Government reduces UK Reach fees by ‘£40 million’

New legislation that the government says will cut UK Reach registration costs for chemical businesses by £40 million over the next six years came into force on 1 April 2025.

Following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been working to establish a stand-alone system for how companies will register chemicals that are manufactured or imported into England, Wales and Scotland, under UK Reach (registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals).

Without access to the European Chemicals Agency’s Reach database, the UK has been forced to populate its own chemical database from scratch, with Defra estimating it might cost £1.3-3.5 billion to replicate or get legal access to the full datasets.

At the end of 2023 the government proposed rules that would require companies to submit less hazard information than originally feared to register substances under UK Reach, much to the industry’s relief. And earlier that year Defra also agreed three-year extensions to the registration deadlines, to October 2026, 2028 and 2030, depending on volume and hazard profile.

While the fee reduction is a step in the right direction, it does not resolve the wider challenges

But as well as the costs of assembling the required data, there is the administrative cost of registering each chemical on the market in the UK database. The government says its revised rules will ‘slash regulatory burdens on the chemicals industry’. Changes include a new standard registration fee of £2222. While this represents an increase over the previous fee of £1100–1500 for chemicals in the 1–10 tonnes/year band, it replaces much higher fees of £3000–30,000 per registration for substances produced or imported in higher volumes.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will continue to receive discounts against the new fees, further reducing their registration costs to between £57 and £740 per chemical, depending on company size, instead of a sliding scale going up to £14,300 in the highest volume bands. The government expects the changes to reduce overall registration costs for businesses by £40 million between 2025–26 and 2030–31.

‘The UK chemicals sector is world-leading but has faced a range of challenges in recent years, including high regulatory costs,’ said environment minister Emma Hardy. She added that the fee reductions would ‘help businesses continue to deliver growth in this vital sector’.

Nishma Patel, policy director at the UK’s Chemical Industries Association, believes the new regime may well lead to a reduction in overall registration costs. However, she adds, in practical terms, the new fees will impact individual businesses differently, depending on the type of substances and volumes imported.

‘Companies’ [costs] for the first registration deadline are likely to decrease significantly, which is expected to have positive impact on market access for commodities and high-volume chemicals,’ she says. That should make it less likely that some substances would be taken off the GB market, she adds. ‘In particular it would go some way to maintain existing supply chains between the EU and GB.’

On the other hand, Patel says, the fee increase for the lowest volume substances and intermediates could have a negative effect on companies looking to bring new, innovative products to the UK market.

Tim Doggett, chief executive of the Chemical Business Association, called the revised fees a ‘pragmatic and positive move that will help ease the disproportionate financial and administrative burden placed on the UK chemicals supply chain post-Brexit.’

‘That said, while the fee reduction is a step in the right direction, it does not resolve the wider challenges,’ Doggett adds. ‘More than three years after Defra committed to developing an alternative UK Reach model, progress has been painfully slow, and industry remains in a state of limbo.’

With the first submission deadline fast approaching, the need for a clear, workable plan is now urgent, Doggett says. ‘Businesses need certainty to prepare, plan and invest. Continued inaction risks undermining confidence across the sector and is at odds with both the UK’s ambitions to become a science superpower and [the government]’s growth agenda built on industrial renewal.’