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The Import Library identifies the countries that have been determined, through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Equivalence Process, to have equivalent meat, poultry, or egg product food safety inspection systems. Additionally, the Import Library identifies the meat, poultry, or egg products each equivalent country is eligible to export to the United States. The eligible products for each country are identified using the Process Category, Product Category, and Product Group listed in the FSIS Product Categorization document and utilized in the Public Health Information System (PHIS). 

• Process Category: High-level category based on whether and how products are processed after slaughter.
• Product Category: More specific category that links the product to the appropriate species and provides more information on the production process.
• Product Group:  Most detailed description of eligible products used by FSIS to program appropriate types of inspections in the FSIS PHIS.

Additionally, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) restricts certain animal products from entering the United States because of animal disease conditions in the country of origin. Applicable APHIS animal disease requirements that may have an impact on a country’s eligibility to export product to the United States are referenced on individual country pages below the country’s eligibility table.

Restricted cooked products from regions where Foot-And-Mouth disease exists must be consigned to an official import inspection establishment (“I-house”) identified on the list of APHIS Approved Rapid Defrost Facilities. 

Eligible Countries and Products

Countries listed in the table below are recognized as eligible to export meat, poultry, or egg products to the United States. Select a country from the table below for a detailed listing of the eligible products the country may export to the United States.

¹ Participates in a government-to-government electronic transmission of the inspection certificate data as an alternative to the paper certificate (eCert).
² On March 6, 2020 FSIS combined England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales into one food safety inspection system under the United Kingdom.

Additional Information

For the purposes of this webpage, the term “processed” refers to raw meat or poultry product that has been modified through an additional processing step. Methods of processing meat and poultry products include, but are not limited to, cooking, salting, curing, aging, fermentation, and smoking. Simple mechanical processes (sometimes referred to as further processing) such as cutting, grinding, or mixing of raw meat and poultry products are not included in this definition.

• Raw meat and poultry products may be produced and certified under the following FSIS Process Categories:
  • Raw Product - Non-Intact and
  • Raw Product - Intact.
• Processed meat and poultry products may be produced and certified under the following FSIS Process Categories: 
  • Thermally Processed - Commercially Sterile,
  • Not Heat Treated - Shelf Stable,
  • Heat Treated - Shelf Stable,
  • Fully Cooked - Not Shelf Stable,
  • Heat Treated - Not Fully Cooked - Not Shelf Stable, and
  • Products with Secondary Inhibitors - Not Shelf Stable.

For equivalence determinations, species in a raw or processed products inspection system are categorized as Adult Cattle (i.e., Beef), Veal, Chicken, Goat, Sheep (which includes Lamb and Mutton), Goat, Pork, Duck, Goose, Guinea, Squab, Emu, Ostrich, Rhea, Turkey, and Siluriformes. The Order Siluriformes includes the following Families: Ictaluridae (Catfish), Clariidae, and Pangasius. For guidance on acceptable common or usual names, see Siluriformes Fish Species List.

The term "egg products" refers to eggs that are removed from their shells for processing. The processing of egg products includes breaking eggs, filtering, mixing, stabilizing, blending, pasteurizing, cooling, freezing, drying, or packaging.

Raw source materials used to produce product intended for export to the United States must originate from a certified establishment in an eligible country that has an equivalent raw products inspection system.

Eligible Foreign Establishments

Establishments that have been certified as eligible to export meat, poultry, or egg products to the United States may be viewed on the individual eligible country pages identified in the chart above or on the Eligible Foreign Establishments webpage. A certified establishment is an establishment that the Central Competent Authority (CCA) of the foreign country has certified as meeting the requirements of the inspection system that FSIS has determined equivalent to the United States inspection system and, therefore, eligible to export meat, poultry, or egg products to the United States.  

Inactive Countries

If a country has not exported a particular species in a raw or processed products inspection system or a particular process category in a processed products inspection system to the United States in three or more years, that species or process category will no longer be eligible for export to the United States.

To reinstate eligibility for a particular species in a raw or processed products inspection system or for a particular process category in a processed products inspection system, countries must request from FSIS a reinstatement of equivalence. FSIS will need to reassess the food safety inspection system before the country can resume exporting products to the United States.

The following countries, although they have been previously determined by the USDA to have an equivalent food safety inspection system, have stopped exporting to the United States for three or more years: 

Point-of-Contact Information

All communications concerning a country’s eligibility to export meat, poultry, or egg products should be directed to the Office of International Coordination (OIC). Please address correspondence to:

United States Department of Agriculture
Food Safety and Inspection Service
Office of International Coordination
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Room 3143, South Building
Washington, DC 20250
Phone: (202) 708-9543 
Fax: (202) 690-3856
E-mail: InternationalCoordination@usda.gov

For information or questions concerning a country’s animal disease status and restrictions, please contact the APHIS Veterinary Services, Strategy and Policy, Animal Product Import and Export at:

USDA-APHIS
Veterinary Services, Strategy and Policy, Animal Product Import and Export (APIE)
4700 River Road, Unit 40
Riverdale, MD 20737
Phone: (301) 851-3300, option 4
E-mail: APIE@USDA.GOV