Export screening for freight forwarders and customs brokers
Screen your clients’ buyers, consignees and end users before a shipment moves, keep a dated record for each, and watch the names you ship for every day. From £1.49 a check, with no contract.
Why it reaches a forwarder
- UK trade sanctions ban making restricted goods available to a sanctioned destination, directly or indirectly. Since 13 May 2026 the government can also tell an exporter in writing that a shipment risks diversion and needs a licence; GOV.UK’s guidance includes a forwarder that ignored such a letter and was investigated (case study 3). Our guide to the end-use controls explains them.
- GOV.UK lists UK transit control for all 74 destinations on its list of arms embargoes and trade restrictions: goods passing through the UK to them may need a licence, depending on what they are.
- US export rules follow goods with US content wherever they go, and a company 50% or more owned by listed parties will be treated as listed from 10 November 2026 unless the US extends its suspension.
What you can do on Certaby
Check a shipment
Every party in one order (buyer, consignee, end user, intermediate consignee, forwarder or agent, supplier) screened at once, £1.49 a party, with the destination's UK and US measures and one dated record holding the client's reference and licence.
Check a shipmentScreen a client list
Upload the names you ship for and screen them in one go, down to 59p a name for a list of 1,000 or more. Each name gets its own record.
Screen a listWatch regular names
Names you ship for again and again, re-screened every morning against the same lists, with an email when one newly matches: £39 a month for up to 250 names, or £99 a month for up to 1,000 names, or £249 a month for up to 5,000 names.
See export watchLook up a destination
Free: what GOV.UK lists for a destination (arms embargoes, trade sanctions, other restrictions), transit control for goods passing through the UK, and the US country controls for goods with US content.
Look up a destinationThe lists
Six US export lists (the Entity List, the Military End User, Denied Persons and Unverified lists, the ITAR Debarred list and US Nonproliferation Sanctions) and the UK, UN, EU and US OFAC sanctions lists, refreshed every morning. A UK company checked by its number includes everyone recorded in its ownership at Companies House, with a verdict for each set of rules you follow.
Screening inside your own system
The same screening is an API from Stratum, our developer service: one call screens a name or a whole shipment, so a booking or customs system can check every party as an order comes in. The export screening API.
A screening record, not a licensing decision: whether goods need a licence depends on what they are, where they go and their end use. The rules UK exporters follow.
Screening for a lot of clients?
Tell us how many names and shipments you handle and we will suggest the cheapest way to run them. Email hello@certaby.com.