A clothing manufacturer that starts exporting to Russia may not consider certifying its products until later down the line. At first, importers can take care of these procedures, but, as sales increase, and the range of exported products (and also those of their business partners) expands, the company usually decides to take care of the certification itself. This is a rational decision for several reasons.
The number of products that a new exporting company has in its catalogue may worry them when it comes to certification, but it isn’t really a relevant criterion when predicting how many documents will be needed to export clothes to Russia.
The basics: HS Code and layer
🔵 The first and most important criterion is, as always, the tariff heading (HS or Taric Code). As a general rule, products that share the same tariff code will go in a single document. There are exceptions, such as in the case of cosmetics, but, in the vast majority of certifications, this criterion is valid.
🔵 There is a second criterion when it comes to determining the type of certification that applies to a garment: contact or proximity to the skin. Regarding this parameter, we can talk about first, second, and third layer garments.
First-layer garments include products in direct contact with the wearer’s skin, such as underwear and bedding, lingerie and swimwear, summer headwear, socks, scarves, and other similar items.
Second-layer clothing includes products that have limited contact with the wearer’s skin, such as shirts, tops, trousers, skirts, unlined dresses, sweaters, sweatshirts, headgear (except in summer), gloves, autumn/winter socks, and other similar products.
Third layer products include coats, jackets, capes, lined dresses, baby bags, and other similar products.
The layer determines the permitted levels of the following benchmarks:
- hygroscopicity (the tendency to absorb moisture from the surrounding atmosphere)
- transpiration
- free formaldehyde content
- resistance to washing, sweating, and dry rubbing (testers will rub a product without water to check its resistance)
Certificate or Declaration?
As a general rule, first layer products require an EAC Certificate of Conformity, and second and third layer products require an EAC Declaration of Conformity.
In practice, there are many exceptions which are often related to the user’s age, as well as to the processing of the product. Let’s look at some of the most important ones, i.e. second and third layer products requiring a Certificate:
- leather and fur articles
- some (or most) knitwear items
- second layer hats for children up to one year of age
- third layer clothing for children up to one year of age.
Children’s Clothing requires State Registration
First layer products for children under the age of three usually require State Registration (with the consequent shipment of samples to Russia) in order to be exported throughout the Eurasian Union.
The law explicitly speaks of underwear, knitted socks, and general textile products for children up to 3 years of age. It also considers that summer hats or caps are subject to State Registration, if they are intended for children of the indicated age group.
Documentation
In summary: To enable us to answer you as quickly as possible, send us an email to info@gost-standard.com, with the following information for each garment you want to export to the Eurasian Union:
- tariff heading
- product name
- composition
- age of the users
- photo (optional at first, but can be required if there are any questions concerning the product)
