Reduced fees for SMEs under EU chemical legislation
The European Commission has lowered the fees and charges that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have to pay to register chemicals by 35% to 95% in relation to standard registration fees, and from 25% to 90% in relation to standard fees for authorisation requests.
Registration makes companies responsible for the safe use of chemicals under REACH, the EU’s chemicals legislation and a recent review of REACH indicated it poses a disproportionate burden on SMEs, relative to larger companies.
The amending regulation rebalances the fees and charges in such a way that takes into account the costs of the EU’s Chemicals Agency but provides further reductions for SMEs which have less capacity to absorb the costs of REACH compliance than large companies. Standard fees have also been updated in line with inflation.
Reductions for SMEs (in brackets current reductions)
Type of company/ Type of fee Medium Small Micro
Registration -35% (-30%) -65% (-60%) -95% (-90%)
Authorisation -25% (-20%) -55% (-50%) -90% (-85%)
Appeals -25% (18.2%) -25% (18.2%) -25% (18.2%)