Feb. 25: SME size verification – reductions to the administrative charge

This notice is brought to you by ECHA.

The Commission Regulation on REACH fees and charges (EC) No 340/2008 provides for significant reductions in fees for companies qualifying for the EU definition of a micro, small or medium company. Companies declare their company size already when signing up in REACH-IT and re-confirm their size again when submitting a registration. Article 13(4) of that Regulation empowers ECHA to invoice registrants, that cannot demonstrate to be entitled to the reduced fee corresponding to the self-declared SME category, the balance of the correct fee as well as an administrative charge.

In line with its previous communications, ECHA encourages companies to make sure that they have declared the correct size category so as to avoid having to pay the administrative charge.

In accordance with the ECHA Management Board Decision (MB/21/2012/D), which entered into force on 12 February 2013 following the favourable opinion from the European Commission, companies that have wrongly declared their size category may benefit from a 50 per cent reduction of the applicable administrative charge provided that the registrant declares the correct company size, following the instructions specified in the initial request for documents sent by ECHA and by the response deadline set in that letter.

For more information and the full notice please refer to the link above.