Shipping electronics to the United States

What the carrier names, and what it means

Consumer electronics is the broadest of these categories and the least intuitive, because the rules do not follow the device: they follow a component inside it. La Poste's list is the fastest way to see whether your parcel is affected at the counter.

Being on that list does not by itself mean a certificate is required. It means the parcel needs a declaration of some kind, and the next question - certificate or Disclaim - is answered by the American rules rather than by the carrier.

Button and coin cells: the rule that catches everyone

If one thing on this page changes a seller's plans, it is this. The rule is not about a category of device but about a component, so it reaches a light-up keyring, a kitchen timer, a greeting card that plays a tune, a thermometer - anything containing a button or coin cell.

Two separate sections are cited because the rule has two halves: how the battery compartment is secured, and what warnings appear on the product and its packaging. A certificate that names one and not the other is incomplete, and the packaging half is the one small sellers discover last.

The reason for the rule is worth knowing, because it tells you how strictly it will be read: a swallowed coin cell burns a child's oesophagus within hours. That is why the compartment has to resist a child's hands and why the warnings are prescribed rather than suggested, and why nobody treats this one as a formality.

Everything else: compare, do not assume

For a device with no button cell and no children's use, the exercise is a comparison against the list of rules requiring a general certificate. That list is finite, and your product is either named by one of its rules or it is not.

Where a rule does apply, the certificate rests on a test of each product or a reasonable testing program, and for a product not intended for children the laboratory can be your manufacturer's own. That is a materially smaller bill than the children's regime, and it is worth establishing early which one you are in.

The question to put to your manufacturer

One message, three questions, and you will know where you stand: does the product contain a button or coin cell; is it designed or marketed for children; and what test reports do you already hold for it, with their dates. The rest follows from the answers.

Electronics also changes more often than the other trades - a new supplier, a new cell, a new enclosure. The identifiers you file describe a version of a product, so treat a component change as a new version rather than a correction to the old one.

• Versions and identifiers in the Registry
• The whole procedure, in order
• CPC or GCC: which certificate is yours