Customs & compliance
South Sudan Certificate of Conformity and the PVoC Programme
The requirement that strands more new shipments than any other, because it must be satisfied before the goods leave the country of export, and cannot be fixed once they have arrived.
What the programme is
South Sudan operates a pre-export verification of conformity (PVoC) programme through the South Sudan National Bureau of Standards, the government regulator established by the National Bureau of Standards Act, 2012 and empowered by it to operate conformity assessment schemes and grant conformity certificates. Goods within its scope are verified in the country of export against the applicable standards, and a Certificate of Conformity (CoC) is issued. The certificate is required for customs clearance of the consignment at the point of entry.
SSNBS appoints an inspection body to run the verification. The programme scope, the value threshold at which it bites and the routes available are set by the Bureau, and the government publishes the procedure for obtaining a certificate.
The critical point about timing
Certification happens before shipment, in the country of export. It is a pre-export programme; that is what the "P" stands for.
If your goods are within scope and no certificate was obtained before they shipped, you do not have a paperwork gap you can close on arrival. You have a consignment that cannot be cleared in the normal way, accruing storage and detention while you work out what to do.
This is why we raise the CoC question at quotation stage rather than at booking.
Certification is not one single route
Programmes of this kind normally offer more than one way to certify, with the lighter routes reserved for manufacturers who ship to the market regularly and can evidence a quality management system. A supplier new to South Sudan should expect their first consignments to be inspected individually.
We are not going to set out the route names and conditions here. They are the Bureau's to define and they change, and a freight company reciting them from memory is how an exporter ends up planning around something that is out of date. Ask SSNBS or the appointed inspection body which route applies to your product and your supplier, and get the lead time from them before you commit to a shipping date.
What this means when you are buying
Write it into the purchase order
Do not leave certification as something the supplier will "sort out". State explicitly that a valid South Sudan Certificate of Conformity is required, that it is the supplier's responsibility to obtain it before shipment, and that payment terms reflect that.
Allow time
Inspection, sampling and testing take time, and they happen before the booking, not after. A supplier who has never shipped to South Sudan will need longer than one who has.
Get a copy yourself
Do not rely on the certificate travelling with the goods or reaching your clearing agent via the supplier. Ask for a copy directly, and check it: the consignee, the description, the quantities and the invoice reference should match your other documents exactly.
Check scope early, not late
Whether your specific goods are within scope, and the value threshold that applies, are set by the Bureau. The government publishes the certificate of conformity procedure, and the categories listed there are a good place to start.
Check at quotation stage. If you're not sure, ask us and we will look it up with you.
Get a quotation
Tell us what you are shipping
Send us the cargo description, weight or volume, and the pickup and delivery addresses. We reply with a written rate, the transit time and the documents you will need.
By origin
Supplier familiarity with the programme varies a great deal by origin market:
- China to South Sudan via Kenya, the most common place we see this go wrong
- India to South Sudan via Kenya
- Dubai to South Sudan via Kenya. For an onward export, certification is arranged in the UAE as the country of export.
Related
Before you rely on this page
This page is published as general guidance for people shipping cargo to South Sudan. It is not legal advice and it isn't customs advice. Duty rates, fees, permits and procedures are set by the authorities named above and they change. South Sudan sets its tax and duty rates in an annual Financial Act, so what applies to your goods depends on the date they are entered.
We don't publish duty rates, penalty amounts or clearance fees that we cannot tie to a current official source. Where a figure matters to your costing, confirm it with the relevant authority or ask us to check it for your specific goods and HS code before you ship.