Product Compliance for Importing from China (2026): CPC, FCC, CE and UKCA

Compliance is the part of importing that feels like paperwork right up until the moment it becomes a seized shipment, a delisted ASIN or a recall.

The awkward thing about it is that nobody in your supply chain has a strong incentive to raise it. Your factory will make what you asked for. Your freight forwarder moves boxes. Your marketplace only checks when something goes wrong. So the question of whether your product is legally allowed to be sold in the country you are selling it in tends to arrive late, usually attached to a demand for documents you do not have.

This is the general guide. We have covered compliance inside specific verticals before, MoCRA for beauty, FDA and FSVP for supplements, UN38.3 and dangerous goods for batteries, but plenty of sellers are in none of those categories and still have obligations.

Quick answer: Which documents you need depends on the product and the market, not on where it was made. Children's products for the US need a Children's Product Certificate based on testing at a CPSC-accepted lab, and since 8 July 2026 that certificate data must be filed electronically at the time of entry. Wireless electronics need FCC Certification, non-wireless electronics usually the lighter SDoC route. The EU needs CE marking and a declaration of conformity. Great Britain now recognises CE indefinitely for most goods, so UKCA is required only for a short list of excluded categories. In every case the testing is done by an accredited third-party lab and the certificate is issued by you or your manufacturer, never by your 3PL.

The boundary, stated up front

We will come back to this, but it belongs at the top because it is the single most misunderstood thing in this area.

Testing is done by accredited third-party laboratories. Certificates and declarations of conformity are issued by the manufacturer or the importer. Both of those carry legal liability. A fulfilment provider is neither.

What a fulfilment partner genuinely does is adjacent and useful: hold your documentation so it travels with the shipment, apply the labels and markings your specification calls for, inspect that the goods coming off the line match what was approved, and flag when a carton arrives without the paperwork it should have. That is real work and it prevents real problems. It is not certification, and any provider telling you they will "handle compliance" for you is describing something they cannot legally do.

Children's products: CPC and CPSIA

If you sell anything designed or intended primarily for children aged 12 and under, this applies to you, and it is stricter than most sellers expect.

What CPSIA requires. Children's products must be tested by a CPSC-accepted third-party laboratory against all applicable safety rules. In practice that typically means lead content and lead in paint, phthalates, small parts and other mechanical hazards, and flammability, with the exact panel depending on the product. Plenty of accepted labs operate in China, and that is fine: the CPSC's list turns on accreditation, not geography.

What a CPC is. A Children's Product Certificate is a written certificate declaring compliance with every applicable rule, based on those passing test results. The importer or domestic manufacturer issues it. The laboratory does not, and neither does the CPSC. This trips people up constantly, because sellers go looking to buy a CPC and find companies happy to take the money.

What changed in 2026. Mandatory CPSC eFiling began on 8 July 2026. Importers must now electronically submit a defined set of certificate data elements at the time of entry rather than producing the certificate later on request. Goods entering from Foreign Trade Zones come into scope from 8 January 2027. This is a genuine operational change: the certificate now has to exist, and be filed, before the shipment clears, which removes the informal grace period a lot of sellers had been relying on.

Amazon requires a CPC for children's products in the US, and its category gating means the practical consequence of not having one is usually that you cannot list at all rather than that you get caught later.

Electronics: FCC, and which route applies

The FCC's rules split on a single question: does your device transmit radio frequency on purpose?

Intentional radiators are devices that deliberately transmit, which covers anything with wi-fi, Bluetooth, a remote control, or a radio module of any kind. These generally require full FCC Certification before marketing, which means testing at a recognised lab and an FCC ID.

Unintentional radiators emit radio frequency only as a side effect of operating. Think mains or USB-powered devices with digital circuitry but no radio: LED lighting, non-wireless computer peripherals, ultrasonic humidifiers, broadcast receivers. These can generally use the lighter Supplier's Declaration of Conformity route.

Misclassifying an intentional radiator as unintentional is one of the more expensive mistakes available in consumer electronics, because it is discovered after you have a container of product.

Two practical points that follow. First, the FCC ID belongs to whoever holds the authorisation, which may be your module supplier rather than you, and the arrangement matters if you ever change factories. Second, if your product also contains a lithium battery, you are in dangerous goods territory as well, with UN38.3 test summaries and transport documentation on top of the FCC work.

