You were handed a Safety Data Sheet (SDS). You cannot tell if the EU will accept it.
Your product is fine. The document that travels with it is the part an EU inspector reads first — and the part that most often stops a shipment. This page explains what a valid sheet has to contain, why an honest draft carries a watermark until a qualified person signs it, and how to have the sheet you already hold checked before it reaches the border.
The paperwork fails, and the deal fails with it
A shipment stopped at the EU border earns nothing while it sits. Storage runs on the meter, your delivery window closes, and the consignment may be turned back at your cost. Meanwhile your European buyer — who did nothing wrong — grows tired of waiting and quietly places the next order elsewhere. None of it is about your chemistry. The product is good. One document failed the check, and the account went with it.
The real question is about the sheet you already hold
Most exporters are not trying to write a Safety Data Sheet from nothing. A supplier or a manufacturer handed you one, and you are trusting that it is valid for the country you are shipping into. That is the honest problem: the rules are foreign, they are in another language, and they keep changing.
So the useful thing we can do is not sell you a new document. It is to read the one you already have, against the country you name, and tell you plainly whether it would pass the EU border document check — or where an inspector would flag it. That is the free SDS audit, and it is where this page is meant to send you. It is free, as a first step — not a priced service.
For the reagents in our own demo catalogue we also generate Safety Data Sheets in the format of Regulation (EU) 2020/878 — all 16 sections, built from the same verified data record shown on each product page. The rest of this page explains how those sheets are built, because the same standard is what your sheet will be measured against.
Why our sheets carry a „draft” watermark
This is a deliberate choice, not a missing step. Under REACH, the entire Safety Data Sheet must be compiled by a competent person — someone with the right qualifications and judgement. Some sections lean hardest on that judgement, but the obligation covers the whole document, not a handful of fields. Until such a person reviews and approves the sheet, it stays a marked draft.
A safety document that presents itself as final before anyone qualified has checked it is a risk, not a feature. The watermark comes off only after a competent person approves the sheet — not before.
So what you receive is structurally complete but is not a signed SDS: the 16 sections are built and every field has a known source, yet the document is one qualified review from final. Your competent person takes it over with a single review instead of building it from zero. Be sceptical of anyone who hands you a „final” SDS without telling you who signed it.
What a compliant 16-section sheet must contain
Regulation (EU) 2020/878 fixes the 16 sections every Safety Data Sheet must carry. In plain terms, an inspector expects to find:
- Substance identity, with its
CAS,ECand index numbers - Classification and labelling under
CLP— the pictograms, the signal word, and the hazard (H) and precautionary (P) statements - Exposure-control values, presented as the destination country’s occupational exposure limits where they apply — one member state’s limits are an example, not the default frame
- Physical and chemical properties, plus stability and reactivity
- Toxicological information
- Transport information — the
UNnumber, hazard class and packing group - Regulatory status, including whether the substance sits on the REACH restriction list (Annex XVII, including the CMR entries 28–30) or the candidate list of substances of very high concern (
SVHC)
Where a field cannot be backed by an official source, we mark it as unverified rather than fill it with a confident guess. Every field is labelled verified, aggregated, or unverified — the full provenance model is set out at /how-we-verify/.
A draft versus a legal document — told honestly
Responsibility for the content of a Safety Data Sheet rests with the party that places the substance on the market. Our draft is the foundation of that document. Section 1.3 (supplier details) and the final approval belong to whoever issues the sheet.
If you import into the EU from outside it, the sheet is only one of several duties. Alongside it sit the classification and labelling notification (C&L), the CLP packaging requirements, and — for hazardous mixtures — the poison-centre notification (PCN) with its unique formula identifier (UFI). We can tell you which of these your case triggers; we will not pretend the sheet alone closes the file.
Rules change. Sheets should change with them
The candidate list of substances of very high concern grows twice a year. The harmonised classification list (Annex VI) receives new adaptations. When a rule changes, a sheet built once and forgotten quietly goes out of date.
The sheets in our catalogue are generated from a single source-of-truth data record. When a regulation changes, the change flows into the documents — it does not wait for an inspector to find it. We cannot promise a shipment clears customs — nobody honestly can. What we do is remove the documentation defects inspectors find most often, before your goods reach the border.
Who runs this
This site is operated by Nonsensia Ltd, Company No. 15165427, registered in London, United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is outside the EU — we state that plainly, because for EU-import duties the party of record must be established in the EU, and we will tell you where that applies to you rather than blur it.
The product catalogue on this site is a live demonstration of the platform. Our real work is checking and preparing the compliance documents that move your goods.
Science first. Commerce as consequence.
Have the sheet you already hold checked first
Send us the Safety Data Sheet you already have and your destination country. Within 48 hours we return a nine-point report of what an EU inspector would most likely flag. Free — you pay nothing to see it.