CE and UKCA certificates and their validity

CE certificates will remain valid in the UK until the end of 2022.

Thereafter, from 1 January 2023, CE marked goods shall obtain a UKCA (United Kingdom Conformity Assessment) mark in order to be placed on the market in the UK.

EU Notified Bodies, such as IMCI, will have to be accredited as a "UK Approved Bodies" if they wish to award the UKCA mark.

To this end, IMCI has already incorporated and registered a company called the "International Marine Certification Society" with the registered trading name IMCI (UK) in Liverpool.

IMCI (UK) has already completed the accreditation process according to ISO 17020 and ISO 17065 and has been accredited on 3 May 2022 under the "UK Recreational Craft Regulation (as amended)" as Inspection and Certification Body No. 22120 by UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service), the British accreditation body.

What is still pending, hopefully only in the short term, is the approval of IMCI (UK) as a "UK Approved Body" by the higher authority BEIS (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy). Once we have received this, we can start issuing UKCA certificates.  Although the CE mark will still be recognised in the UK until the end of 2022, we have already received quite a few requests from IMCI customers for UKCA certificates.

Our aim in the very near future is to be able to award both CE and UKCA certificates on the basis of one assessment.