FHDDS Accredited Fulfilment

What FHDDS accreditation means for your brand

The Fulfilment House Due Diligence Scheme (FHDDS) is an HMRC registration that every UK business storing goods for overseas sellers must hold. It exists to stop VAT fraud, and it places a legal duty on your fulfilment partner — not on you — to check that overseas clients are properly registered and paying UK tax.

For a brand selling into the UK from abroad, the practical point is simple: your goods must sit with an FHDDS-registered fulfilment house. For the full background on how the scheme works, read our guide to what FHDDS is and who needs it.

Why an FHDDS-accredited partner protects your business

Storing stock with a fulfilment house that is not FHDDS-registered is a direct risk to your UK operation. HMRC can act against the facility and the goods held inside it, which means your inventory — and your revenue — are exposed through no fault of your own.

• Goods seizure: HMRC can seize inventory held in a non-compliant warehouse, without notice.
• Penalties: Both the fulfilment house and the overseas seller can face financial penalties.
• Supply chain disruption: If a facility loses approval, you can be left without UK fulfilment for months while you move stock to a compliant partner.

Choosing an accredited partner from the start removes that risk.

How to check a 3PL's FHDDS registration

Before you store a single pallet with any UK fulfilment company, confirm its FHDDS status. It takes three checks:

1. Ask for the FHDDS registration number. Every approved fulfilment business is issued one.
2. Check HMRC's register. HMRC publishes a public list of approved fulfilment businesses — verify the number against it.
3. Ask what due diligence they run. A compliant 3PL will confirm the checks it carries out on every overseas client, including VAT registration and EORI verification.

Launch Fulfilment UK shares its FHDDS registration on request and handles these checks for you as part of onboarding.

FHDDS status is a threshold test rather than a shortlist. Once a provider clears it, the criteria that actually separate the rest are in our UK fulfilment company comparison.

FHDDS and bonded warehousing under one roof

FHDDS and bonded warehousing solve two different problems, and most UK 3PLs hold neither. Launch Fulfilment UK holds both at our Seaham facility.

• FHDDS keeps you compliant — the due diligence registration HMRC requires.
• Bonded warehousing protects your cash flow — you defer import duty and VAT until goods leave the warehouse.

Holding both under one roof means compliance and duty deferral sit with a single partner, with no gap between them.

Onboarding for overseas sellers

If you are shipping into the UK from the US, the EU or further afield, FHDDS is one of several things that have to be right before your first order ships. Our onboarding covers the due diligence paperwork, VAT and EORI checks, and goods records HMRC expects — so compliance is in place from day one rather than added later. Because we are already accredited, you avoid the months-long wait of registering a fulfilment house from scratch — and if you sell through Amazon FBA, we make sure any prep or storage step before Amazon is covered too.

See how we support brands making the move in our guide for US sellers entering the UK market.