Q&A info

The simplified SCIP notification (SSN) is a tool developed by ECHA to facilitate the fulfilment of the SCIP notification obligation without preparing a IUCLID dossier. 

It is a simplified solution to refer, on a voluntary basis, to information already submitted to ECHA by another duty holder. A duty holder who submits a simplified SCIP notification remains responsible for the information contained in the submitted SSN. It is up to the individual actors in the supply chain, or otherwise, to enter into the necessary arrangements, if considered needed, to use SSN to fulfil the SCIP notification obligation.  

The main target users of the simplified SCIP notification (SSN) are distributors. However, other duty holders may also use this tool.

For example, if you are a distributor you may refer voluntarily to information already submitted by an upstream supplier to ECHA within the same supply chain by submitting through the ECHA Submission Portal the SCIP number provided by your supplier on a voluntary basis. In this case, a pre-condition to use SSN is to have received the SCIP number of the article as such or complex object’s SCIP notification that has already been submitted to ECHA by your supplier. The SCIP number can be provided to you for instance together with the information communicated to you under REACH Article 33(1). The SSN is only applicable if the article as such or the complex object supplied to your customer is the same as the article or complex object that was supplied to you. E.g. As a distributor you are supplied a bicycle (with a SCIP number), you can then submit your own SSN in the ECHA Submission Portal using this SCIP number and will receive a new SCIP number from ECHA that you can then pass on to your customers.

Additional information on the scope of the SSN can be found in the manual “Tools to refer to SCIP data already submitted to ECHA”. A visual representation on how to use SSN via IUCLID can be found in the presentation “How to prepare and submit a SCIP notification" section “Simplified SCIP notification (SSN)”.

The ‘referencing’ in a SCIP notification is a tool developed by ECHA to facilitate the fulfilment of the SCIP notification obligation by allowing to refer, on a voluntary basis, to information already submitted to ECHA by another duty holder in their SCIP notification dossier for complex objects.

A duty holder who submits a dossier including ‘referencing’ for a complex object component remains responsible for the information they are referring to. It is up to the individual actors in the supply chain, or otherwise, to enter into the necessary arrangements, if considered needed, to use ‘referencing’ in their notifications.  

The main target users of ‘referencing’ in a SCIP notification are assemblers. However, other duty holders may also use this tool.

When a duty holder needs to submit a notification to the SCIP database for a complex object placed on the market, i.e. an object made of two or more components, which can be either an article as such or another complex object component, a reference to a notification submitted by the supplier of that component or by the duty holder itself to the SCIP database will be sufficient. E.g. As an assembler of a bicycle you are supplied with units of a handlebar grip (with a SCIP number) and you incorporate them in a bicycle. Then you submit your own SCIP notification dossier for the bicycle using the supplied SCIP number of the handlebar grip using referencing, plus your own data. After submitting your bicycle SCIP notification, you will receive a SCIP number for the assembled bicycle that you are supplying to your costumers. 

A pre-condition to use ‘referencing’ in a SCIP notification for an assembled complex object is to have received the SCIP number of the component’s SCIP notification that has already been submitted to ECHA by an upstream supplier. 

Additional information on the scope of the ‘referencing’ in SCIP notifications can be found in the manual “Tools to refer to SCIP data already submitted to ECHA”. A visual representation on how to use referencing via IUCLID can be found in the presentation “How to prepare and submit a SCIP notification", section “Dossier preparation for a SCIP notification using ‘Referencing’”.

ECHA developed the Simplified SCIP Notification (SSN) to allow referring to information already successfully submitted to the SCIP database, without submitting a IUCLID dossier, to be primarily used by distributors, but it can also be used in other situations, for example by companies belonging to the same corporate group. For example, it allows different duty holders (within the same corporate group), companies A and B (duty holders) importing the same article to agree that one of them, company A, will submit a SCIP notification containing a dossier with all required information, and the other, company B, will use the SSN to refer to the information submitted by company A to ECHA. Note that each duty holder remains responsible for the SCIP notification and its content. Finally, it is up to the individual companies, or otherwise, to enter into the necessary arrangements, if considered needed, to use those tools to fulfil the SCIP notification duties.

While the obligation to submit SCIP notifications is individual for every duty holder, a corporate group may consider centralising the handling of SCIP notifications using a specific legal entity via the foreign user mechanism. A foreign user can support different duty holders by submitting SSN submissions on behalf of a duty holder based on mutual agreement.