the GOST R certification system depends on declaration/certification scheme as certification documents may be issued on the production lot/supply contract / manufacturing of products.

You can learn more about requirements of such systems as GOST R and the CU technical regulations at Rostest Latvia certification center.