Clients often ask WWBridge to explain the difference between TR СU

and TR EAEU. What is the difference between a TR СU Certificate of

Conformity and a GOST R Certificate? In this article, we will explain the
distinguishing features of TR СU, TR EAEU and GOST R in details.

TR CU and TR EAEU
Prior to 2015, the Customs Union of the Eurasian Economic Union (CU EAEU) included the
following countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia, and the organization
was officially called the “Customs Union”. The Technical Regulations defining the mandatory
requirements for the products, packing, marking, etc. at the territory of the Customs Union issued
prior to 2015 are called TR CU.
After the Customs Union was replaced with the Eurasian Economic Union, due to renaming and
reorganization, the Technical Regulations obtained a new denomination, TR EAEU (Technical
Regulations of the Eurasian Economic Union).
Conformance with the Technical Regulations of the Customs Union (EAEU) confirmed by a
Declaration/Certificate indicates that the products are safe for users. Certification/Declaration of
products covered by the requirements of the TR CU (EAEU) regulations is a mandatory state-
controlled procedure. 

Replacing TR CU with TR EAEU

From December 25, 2012, after the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission adopted
Resolution No. 293 “On the unified forms of the certificate of conformity and the declaration of
conformity with the requirements of technical regulations of the Eurasian Economic Union and the
rules for drawing them up”, the following amendments were introduced: 

 TR CU was replaced with TR EAEU;

 in the upper field of the drawn up document, there is the title “European Economic Union”
instead of “Customs Union”;
 the register entry number includes the abbreviation EAEU instead of the previously used CU.

In addition, old CU regulations remain valid for the term set out therein. Prior to January 1, 2019,
there was an option to use the old forms with CU designation; however, after this date they were
finally replaced with new forms with EAEU designation.

GOST R certification 
The GOST R national system of certification is used for conformity confirmation purposes for groups
of goods for which the Technical Regulations of the EAEU have not been adopted or become valid. 

This certification system implies the issue of two types

of documents:
  GOST R declaration;
 GOST R certificate.

This document can be both mandatory and voluntarily. It allows importing and selling products at the
territory of the Russian Federation.
When the new Technical Regulation for the products which had earlier been subject to conformity
confirmation in GOST R was introduced, the latter was cancelled, and it becomes mandatory to
issue the conformity documents according to the requirements of this Technical Regulation.

Analogs of GOST in EAEU countries:

 GOST – K in Kazakhstan
 Certificate of conformity / Declaration of conformity with the internal regulations of Belarus.

GOST 
 The state standards system (GOST) was created during the era of the Soviet Union to
regulate standardization.
 GOST is a list of standards with the requirements for a group of homogenous products that
usually contain the ranges of possible values, specifications and indicators.
 GOST differs from the Technical Regulation: the former offers quantitative parameters of the
manufactured products, and the latter defines the terms of use of ready-made products.
 The Technical Regulation contains a remark whether a certain GOST or separate clause
(provision) thereof is mandatory.

Thus, we can draw the following conclusions:

The Technical Regulation (TR EAEU) has the same force as the law. It is a collection of rules
regulating a certain type of products, among other things, the type of conformity confirmation
(certification/declaration), schemes, sequence etc.
GOST R is a national certification system of the Russian Federation gradually phased out by the
EAC certification.
GOST means the generally accepted standards, a basis for TR CU.
You can contact us if you have any questions. You can write us at email order@wwbridge.org. Our
managers will gladly help you with all certification issues.

What is a GOST certificate?

The acronym GOST comes from Государственный Стандарт (Gosudarstvenny Standart),
which means “state standard”. Since their introduction almost a century ago, GOST certificates
have established the technical safety and quality requirements necessary to authorize a product
for sale, first in the USSR, and then in Russia and most of the former Soviet countries. After the
events of the early 1990s, each of the former Soviet countries then defined their own standards,
giving rise, for example, to GOST K for Kazakhstan and GOST B for Belarus. When we simply
talk about a GOST certificate in general, then we refer to GOST R, which is a series of standards
that apply to Russia as a whole.
We are going to focus, in general, on the GOST R certificate, but the truth is that the system is
very similar in every country that has adopted it. In essence, GOST certificates, when they are
of a mandatory type, are essential documents for customs clearance.
This is evidenced by the fact that, since 2002, the institutions responsible for the certification
system are, on the one hand, the Rosstandart (Росстандарт)  certification body, and, on the other
hand, the Federal Customs Service (FTS, formerly known as GTK: Федеральная таможенная
служба).
Before setting out the different types of GOST Certificates, we need to ask the following
essential question:

Are you sure you need a GOST R

Certificate?
Our calculations show that only 7% of the companies that contact us to get a “GOST” Certificate
actually need a certificate of this type. The vast majority are unaware of the existence of the
EAC, and still have memories of times gone by regulations (to find out everything you need to
know about the EAC Marking, click here)
Even though it isn’t as frequent these days, the Russian client themselves, or an importer, can
sometimes become “outdated” and transmit an incorrect request to the Spanish exporter.
If you are looking for information and are unsure about what particular procedure applies to your
products, then we recommend that you send us an enquiry. We will send you a quick response
to let you know what the regulations are.

Types of GOST certificates

GOST certification consists of several types of certificates, and part of our work is to determine
exactly which of them should be used.
Although the process of customs integration that culminated in 2014 with the creation of the
Eurasian Economic Union has made many GOST R certificates obsolete (replacing them with
the aforementioned EAC Certification), there are still products for which Russia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia apply their own national legislation.
These products simply divide into two groups:

 Products subject to compulsory certification

 Products NOT subject to compulsory certification
A very common mistake is to think that products not subject to compulsory certification can be
exported freely. However, exporting is never free, and there are two reasons for this.
On the one hand, the GOST regulation is not the only one that applies in terms of safety and
public health. Therefore, there may be cases where customs formalities become complicated due
to the absence of a specific certificate, for example, the Epidemiological Health Certificate,
which is Eurasian in scope. This is the situation that tile exporting companies found themselves
in before 2011.

On the other hand, even when the authorities do not require any documents to confirm specific
product characteristics, companies may need an Exemption Letter for customs clearance, or a
Voluntary GOST Certificate to meet the business or commercial requirements of their own
Russian partners.
As a result of all this, if you have any products that aren’t subject to Eurasec regulations, you
must request at least one of these national certificates:
 Voluntary GOST R
  Mandatory GOST R
 Exemption Letter
In addition, in many cases, other certificates will have to be requested in order to certify certain
characteristics, as well as more details regarding the product’s operation. In these cases, we need
to look at other GOST R Certificates:

 GOST R Fire Certificate

 GOST R ISO 9001 Certificate
 GOST R Metrology Certificate

GOST Marking
 As with products subject to EAC regulations, which
have to be easily recognizable thanks to the EAC Marking, products subject to mandatory
GOST regulations also have to be marked in a specific way, with a particular logo.
This logo, CTP, has replaced in 2021 the previous and well-known historical PCT logo and can
be chosen into 4 available variants.