From 1 October 2026 Dechlorane Plus, methoxychlor and UV-328 no longer leave the Union
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The container you booked for next week carries, until tonight, goods that leave the Union without anyone being told. From tomorrow three substances do not leave at all, and five new entries leave only if a notification was filed thirty-five days before the shipping date. Thirty-five days before tomorrow was 27 August. A notification signed today covers, at the earliest, a departure on 4 November.
Two dates inside the same article
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1278 of 9 June 2026 (OJ L, 2026/1278, 12.8.2026) amends and corrects Regulation (EU) No 649/2012 on the export and import of hazardous chemicals, implementing the Rotterdam Convention on prior informed consent. Article 3 keeps two dates apart: entry into force on «il ventesimo giorno successivo alla pubblicazione», that is 1 September 2026, and then «Esso si applica a decorrere dal 1° ottobre 2026» — it applies from 1 October 2026. Recital (14) says why: «Occorre concedere un lasso di tempo sufficiente sia alle parti in causa per adottare le misure necessarie a conformarsi al presente regolamento», enough time for the parties concerned and the Member States. Seven weeks: they end tonight.
The operative deadline is not in the delegated act: it sits in Article 8(2) of Regulation 649/2012. Anyone shipping a Part 1 Annex I substance to a third country from the date the Regulation starts to apply to it notifies its designated national authority «almeno trentacinque giorni prima della data prevista di esportazione» — at least thirty-five days before the intended export date; then again each calendar year, for the first shipment. The authority forwards to the Agency by the twenty-fifth day before; the Agency warns the importing country at least fifteen days before. A chain with three links, and it does not shorten.
Annex V is a ban, not a warning
Annex V is headed «Sostanze chimiche e articoli soggetti a divieto di esportazione» — chemicals and articles banned from export; Part 1 gathers the persistent organic pollutants in Annexes A and B to Stockholm. Article 15(2) gives it effect: «Non è consentita l’esportazione delle sostanze chimiche e degli articoli elencati nell’allegato V il cui impiego è vietato nell’Unione ai fini della tutela della salute umana e dell’ambiente.» — those exports are not allowed. Not a notification: a ban, and it binds whoever is «esportatore» under Article 3(18), the person on whose behalf an export declaration is made.
From tomorrow Part 1 has three more entries: Dechlorane Plus, methoxychlor, UV-328. Recital (12) reconstructs the chain: the eleventh Conference of the Parties, «dal 1° al 12 maggio 2023», listed the three in Annex A to the Stockholm Convention, and then: «Di conseguenza tali sostanze sono state inserite nell’allegato I, parte A, del regolamento (UE) 2019/1021 e dovrebbero pertanto essere aggiunte all’elenco delle sostanze chimiche di cui all’allegato V, parte 1, del regolamento (UE) n. 649/2012.» — hence Part A of Annex I to the POPs Regulation, and hence Part 1 of Annex V here. Two days ago we followed the same mechanism running inwards; this is the direction that runs out.
The ban is not flat: the first column of each entry writes its own exceptions, and they are the ones in the POPs Regulation. UV-328 may still be exported in articles covered by the derogations in Annex I, Part A, point 2 to Regulation (EU) 2019/1021 — land motor vehicles, industrial coatings and aircraft until 4 August 2030, spare parts to end of life or to 31 December 2043 — and at concentrations within the limit value: 100 mg/kg today, 10 from 4 August 2027, 1 from 4 August 2029. For methoxychlor the limit is 0,01 mg/kg. Outside those boxes, nothing leaves.
The three parts of Annex I do not ask the same thing
The part a substance falls into decides what you must do. Part 1 is the list of chemicals subject to export notification: it starts the thirty-five days of Article 8 «a prescindere dall’uso cui è destinata la sostanza chimica», whatever its intended use in the importing Party; the sub-category in the table says why the substance is listed, not what you may export. Part 2 gathers the chemicals «assoggettabili alla notifica PIC» — qualifying for PIC notification — and adds the heavy one: Article 14(6) allows export only where «l’esportatore abbia chiesto e ottenuto un consenso esplicito all’importazione», the exporter has obtained explicit consent to import. Part 3 holds the chemicals already under the PIC procedure: there you also need the latest Secretariat circular to show «che la parte importatrice ha acconsentito all’importazione».
