Inquiry is a process to help potential registrants meet their data sharing obligations. It is based on the “one substance, one registration” principle and applies where pre-registration is not appropriate.
Article 26
The first step of any new REACH registration is to submit an Article 26 Inquiry dossier. With respect to EU REACH, old pre-registrations have lost their validity since 2020 and those companies who did pre-register in the past but not register according to the relevant deadlines have to first submit an inquiry to ECHA if they need to register.
Inquiry is also required where registrants need to update their registration dossiers to a higher tonnage band.
Dossier contents
An Inquiry dossier must identify the potential registrant, their substance and the information they require on the intrinsic properties of the substance to complete their registration dossier. Detailed analytical information must be included to prove the substance’s identity – its constituents, stabilising additives and impurities present. The analysis needs to be sufficient for ECHA to determine sameness with existing or other potential registrations.
Submission
The Inquiry dossier can be prepared directly in REACH-IT, or in IUCLID and exported for submission through the potential registrant’s REACH-IT account.
Using the information on substance identity ECHA will determine whether other registrations exist for this substance and whether there are other potential registrants. ECHA will put the Inquirer in touch with these parties for the purposes of data sharing.
REACHReady guidance