REACH and the SCIP database

Listrar summary

REACH is the EU's chemicals constitution, and the part that reaches every product company is article 33: if an article contains a substance of very high concern above 0.1 %, you must tell your customer — and answer any consumer who asks within 45 days. Since 2021 the same information must also be filed in ECHA's SCIP database before the article is placed on the market. The Candidate List that triggers all of this grows twice a year, which is why substance disclosure is a living field in a registry, not a one-off PDF.

Who does it apply to?

• Every supplier of articles placed on the EU market — manufacturer, importer or distributor
• Producers and importers of substances and mixtures (registration duties)
• Retailers, who inherit the 45-day consumer answer duty
• Non-EU manufacturers, through their importers or an only representative

Main obligations

• Know whether any Candidate List substance exceeds 0.1 % w/w in each article you supply
• Pass safe-use information down the supply chain, unprompted (art. 33(1))
• Answer consumer requests within 45 days (art. 33(2))
• Notify ECHA's SCIP database for articles containing SVHC above threshold (Waste Framework Directive, art. 9)
• Track the Candidate List — it is updated roughly twice a year and duties attach immediately

Key dates

1 June 2007

REACH in force

28 October 2008

First Candidate List published

5 January 2021

SCIP notification mandatory

Twice yearly

Candidate List updates — more than 250 entries, the latest added on 3 June 2026

Products in scope

• All articles in the REACH sense — objects whose shape matters more than their chemistry: apparel, furniture, electronics, packaging, toys, components
• Substances and mixtures, under the registration and authorisation chapters

Obligations by actor

Manufacturer

Establish substance composition from suppliers; notify SCIP; inform downstream

Importer

Carry the manufacturer's duties into the EU, including SCIP notification

Distributor

Pass the information down; answer consumers within 45 days

Supplier upstream

Provide the declarations everyone downstream depends on

Documents and evidence to keep

• Supplier declarations and full material disclosures, per article and revision
• Your SCIP notification numbers and submission records
• The 45-day consumer-request log — the reply clock is auditable
• Candidate List monitoring records showing when each update was assessed

Sanctions and risks

• Penalties are national and range up to criminal fines in several Member States
• Market surveillance can order withdrawal of non-compliant articles
• A missing SCIP notification is now among the first things inspectors query electronically

Key articles

• Art. 33 — the duty to communicate SVHC information down the chain and to consumers
• Art. 7(2) — notification of substances in articles to ECHA
• WFD art. 9 — the legal basis of the SCIP database

Official text

• Regulation (EC) 1907/2006 — EUR-Lex
• SCIP database — ECHA