When ISPM15 applies — and when it does not

Start with the material

ISPM15 addresses wood packaging material made of solid wood — pallets, cases, crates, skids, dunnage, bracing and blocks. The question is what the packaging is made of, not what it is called.

• Solid wood. In scope. This includes the parts people forget: bearers, blocks, cleats and loose dunnage used to chock a load inside a container.
• Processed wood-based materials. Plywood, oriented strand board, particleboard and similar products are treated differently under the standard, because manufacturing them involves heat, adhesive and pressure. Presswood pallets are commonly specified for this reason.
• Plastic, metal and corrugated. Outside the standard entirely.
• Mixed-construction pallets. The presence of a processed deck does not help if the blocks or bearers are solid wood. Construction has to be looked at as a whole.

Some thin wood and certain small components are handled differently again. Because construction varies so much between pallet designs, the reliable approach is to confirm the position for the pallet you are shipping rather than reason from the category name on the purchase order.

Then the destination

ISPM15 is an international standard, but it takes effect through each country’s own implementing requirements. Most significant trading nations require treated and marked wood packaging on imports, and many inspect it on arrival. A smaller number apply additional national measures on top — Australia and New Zealand are the clearest examples, where general biosecurity requirements sit alongside the standard.

Movements from Great Britain into the EU generally require treated and marked solid wood packaging and are subject to checking. Movements involving Northern Ireland can follow different arrangements, and that deserves its own treatment — see GB to the EU, and Northern Ireland separately. Our destination pages cover the markets where there is something genuinely specific to say.

The case people get wrong most often

Pallets exported as goods in their own right are not wood packaging for the purposes of this question. A container of pallets sold to a buyer overseas may be classified as a timber product, with a different and often more demanding set of requirements attached, including documentation the wood-packaging route does not involve. If you are selling pallets rather than shipping goods on them, say so at the start of the conversation — it changes the answer.

Practical order of questions

1. Are the pallets carrying goods, or are they the goods?
2. What are all the wooden components of the packaging actually made of?
3. Which country is it going to, and are there national measures beyond the standard?
4. Has the customer specified anything in writing that goes further than the legal minimum?
5. Is there loose dunnage or bracing in the load that also needs to comply?

That last one catches experienced shippers. The pallets are correct, the timber chocks used to stop the load moving are not, and the inspection finds the chocks.