Import certificates and conformity requirements, country by country

SONCAP, implemented under Central Bank of Nigeria circular TED/AD/100/2005. Two certificates: a Product Certificate issued to the exporter, and a SONCAP Certificate issued for each shipment.

• The sequence above is the whole game. The Product Certificate has to exist before your bank can open the Form M, the SONCAP Certificate is filed against that Form M, and the vessel sails only once it is issued.
• Fees published by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria: Product Certificate PC1 — USD 500, valid six months, single use; PC2 — USD 1,000, valid twelve months, multiple use; SONCAP Certificate — USD 350 per shipment. Processing is quoted at 96 hours, or 24 hours with a complete file. These are the regulator’s charges, not ours, and they appear in the quotation as their own line.
• Since 27 March 2025 every application carries the full ten-digit HS code and goes through the e-SONCAP portal; the paper route has been withdrawn. In practice that means the classification is settled before the certificate exists, not after it.
• What we will not tell you is that SONCAP does not apply. The regulator works on the basis that everything is regulated unless expressly exempted, and the regulated-product list hosted publicly has not been revised since 2006. We get the status of your exact ten-digit code confirmed in writing by Cotecna, Bureau Veritas or Intertek before quoting, and we send you that confirmation with the quotation.
• The machinery exemption does not help a dealer: it is written for manufacturers registered with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria importing for their own use. An importer buying for resale does not qualify.
• Form M is opened electronically by your bank through the Central Bank trade portal. For machinery it stays valid 365 days rather than the usual 180, and it can be extended.
• This is also why our deposit is 30% and not 50%: the Central Bank Foreign Exchange Manual in force from 1 June 2026 caps advance payment on physical imports at 30% of FOB value. A supplier asking for half the money up front is asking your bank for something it is not permitted to pay.

Sources: Standards Organisation of Nigeria SONCAP fee schedule and FAQ; Central Bank of Nigeria circular TED/AD/100/2005; Cotecna Nigeria certification process; Central Bank of Nigeria Foreign Exchange Manual 2026.

A PVoC certificate of conformity, issued before shipment under Legal Notice No. 78 of 15 July 2005 made under the Standards Act, Cap 496. PVoC has covered all imports since 1 December 2015.

• For shipments out of China, certificates of conformity are issued by Cotecna or Intertek under the arrangement effective 9 February 2026.
• Arriving without one moves the inspection to your end and puts its cost on the importer. Two different fee bases for that inspection are currently in circulation. We are not going to print either of them: we ask the issuing body which one applies to your consignment and forward the written answer.
• The exemption for machinery imported by registered manufacturers for their own use does not extend to an importer buying for resale.

Sources: Kenya Bureau of Standards PVoC notices; Legal Notice No. 78 of 2005.

A PVoC certificate of conformity issued by the Tanzania Bureau of Standards programme before shipment. Mandatory for regulated products since 1 January 2012.

• Three routes exist — per-batch testing with shipment inspection, product registration, or product licensing. Which is cheaper depends on how often you expect to reorder the same model, so it is worth deciding before the first shipment rather than defaulting to the per-batch route on every order.
• Shipping without a certificate carries a penalty of 15% of the CIF value plus a destination inspection, and non-compliant goods are re-exported or destroyed at the exporter’s cost.
• Whether the regulated-products list covers this machinery is confirmed with the issuing body for your consignment. We have not read that list ourselves, so this page does not state it.

Sources: Tanzania Bureau of Standards PVoC programme documentation.

A G-CAP / EasyPASS certificate of conformity. The Ghana Standards Authority signed the programme on 28 August 2014, and the certificate is a mandatory clearance document.

• Certificates are issued by Bureau Veritas, Intertek, SGS, Cotecna or TÜV Rheinland.
• Without one, expect serious delay at the port, penalties, and in the worst case re-export.
• The applicable route and whether construction machinery sits on the regulated list are confirmed with the issuing body for your consignment. We have not read those two items in the authority’s own text, so they are not stated here.

Sources: Ghana Standards Authority conformity assessment programme; authorised issuing bodies’ programme datasheets.

SASO technical regulations, filed on the SABER platform. All three headings this machinery can fall under are covered, and none of them is exempt.

• The instruments: mobile machinery and heavy equipment, technical regulation 01-08-21-180 — approved 8 April 2021, gazetted 21 May 2021 — for heading 8429; general machinery safety, م.إ-01-02-04-23-196 — approved 28 December 2023, gazetted 29 March 2024 — for heading 8474; special-purpose vehicles, م.إ-01-04-04-24-201 — approved 27 June 2024, gazetted 23 August 2024 — for heading 8705.
• We cannot file SABER for you, and a supplier who tells you otherwise has not read the regulation. Under 01-08-21-180 the “supplier” is the manufacturer only where it is established in Saudi Arabia; otherwise it is your Saudi agent, or the importer where there is no agent. As the Chinese exporter we sit outside that definition, and there is no route where the machine ships first and the agent is found later.
• What we do supply is everything your agent has to file with: the technical file, the declaration of conformity and the risk assessment, plus the per-shipment documents. Certification is carried out by a body recognised by SASO, and marking data has to be in Arabic, or Arabic and English.
• One conflict to settle before booking: in the special-purpose vehicles regulation, Annex 1-A lists only trailers and recovery flatbeds while Annex 1-B lists the whole 8705 heading — and the regulation’s own footnote makes the SABER platform’s product and customs-code list the governing text. The heading therefore has to be verified on SABER itself rather than reasoned out of the regulation. Getting it wrong means a machine held at the port against a standard that was never written for it.
• One clause works in your favour: where transport dimensions make it impossible to import a machine whole, the mobile-machinery regulation permits shipping in parts, provided each part is shown to belong to a certified model. For an out-of-gauge machine that is a legitimate route, not a workaround.

Sources: SASO technical regulations 01-08-21-180, م.إ-01-02-04-23-196 and م.إ-01-04-04-24-201, as published by the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization.

No ECAS or EQM product certification is required for construction machinery entering the United Arab Emirates.

• That is not an assumption. All 81 entries of the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology’s regulated-products list were read line by line: there is no entry for construction, earth-moving, mobile or concrete-mixing machinery anywhere in it.
• One exception to watch — trailers and semi-trailers are on that list. If a unit ships with a trailer, the trailer is certified in its own right.
• Otherwise the normal commercial documents apply: invoice, packing list, bill of lading and certificate of origin.

Sources: Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology regulated-products list (81 entries, read in full); ECAS scheme under Federal Law 28 of 2001.