Compliance guide
ISPM-15 requires solid wood packaging over 6 mm thick that crosses an international border to be heat treated to 56°C core for 30 minutes and marked with the IPPC stamp. The rules themselves are short. The failures are almost always in three places: dunnage nobody thought about, repairs made with untreated wood, and marks that are missing an element.
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Wood-boring insects travel inside untreated timber. The emerald ash borer, believed to have arrived in North America in wood packaging, has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees. The Asian longhorned beetle arrived the same way. ISPM-15 is a phytosanitary measure — a plant health control — not a trade or quality standard.
It was adopted by the IPPC under the UN FAO and is now implemented by more than 180 countries. Each country's national plant protection organisation administers it, which is why facility numbers are national and enforcement varies at the border.
| Item | Covered? | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| Wood pallets over 6 mm | Yes | — |
| Wood crates and cases | Yes | Internal bracing forgotten |
| Dunnage and blocking | Yes | The single most common oversight |
| Wood drums and reels | Yes | Cable reels shipped as loose freight |
| Solid cleats on a plywood box | Yes | Assumed exempt because the panels are |
| Plywood, OSB, particleboard | No | — |
| Wood under 6 mm thick | No | — |
| Processed wood wool, sawdust | No | — |
| Plastic or metal packaging | No | — |
| Code | Method | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| HT | Conventional heat treatment | 56°C core, 30 continuous minutes | Standard, universally accepted |
| DH | Dielectric heating | 60°C core, 1 minute continuous | Accepted, less common |
| MB | Methyl bromide fumigation | Concentration and duration by temperature | Being phased out; refused by many destinations |
| SF | Sulphuryl fluoride | Concentration and duration by temperature | Limited adoption |
In practice, HT is the answer. It is accepted everywhere, requires no chemistry, and has the useful side effect of drying the wood. We treat exclusively by HT — see the heat treatment service.
The IPPC mark has four required elements and one optional one. Anything missing invalidates it.
The mark must be legible, permanent and visible on at least two opposing sides. Paste our own or a supplier's stamp into the IPPC stamp decoder and it will tell you what each element means and whether anything is missing.
A treated pallet gets a new deck board from a local shop. The board was never treated. The mark is now false. The compliant fix is to re-treat the assembly and re-mark it, obliterating the old mark so there is no ambiguity.
Blocking, bracing and chocks cut from untreated 2x4 on the loading dock. Nobody thinks of them as packaging. Inspectors do.
Marks missing the facility code, marks that are printed rather than branded, marks applied by a company that holds no registration. All three are treated as non-compliance, and the third is fraud.
| Consequence | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| On-arrival fumigation | $400–$2,500 per container |
| Re-export of the packaging | Full freight both ways |
| Destruction of packaging | Cost of packaging plus handling |
| Destruction of goods | Total loss, occasionally |
| Delay | Days to weeks, plus demurrage |
By the numbers
Rules of thumb
Before you order
Pallets, crates, dunnage, blocking, chocks, reels, skids. Then check each one.
If it is only on one, stop there.
Wheat symbol, country code, facility number, treatment code.
MB is refused by the EU and a growing list of others.
If nobody knows, treat it as untreated. This is the most common failure.
Branded or stencilled. A printed adhesive label is not compliant.
What goes wrong
The mark stays intact and the declaration becomes false. Invisible on inspection, and it accounts for more failures than every other cause combined.
FixRe-treat the whole assembly and re-mark, obliterating the old mark.
Loose blocking is wood packaging under the standard, and it is what an inspector sees first.
FixKeep a rack of pre-treated, pre-marked dunnage, physically separated.
That is fraud, not a shortcut, and it is prosecuted.
FixUse a registered facility.
Side by side
| Code | Method | Requirement | Practical status |
|---|---|---|---|
| HT | Conventional heat treatment | 56°C core, 30 continuous minutes | The standard. Accepted everywhere. |
| DH | Dielectric heating | 60°C core, 1 continuous minute | Valid, uncommon. |
| MB | Methyl bromide fumigation | Concentration and duration by temperature | In phase-out. Refused by the EU. |
| SF | Sulphuryl fluoride | Concentration and duration by temperature | Limited adoption. |
| DB | Debarked (suffix) | Bark removed | Required by some destinations. |
Against our interest
The standard governs international movement only. Shipments to Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands are domestic movements and are exempt.
Plywood, OSB and particleboard are exempt because manufacturing heat and adhesives already eliminate pests. The solid cleats holding them together are not exempt.
A pallet repaired with untreated wood carries a perfect-looking mark and is non-compliant. The mark is a declaration; the charge record is the evidence.
What moves the price
| Driver | What it is | Rough effect |
|---|---|---|
| Treatment volume | Chamber economics, exactly like a trailer. | $1.10 to $1.90 per pallet |
| Scope of the packaging list | Dunnage, blocking and internal bracing are all in scope and all commonly forgotten. | Adds items nobody budgeted for |
| Re-treatment after repair | The compliant remedy when untreated wood has been introduced. | Full treatment cost again |
| Non-compliance | On-arrival fumigation, re-export, destruction or delay. | $400–$2,500 per container, plus demurrage |
Due diligence
“Which items in this shipment are solid wood over 6 mm?”
“Has any of this been repaired since it was marked, and with what?”
“Does the destination accept the treatment code on these marks?”
“Is the mark on at least two opposing sides, and is it permanent?”
“Who holds the facility registration behind this mark?”
The rulebook
International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures No. 15, published by the IPPC under the UN FAO and implemented by more than 180 countries.
The International Plant Protection Convention, the treaty body that publishes the standard.
Each country administers and enforces ISPM-15 itself, which is why facility numbers are national and enforcement varies.
Issue the facility registration required to apply an IPPC mark in the United States.
The basis for the methyl bromide phase-out affecting the MB treatment code.
Vocabulary
From the journal
The pallets were compliant. The crate was compliant. The two lengths of untreated 2x4 wedged against the load were not, and they were the first thing the inspector saw.
The mark has four required elements. I have seen shipments held because one of them was missing and nobody at either end knew what they were looking at.
The mark on the wood is the declaration. The record behind it is the evidence. Most of the time nobody asks for the second one, and then somebody does.
Questions
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