So are the UK REACH deadlines extended?

Why did the the UK REACH deadlines

need to change?

When UK REACH was introduced post-Brexit, substances already registered under EU REACH and placed on the UK market were originally expected to be registered under UK REACH by October 2021. In 2020, it was replaced with a phased approach, with registration deadlines in October 2023, 2025 and 2027, depending on tonnage and hazard profile.

By 2023, industry concerns were hard to ignore — particularly the cost of accessing EU REACH data and the risk that substances would simply drop off the UK market. In response, the Government extended the deadlines again to buy time to develop an Alternative Transitional Registration model (ATRm). These revised deadlines were written into UK REACH (Article 127P), with the first falling on 27 October 2026 for the highest hazard and highest tonnage substances, followed by later phases in 2028 and 2030.

Defra published details of the ATRm in May 2024 and ran a consultation, but the outcome has still not been published. Crucially, there is still no clarity on what a UK REACH registration would actually need to include.

With October 2026 fast approaching and uncertainty still very much in place, the Government consulted again between July and September 2025, proposing to delay the deadlines once more.

So how have the UK REACH deadlines changed?

In its consultation outcome, the Government confirmed its intention to:

• delay the first UK REACH transitional deadline to 27 October 2029 for high hazard, high tonnage substances; and

• but thereafter, for substances of lower hazard and lower tonnage bands, to adopt 12-month phased deadlines in the following years, October 2030 and October 2031, .

While industry broadly agreed that a further delay made sense, there was less support for the Government’s proposal to shorten the gap between deadlines from two years to one. With potentially thousands of substance registration submissions to complete, industry in GB regards the shorter phases as likely problematic, although details of submission requirements are not as yet confirmed.

So are the deadlines officially changed?

Not yet. The legislation still points to 27 October 2026, but the Government has been clear that (subject to agreement from the devolved administrations) it intends to legislate for the new dates. A draft Statutory Instrument is expected to be laid before Parliament in early Spring, with approval anticipated before the Summer Recess.

In short, the policy intent is clear: the first UK REACH transitional registration deadline is expected to move to 27 October 2029. We’re now waiting for the law-makers to catch up.