mdi Consultants
The FDA new guidance provides information on how the importers will comply with FDA’s requirement to identify themselves as the importer of a food at entry into the United States under the Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP) regulation, including the requirement to provide a unique facility identifier (UFI) recognized as acceptable by FDA. On March 31, 2017, FDA issued guidance recognizing the DUNS number as an acceptable UFI for the FSVP regulation.
While FDA expects all FSVP importers to provide their UFI starting on the applicable compliance date, the Agency recognizes that this is a new requirement and there may be factors that prevent importers from doing so. Therefore, for FSVP importers temporarily unable to obtain a DUNS number, FDA intends to allow filers to transmit the value “UNK” (to represent “unknown”) in the UFI field for the FSVP importer. During the time that FDA and CBP allow the use of the “UNK” value for the UFI field, FDA intends to contact those FSVP importers for whom “UNK” was transmitted in place of the UFI in order to provide additional information to ensure that they understand this FSVP requirement and can take appropriate steps to obtain a UFI.
The first FSVP compliance date is May 30, 2017.
A chart on fda.gov, titled Am I Subject to FSVP? Will help you determine if your firm is subject to the rule.
The DUNS number is available free of charge to all importers, and can be obtained by contacting D&B by phone at 866-705-5711 or via email at govt@dnb.com, or by visiting D&B’s Web site.
For more information on the guidance please visit Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP) regulation
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