UK and EU agree draft deal to lift post-Brexit food and farm export checks
The UK and EU have agreed a draft deal to remove post-Brexit checks on food and agriculture exports, BBC News reported, ahead of a UK-EU summit later this month. The agreement covers what are known as sanitary and phytosanitary rules, the standards that govern animal and plant health in trade.
The draft text runs to 200 pages. It was circulated to EU countries in Brussels for consideration at a meeting on Wednesday. Draft texts for deals on emissions trading and a youth travel and work scheme were circulated alongside a 15-page draft joint statement for the leaders of the UK and EU.
The draft agreements will be discussed on Wednesday at a meeting of EU ambassadors, known as Coreper. Coreper is the body in which member states' representatives prepare EU decisions.
The food deal would remove the need for several kinds of paperwork and fees on trade in both directions. These include the £200 export health certificates, the £25 phytosanitary certificates, inspector fees, organic certificates, some port fees and sampling fees.
Under the draft, UK exports of fresh sausages, burgers, shellfish from domestic waters and seed potatoes to the EU would be able to resume. The agreement would also allow for passports for UK pets taken into the EU.
In return, the UK would commit to observing and adapting to existing EU rules on plant, animal and food trade standards. This arrangement is known as dynamic alignment, meaning the UK would keep in step with those rules.
The UK government said the UK economy would eventually see £5.1bn worth of benefits each year from the deal.
The food deal has been described as the most significant part of what is known as the Brexit reset agreed so far. Minutes of a joint UK-EU meeting on the post-Brexit trade agreement, held on 2 February 2026, said the forthcoming SPS agreement would slash red tape for seafood exports.
Earlier agreements have addressed similar ground. In May 2025 the UK and EU agreed a food standards deal designed to prevent border checks on agricultural produce such as meat and dairy. In May 2026, a UK body representing small businesses warned that small UK firms were being pushed out of EU markets because of red tape and rising costs, according to Reuters.
The UK Budget 2025 document referred to a new EU deal intended to reduce pressure on food prices.
