Shipping sporting goods to the United States
For sporting goods, CPSC's list names bicycles and bicycle helmets; for the rest, check the list against your product.
Updated 11 October 2026
In brief
La Poste lists sports and leisure articles among the products needing a reinforced declaration for the US.
Official text
Articles de sports et de loisirs
— La Poste, retrieved 11 October 2026
Bicycles (16 CFR part 1512) and bicycle helmets (16 CFR part 1203) are on CPSC's list of rules requiring a General Certificate of Conformity.
Official text
Bicycles 16 CFR part 1512
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026Bicycle helmets 16 CFR part 1203
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026
CPSC gives sport helmets other than bicycle helmets as an example of a Disclaim A: a product within its jurisdiction to which no rule requiring a certificate applies.
Official text
Disclaim A: product is not regulated by this agency
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026Sport helmets, besides bicycle helmets.
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026no rule, ban, standard, or regulation requiring a certificate applies.
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026
A GCC must be based on a test of each product or a reasonable testing program, and any laboratory can do the testing for a product not intended for children.
Official text
The GCC must be based on a test of each product or a reasonable testing program.
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026Any laboratory—an in-house or an external, third party laboratory—can perform the testing required for non-children's products.
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026
Bicycles and bicycle helmets are named
Sporting goods are a wide category with a narrow set of named rules, and two of them matter more than the rest because they are explicit. Bicycles and bicycle helmets each have their own part of title 16 and each appears on the list of rules requiring a general certificate.
« Bicycles 16 CFR part 1512 »« Bicycle helmets 16 CFR part 1203 »Note what this covers in practice: a complete bicycle, and a helmet sold for cycling. Accessories - a bell, a bottle cage, a saddle bag - are separate products, judged on their own, and are usually not named by either rule.
Other helmets, and CPSC's own example
This is the part sellers get wrong in good faith, by reasoning that a helmet is a helmet. CPSC's guidance uses sport helmets other than bicycle helmets as its own illustration of a product within its jurisdiction to which no rule requiring a certificate applies.
« Sport helmets, besides bicycle helmets. »So a skateboard helmet and a cycling helmet, side by side on the same shelf, are declared differently: one carries a certificate, the other a Disclaim A with its intended use code. It is the clearest example on this site of why the question is always which rule names this product, never which shelf it sits on.
« If submitting a Disclaim, filers must also submit an intended use code. »What a certificate rests on here
Where a rule does apply, the general certificate rests on a test of each product or a reasonable testing program, and the laboratory does not have to be accredited as long as the product is not intended for children.
« The GCC must be based on a test of each product or a reasonable testing program. »« Any laboratory—an in-house or an external, third party laboratory—can perform the testing required for non-children's products. »The exception is the one that runs through every trade: a helmet, a ball or a racket made for a child is a children's product, and then the testing has to come from a laboratory CPSC has accepted. Youth sizes are where this bites, because the object is the same and the regime is not.
« Children's products must be tested by a CPSC-accepted laboratory »Sorting a sports catalogue quickly
Go through what you actually ship in three passes. First, anything named by a rule - bicycles, cycling helmets. Second, anything made for children, whatever it is. Third, the rest, which in the current texts is usually a declaration rather than a certificate.
That third group is larger than people expect, and it is where a seller saves the most time: no laboratory, no waiting on a supplier, a document produced the same afternoon and an annex ready for the next parcel.
Is your product concerned?
Two minutes, no account.
Shipping by post from Europe
Since 17 September 2026, La Poste in France has suspended these products on its consumer Colissimo offers.
Official text
nous devons suspendre momentanément l'expédition de ces produits spécifiques via les offres Colissimo grand public, à partir du 17 septembre 2026.
— La Poste, retrieved 11 October 2026certains produits tels que les articles pour enfants, les jouets, les bijoux fantaisie, les produits électroniques, les vêtements et les articles de sport, font l'objet d'une déclaration renforcée, nécessitant un formulaire douanier spécifique et une pré-inscription obligatoire pour l'expéditeur de ces produits sur le site du CPSC
— La Poste, retrieved 11 October 2026
La Poste says every European postal operator has to adapt its declaration forms to the new US customs process.
Official text
toutes les postes européennes sont dans l'obligation d'adapter leurs formulaires de déclaration au nouveau process douanier américain.
— La Poste, retrieved 11 October 2026
Once your products are in the CPSC Product Registry, the annex for each item comes down to three identifiers.
Official text
l'identifiant du produit (Product ID), l'identifiant du certificateur (Certifier ID), l'identification de version (Version ID).
— Colissimo Entreprise, retrieved 11 October 2026Certifier ID, Product ID, and Version ID are the three fields needed to identify a specific certificate stored in the Product Registry.
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026
From 22 October 2026, CPSC requires eFiled certificates for mail shipments.
Official text
CPSC will require eFiled certificates for mail shipments, via a Full or Reference Message Set, beginning on October 22, 2026.
— CPSC, retrieved 11 October 2026
Frequently asked questions
I sell ski helmets. Do they need a certificate?
CPSC's list of rules requiring a GCC names bicycle helmets, and its Disclaim guidance gives sport helmets other than bicycle helmets as an example of a Disclaim A. Whether that describes your product is your judgement as seller.
What goes on the annex for a helmet without certificate?
Colissimo says a Disclaim Message Set carries a Disclaimer Code A or B, an intended use code and an intended use description.
Sources
- La Poste, Quels sont les produits nécessitant une déclaration adaptée pour les États-Unis ? · retrieved 11 October 2026
- CPSC, Rules Requiring a General Certificate of Conformity · retrieved 11 October 2026
- CPSC, eFiling Citation, Testing Exclusion and Disclaim Guidance · retrieved 11 October 2026
- CPSC, General Use Products Certification and Testing · retrieved 11 October 2026
- La Poste, Quelle est la nouvelle réglementation pour les envois vers les États-Unis ? · retrieved 11 October 2026
- Colissimo Entreprise, Export vers les USA : les formalités douanières et réglementaires à anticiper · retrieved 11 October 2026
- CPSC, eFiling Product Registry User Guide, version 3.0 · retrieved 11 October 2026
- CPSC, CPSC Guidance for Mail Shipments on Electronic Filing (eFiling) of Certificates of Compliance · retrieved 11 October 2026