Section I · Live animals; animal products
Chapter 05: Products of animal origin, not elsewhere specified or included
Chapter 05 of the Harmonized System has 9 four-digit headings, from 05.01 to 05.11. Each heading is split further into six-digit subheadings, then into national 8- and 10-digit commodity codes.
Headings in chapter 05
| Heading | Description |
|---|---|
| 05.01 | Human hair, unworked, whether or not washed or scoured; waste of human hair |
| 05.02 | Pigs', hogs' or boars' bristles and hair; badger hair and other brush making hair; waste of such bristles or hair |
| 05.04 | Guts, bladders and stomachs of animals (other than fish), whole and pieces thereof, fresh, chilled, frozen, salted, in brine, dried or smoked |
| 05.05 | Skins and other parts of birds, with their feathers or down, feathers and parts of feathers (whether or not with trimmed edges) and down, not further worked than cleaned, disinfected or treated for preservation; powder and waste of feathers or parts of feathers |
| 05.06 | Bones and horn-cores, unworked, defatted, simply prepared (but not cut to shape), treated with acid or degelatinised; powder and waste of these products |
| 05.07 | Ivory, tortoiseshell, whalebone and whalebone hair, horns, antlers, hooves, nails, claws and beaks, unworked or simply prepared but not cut to shape; powder and waste of these products |
| 05.08 | Coral and similar materials, unworked or simply prepared but not otherwise worked; shells of molluscs, crustaceans or echinoderms and cuttle-bone, unworked or simply prepared but not cut to shape, powder and waste thereof |
| 05.10 | Ambergris, castoreum, civet and musk; cantharides; bile, whether or not dried; glands and other animal products used in the preparation of pharmaceutical products, fresh, chilled, frozen or otherwise provisionally preserved |
| 05.11 | Animal products not elsewhere specified or included; dead animals of chapter 1 or 3, unfit for human consumption |
Classifying goods in chapter 05
Start with the chapter and section notes: they are legally binding and often decide what is included or excluded. Then choose the heading whose wording best describes your product (GRI 1), and work down to the six-digit subheading before choosing the national commodity code.
The six-digit code is shared internationally. The UK and EU add digits for their own tariffs and statistics, and the US uses its own 10-digit HTS lines, so always confirm the final code in the tariff of the country you are importing into.
Official sources
Check chapter 05 in the UK Trade Tariff, the EU TARIC and the US HTS.