On February 15, 2017 in a constituent update the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in an effort to make the issuance for certificates of free sale (COFS) more efficient, the FDA will begin issuing downloadable PDFs available online.

The PDF versions of the COFS will be issued for food products that are regulated by the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). According to the update, “FDA issues COFS for certain CFSAN-regulated food products upon request by an exporter. FDA does not require export certificates to export foods to foreign countries.”

The FDA will begin issuing the online COFS on February 20, 2017.

The constituent update can be viewed at:

http://www.fda.gov/Food/NewsEvents/ConstituentUpdates/ucm541785.htm