Guides / Certification

Which shrimp certifications you actually need, by destination market

September 26, 2026

Certification is where a shrimp sourcing project either narrows usefully or collapses into a wish list. Buyers who ask a Vietnamese plant for “all certificates” get a longer supplier list and a worse price. Buyers who ask for the specific ones their own customer demands get three plants that can actually serve them.

This guide separates what the law requires from what your retailer requires, market by market.

The two categories that matter

Every certificate in shrimp falls into one of two buckets, and confusing them is the most common sourcing mistake.

Legal import requirements. Without these the container does not clear customs. They are non-negotiable and they attach to the destination market, not to your preferences.

Commercial requirements. These come from your retailer, your foodservice chain or your own brand standard. They are negotiable in principle, but if your buyer wrote them into a contract they are as binding as the law for your purposes.

The mandatory baseline

HACCP. A documented hazard analysis and critical control point system. Vietnamese export plants operate under HACCP as a condition of their export licence, so any plant you are talking to should have it. It is worth stating in the spec anyway, because it excludes plants that only serve the domestic market.

Beyond HACCP, the legal layer depends entirely on where the container lands.

United States

• FDA food facility registration. The plant must be registered. Registration numbers are renewable and can lapse, so confirm the current cycle rather than accepting an old certificate scan.
• Prior Notice filing. Filed per shipment before arrival, normally by your customs broker, but the plant’s documentation has to support it.
• Commercially: BAP is the most commonly requested scheme in North American retail. Many US programmes treat BAP 4 star as a floor.

European Union

• EU establishment number. The plant must appear on the EU list of approved establishments for fishery and aquaculture products from Vietnam. No number, no entry, regardless of how good the plant is.
• Health certificate per consignment, issued by the competent Vietnamese authority.
• CHED-P entry through the EU’s official control system at the border control post.
• Commercially: ASC is frequently required by European retailers, and BRC or IFS is normal for private label. Many EU programmes also expect documented antibiotic residue testing per lot.

Japan

• Japan has no equivalent of the EU establishment list, but importers apply tight residue and cosmetic standards in practice, and rejection on residue findings is expensive.
• Commercially: buyers usually require documented per lot residue testing, and specify count tolerance and appearance far more precisely than US or EU buyers. Certification schemes matter less here than test documentation and consistency.

South Korea and Australia

• Korea applies its own labelling and residue rules, with growing demand for peeled and cooked formats.
• Australia treats cooked and raw product through different import pathways. Confirm the pathway before you price, because it changes which plants can serve you.

Middle East

• Halal certification at plant level, which not every Vietnamese plant holds. Often paired with HOSO block packs.

What each commercial scheme actually audits

Because the schemes overlap in name and diverge in scope, it is worth knowing what you are buying.

Scheme	What it audits	Who usually asks for it
BAP	Hatchery, farm, feed mill and processing plant	North American retail and foodservice
ASC	Farm level, environmental and social criteria	European retail
GlobalG.A.P.	Farm level good agricultural practice	European buyers, sometimes as an ASC alternative
BRC	Processing site food safety and quality management	European private label retail
IFS	Processing site, similar scope to BRC	German and French retail in particular
Halal	Plant process compliance	Middle East, parts of Southeast Asia

Note the split. BAP and ASC say something about the pond. BRC and IFS say something about the factory. A plant with BRC and no ASC is not a worse plant, it is a plant audited on a different axis. Ask for the axis your customer cares about.

Ready to price this spec? Get matched with a shrimp supplier

Certificates belong to the plant, not to the agent

Anyone who presents you a certificate portfolio as their own is either a plant or is overstating their position. A sourcing intermediary can tell you which plants hold what, and can filter on it before you waste a week. The certificate itself is issued to a named establishment at a named address.

Which is why the only useful form of a certificate claim is a number you can check yourself:

1. Ask for the certificate number and the issuing body, not a photo of a wall plaque.
2. Check the number in the issuing body’s public directory. BAP, ASC and GlobalG.A.P. all maintain searchable databases.
3. Check the EU establishment number against the European Commission’s approved list for Vietnam.
4. Check the scope on the certificate. A certificate can be valid and still not cover the species, the site or the processing form you need.
5. Check the expiry date against your production window, not against today.

How to write the certificate line in a spec

Bad: “all major certifications required.”

Better: “HACCP mandatory. BAP required by our retailer. BRC required for private label. EU establishment number required, destination Rotterdam.”

The second version is a filter. It tells a plant in one line whether to bid, and it tells an intermediary exactly which plants to approach. It also protects you from paying the premium attached to a certificate nobody in your chain asked for.

Where to go from here

Once you know your certificate set and your size grade, the supplier question becomes narrow and answerable: which Vietnamese plants hold these certificates, with current numbers, and run this grade at your volume.

Certificates are one step in our guide to importing frozen shrimp from Vietnam.

Send the spec with the certificate line written the specific way, and we will match it against plants that hold them.

See also: shrimp import rules for Japan, as of October 2026.

See also: ASC, BAP or GLOBALG.A.P. compared for shrimp.

Frequently asked questions

Keep reading

• RASFF shrimp notifications: why EU border checks reject lots and how a buyer prevents it
• FDA import alerts on shrimp: what triggers detention and how an importer avoids it