What is the cost of an EU REACH registration?

According to the European Commission, approximately €3bn has been spent on 90,000 REACH registrations of 25,000 substances. This means that the average REACH registration has cost around €33,300.

In order to make a REACH registration, companies are required to compile and submit and information relating to their business and that substance to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the agency tasked with administrating REACH regulation in the EU. The larger the volumes of the substance imported or produced then the more information that is required. Similarly, the less companies that register a substance then the more they each have to pay per share.

The costs for an EU REACH registration can be summarised as;

Substance identity

In order to confirm the identify of the substance that your company imports or manufactures, robust analytical information needs to be created. We estimate the analytical data to cost between €1,000 to €2,000. However, this may increase for complex substances such as Unknown or Variable Composition, Complex Reaction Products and Biological Materials (UVCB).

Information requirements

The purpose of a REACH registration is to build an inventory of substances manufactured or imported into the EU that can then be assessed to identify substances of concern. Therefore, companies that need to register are required to provide information relating to physical chemistry, toxicological and ecotoxicological nature of that substance. The exact information required depends on the greatest volume of substance imported or manufactured per year by an individual company.

The information requirements are set out in the Annexes of the regulatory text and the cost for generating the required information can vary greatly. For example, studies may have already been undertaken and companies can buy access to them at a lower price than undertaking a new study. Additionally, the results may be published publicly and can typically be accessed for no charge. Finally, studies may have been conducted for some substances and the results could be ‘read-across’ to registrations for other substances that are deemed to have similar properties.

The EU REACH regulation has a ‘one substance, one registration’ principal that is designed in part to reduce the need for testing with vertebrae. Companies that have study reports on substances are therefore required to provide other registrants of that substance with access for the purposes of REACH registration.

ECHA fees

ECHA charges a fee for some of the services it provides to companies and they can be estimate using our calculator here.

Your time

We estimate that it takes from 20 to 40 hours in order to submit a REACH registration dossier for a substance that has already been registered. This time includes the commissioning of substance analytical testing, negotiating a Letter of Access, creating both the Enquiry and Registration dossiers in IUCLID format and finally submitting the dossiers to ECHA via REACH IT.

If the substance has not already been REACH registered then you can expect to spend more time commissioning studies and also building the registration dossier in IUCLID.

As the registration process can become quite technical, many companies call on the support of consultancies and legal experts in order to submit a REACH registration. Hourly cost rates may be higher but having experienced professionals support your registration can make the process more efficient.

Need help with chemical legislation compliance?

Contact us to Ask a Question.