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Food Safety

How does TRACES work?

The process

European Union legislation requires consignments of animals, animal products, certain food and feed of non-animal origin and the majority of plants to be accompanied by official certificates, attesting compliance with the applicable requirements.

When such consignments are imported into the EU or traded within the EU single market, TRACES supports the issuing of official certificates and the recording of official controls and route planning, quickly and efficiently online.

National authorities and businesses complete official certificates and documents online in TRACES and the control authorities at EU borders or at the final destination check the consignments and their accompanying documents to allow them to enter or move through the EU.

This way, the control authorities at EU borders or at the place of destination are pre-notified of the arrival of a consignment and therefore can plan their controls e.g., in the case of the transport of live animals further checks and controls regarding animal welfare can be performed and recorded.

Feedback on the final decision taken on the consignment following the controls performed is available to the parties concerned.

With its user-friendly interface, TRACES allows for the interaction between the private sector and authorities, of both EU and non-EU countries, and significantly reduces the administrative burden for all the involved parties, working on the same platform.

Benefits of using TRACES

Other features of TRACES

Qlik Sense – analytics tool

Qlik Sense is the statistical tool integrated with TRACES and allowing for the extraction of valuable data regarding intra-Union trade, imports, and exports which are retrieved from the official documents and certificates issued inside TRACES. TRACES users linked to EU and non-EU authorities have access to data relevant to their respective countries and area of responsibility.

The application of dynamic and flexible filtering allows users to narrow their search to certain commodities, countries, periods, etc. and visualise it in interactive figures.

NB: Qlik Sense replaced QlikView as of 1st January 2024.