Gelatin, collagen, and highly purified animal‑origin products listed in Annex III of Regulation 853/2004 are exempt from EU veterinary import and intra‑EU movement rules, but remain subject to other controls such as hygiene, labeling, and contaminant limits.

Import conditions will be based on broader criteria including a country’s veterinary status, control effectiveness, surveillance, outbreak response, and epidemiological factors rather than disease presence alone.

Egg product imports must come from countries with surveillance for highly pathogenic avian influenza and Newcastle disease and must undergo EU‑defined treatments.

Animal traceability and identification requirements are strengthened with ISO‑compliant electronic identifiers or tags for most species, with detailed, species‑specific rules on formats and readability.

Composite products that contain dairy and egg ingredients will be evaluated using the origin of each ingredient, where it’s processed, and the veterinary status of all countries involved, with stricter rules applied to higher‑risk origins; egg ingredients follow the same regulatory framework as egg‑containing products.

Horses will be subject to import conditions tied to disease records in a country, meaning disease status can override standard group rules for horses regardless of the country group.

Ukrainian exporters must adjust production, traceability, and export documentation to align with the updated import rules.

New special conditions for certain goods mean not all products from a listed country receive automatic approval; some may require extra testing, origin certificates, vaccination records, or other conformity proofs.

The EU published Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1052 on July 23, amending Regulation (EU) 2020/692, and the new rules take effect on August 12, 2026.

Dairy rules distinguish processing by milk source and product category, with the strictest regimes triggered when milks are mixed or when processing occurs before or after mixing.

For certain stable composite products stored at room temperature, market operators’ private attestations can substitute for veterinary certificates if conditions are met; otherwise, certificates remain required in proportion to risk.

Meat product manufacturers face tougher controls on the origin of raw materials, tying processing requirements to the export status of the source country for fresh meat.