Four benzotriazoles go into Parts 1 and 2: UV-350 (CAS 36437-37-3, EC 253-037-1), UV-328 (25973-55-1, 247-384-8), UV-320 (3846-71-7, 223-346-6), UV-327 (3864-99-1, 223-383-8), all with sub-category i(1)-i(2) and use limitation restr-restr. MOCA — «2,2’-dicloro-4,4’-metilendianilina; 4,4’-metilenbis[2-cloroanilina]» (101-14-4, 202-918-9) — goes into Part 1 only, sub-category i(2): notification yes, explicit consent no. Part 3 takes carbosulfan and fenthion (ultra-low volume formulations at or above 640 g/l active ingredient); carbosulfan leaves Part 2, and its Part 1 entry picks up the «#» symbol.
The perimeter widens where it is easy not to look: Article 15(1) also brings articles under the notification duty where they contain «le sostanze elencate nelle parti 2 o 3 dell’allegato I in forma non reattiva», Parts 2 or 3 substances in unreacted form. A benzotriazole is a light stabiliser: it lives unreacted in polymers and coatings, inside finished products nobody buys as a chemical.
A customs code corrected inside the amendment
Article 2 of the delegated act does not amend: it corrects. «Nella tabella che figura nell’allegato I, parte 3, del regolamento (UE) n. 649/2012, alla voce «Terbufos», nella quarta colonna, «ex 3808.59» è sostituito da «ex 3808.91».» — the Terbufos entry now reads ex 3808.91. That fourth column is the HS code for mixtures: whoever classified a terbufos mixture on the text in force until yesterday used a wrong code. In the consolidated text at 1 October the ►M10 marker covers those seven digits; the neighbouring line, toxaphene, stays at ex 3808.59. Against the previous consolidated text the weight falls in the three parts of Annex I and Part 1 of Annex V. Not one article changes a word.
The number customs asks for is not the CN code: it is the notification reference identification number, which Article 19(1) wants in «casella 44 dei documenti amministrativi unici o dati corrispondenti di una dichiarazione di esportazione in forma elettronica», box 44 of the single administrative document. Even the excluded have one: Article 2(3) keeps research and analysis out up to 10 kg per exporter per calendar year, yet still requires «un numero speciale di riferimento identificativo», a special reference identification number. It is the same box where proofs of preferential origin come apart.
What we do not know
We do not claim that any Italian supply chain exports these substances: that is a check to run on your part numbers. We do not know how designated national authorities will treat shipments already contracted for departure in the next thirty-five days: the delegated act sets no transitional regime, and the only written valve — Article 8(5) — disapplies the deadline only «in una situazione di emergenza nella quale qualsiasi ritardo possa mettere a rischio la salute pubblica o l’ambiente», not for commercial delay. We have not verified how many notifications are already filed.
The two axes, applied
Complying. The new entries become a control that runs over your own systems: for every part number bound for export, the bill of materials down to the substance, the country of destination, the classification declared and the state of the notification — filed when, under which reference number, valid for which calendar year. It flags the uncovered shipments before a customs office does, and leaves a dated file: the trace of the notification, not the memory of having sent it.
Deciding. The same installation holds ERP, item master data, supplier datasheets, customs files and the departure calendar of a manufacturing business or a logistics operator inside one operating model, on which AI agents carry out decisions with an operator in command: which shipment to move, which explicit consent to request first, which formulation to change rather than wait for an answer. For large enterprises, defence, public administration and healthcare, on-premise on self-contained machines or in a dedicated cloud with data centres in Italy, always with shared management.
The first session, at no cost, produces the dated list of your exposed shipments: part number, destination, missing notification. It stays with you. Talk to one of our engineers.