Sourcing animal by-products from China

Start with the material, treatment and destination

Build the enquiry around a precise material rather than ‘animal by-products’: species, mane or tail hair, raw or processed form, treatment method, intended use and receiving premises. This guide focuses on horsehair, with tariff comparisons for fish waste and hide parings. It does not establish an import route for semen or embryos.

The tariff definition of horsehair includes mane or tail hair of equine or bovine animals. If your specification requires horse tail hair only, say so explicitly. Prepared brush knots or tufts are excluded from Chapter 5, so loose hair and assembled brush components need separate classification checks. Use finding your commodity code before accepting the supplier’s code.

The animal-health guidance here concerns Great Britain: England, Scotland and Wales. Obtain destination-specific advice for Northern Ireland.

Finding animal-hair processors

When identifying horsehair suppliers, ask for the processing site’s name and address and evidence of the operations carried out there. Confirm current capacity and the proposed UK import route before treating a supplier as suitable.

Request a written declaration of species, mane versus tail, and any synthetic blend. Do not accept ‘horsehair’ as a complete material specification.

Ask which operations processors perform themselves: sorting, washing, dyeing, blending and packing. For neighbouring brush materials, consult our pig bristles and brush hair guide; the treatment route described below is specifically for hair.

Treated hair: the document must describe the process

APHA’s ABP/23B permits treated wool, hair and fur from any country. Qualifying treated hair requires no health certificate and is not subject to veterinary checks, although officials can request the prescribed information. A commercial document must accompany the shipment, identifying consignor, consignee, origin, quantity, treatment or processing method and species.

The production standard is Article 25(2) of Regulation 142/2011 as assimilated into Great Britain’s law. It includes factory-washed hair or another treatment ensuring no unacceptable risks remain. A supplier’s phrase such as ‘cleaned’ or ‘sterilised’ should therefore prompt a request for the actual process and batch record.

Ask the processor to connect its treatment record to the shipment’s lot identifiers. If it relies on the storage treatment route, APHA requires temperatures, dates and storage information on the commercial document; otherwise the goods are classed as untreated. Review the shipment file alongside our customs clearance documents guide.

Untreated hair: clear the route before paying a deposit

ABP/23A requires an establishment approved to export to Great Britain. Its country conditions depend on the route: section 3a refers to safeguard declarations, while section 3b refers to authorised country lists. Do not infer that untreated Chinese hair is admissible because treated hair is permitted from any country.

The untreated route also specifies dry, securely enclosed material and a controlled destination. Documentation differs by route: section 3a can require a health certificate or commercial document, while section 3b requires an importer’s declaration. Ask APHA to confirm the proposed species, origin, treatment status and receiving plant before committing.

For fish waste, sinews or hide parings, use a separate product-and-use enquiry. The hair conditions cannot establish their admissibility. Our pet food and animal feed guide is a related starting point when the intended destination is the feed chain.

Duty is zero on these lines; classification still matters

The UK Trade Tariff pages checked on 3 October 2026 show 0% third-country duty for these three codes and no listed anti-dumping measure on China. The table describes tariff treatment, not animal-health clearance. Recheck the measures for the actual declaration date.

Worked example: industrial horsehair delivered to Cambridge

Hypothetical example, not a price quotation: assume treated horsehair for industrial brush manufacture is correctly classified under 0511998590. Goods cost £10,000, freight and insurance to the UK border cost £1,000, and additional qualifying clearance and transport costs to the first destination in Cambridge total £300. Assume no other valuation adjustments.

Customs value: £10,000 + £1,000 = £11,000. Duty: £11,000 × 0% = £0. Import VAT value: £11,000 + £0 + £300 = £11,300. At the standard 20% rate, import VAT is £2,260. The goods, stated logistics and import taxes total £13,560 before any VAT recovery.

HMRC requires qualifying incidental expenses to the first UK destination to be included in the VAT value; it is not automatically the same as customs value. This industrial-use example does not apply a food or feed VAT relief. See UK import duty and VAT for the wider calculation.

Inspect usable hair and shipment identity separately

Recommended purchase checks: agree an acceptable length distribution, colour range and composition against a retained sample. For bow hair, trial the sample in the intended bow; for brush material, trial it in the intended tuft or brush. Agree acceptance criteria before ordering rather than inventing a universal grade.

Record potential rejection defects explicitly: short fibres hidden in long bundles, an undeclared synthetic blend, colour transfer, brittle fibres, objectionable odour, visible dirt or damp packing. These are proposed inspection points, not claims about their frequency or statutory tolerances.

Match the inspected lot to the invoice, packing list, treatment record and commercial document. A good-looking sample does not prove that the shipped lot received the declared treatment.

Ask Cambridge China Bridge’s factory verification service to establish who processes the material and examine the supporting records. Keep material acceptance and import-route confirmation as separate purchase conditions.