Europe: CE marking

CE marking is a manufacturer's declaration that a product meets the requirements of every EU directive or regulation that applies to it. Depending on the product that can be the General Product Safety Regulation, the Toy Safety Directive, the Radio Equipment Directive, RoHS, EMC, machinery rules, and often several at once.

For most consumer goods the manufacturer self-declares against harmonised standards, holds a technical file, and issues an EU Declaration of Conformity. Higher-risk categories require a notified body to be involved. Self-declaration is not the same as no obligation: you still need the testing behind it and the technical file to produce on demand.

One point sellers get wrong repeatedly: US testing does not transfer to Europe. A CPC and a passing CPSIA panel say nothing about whether a toy meets EN 71. They are separate conformity routes with separate standards, and a factory that says "we already tested it" is usually answering a different question than the one you asked.

If you are shipping into the EU you also have VAT and IOSS obligations that sit alongside compliance and are equally yours. Our guides to fulfilment into Germany and the EU and the EU low-value rules cover that side.

Great Britain: UKCA, and why it matters less than it did

This one has moved several times, and a lot of advice online is out of date.

The short version as at September 2026: the UK recognises CE marking indefinitely for most goods. The Product Safety and Metrology etc (Amendment) Regulations 2024 made that recognition permanent across a large set of product regulations, which means a CE-marked product can generally be placed on the Great Britain market without applying a separate UKCA mark.

UKCA is still required for the categories left outside that recognition, which include medical devices, construction products, marine equipment, rail products, cableways, transportable pressure equipment and unmanned aircraft systems. Medical devices in particular remain in flux, with the MHRA having consulted in early 2026 on whether to make CE recognition indefinite there too.

For a typical consumer goods seller shipping to the UK, the practical answer is that a proper CE conformity route covers you, and the UKCA panic of a few years ago has largely resolved. Verify it for your own category rather than taking that at face value, because this is exactly the kind of rule that moves. Our guide to fulfilling UK Shopify orders from China covers the rest of the UK picture.

Marketplace rules are a separate layer

Worth stating clearly, because it catches people who did everything legally right.

Amazon, Walmart and other marketplaces impose their own documentary requirements, and those can be stricter than the law or simply differently expressed. Amazon commonly asks for test reports from ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratories and accepts reports from Chinese labs, because what it cares about is the accreditation rather than the country. It may also require specific document formats, dated reports, or images of the product with its labelling.

Category gating means these requirements are usually enforced before you can list rather than after, which is at least honest. It also means a compliance gap shows up as a commercial blocker rather than a legal one, and gets escalated accordingly.

A workable sequence

Compliance is cheapest when it happens before production, and most expensive when it happens after shipping. A sensible order:

1. Identify every market you will sell in before you place a production order. Adding a market later can mean retesting.
2. Ask an accredited lab or a compliance specialist what applies to your specific product in those markets. Not your factory, and not a forum.
3. Get testing done on production-representative samples, not the prototype, and not a golden sample built by hand.
4. Issue the certificate or declaration yourself, or have your manufacturer issue it, based on the passing reports.
5. Build the labelling and marking into the packaging artwork, so it is applied at production rather than corrected later with stickers.
6. Inspect against the approved specification before shipping, because the compliance work is worthless if the goods that ship are not the goods that were tested. That is what pre-shipment quality control is for, and it is where a China-side partner earns its keep.
7. Keep the documentation with the goods, so it is available at entry rather than being hunted for while a container sits.

Where we fit, and where we do not

We store your compliance documentation and make sure it travels with the shipment. We label and mark to the specification you supply. We inspect goods against your approved sample before they leave Shenzhen, which is how a mismatch between what was certified and what was made gets caught while it is still cheap. And we prep to your marketplace's specification so a documentary requirement does not turn into a rejection at the fulfilment centre, which is the same discipline behind our FBA prep work.

We do not test, we do not certify, and we are not your importer of record. Those sit with you, your manufacturer and an accredited lab, and any 3PL that claims otherwise is not a partner you want holding your stock.

The bottom line

Compliance follows the product and the market, never the country of manufacture. Children's goods into the US need third-party lab testing and a CPC that you issue, now filed electronically at entry since 8 July 2026. Wireless electronics need FCC Certification, non-wireless usually the lighter SDoC route. The EU needs CE and a declaration of conformity, and Great Britain now recognises CE indefinitely for most categories. Sort it before production, verify against your own category rather than a summary, and keep the paperwork with the goods. Tell us what you sell and where, and we'll make sure the documentation and labelling ship with it.