Provenance just got a whole lot tighter - Incoming EU Regulation on Import of Cultural Goods – key issues and market impact

Provenance just got a whole lot tighter - Incoming EU Regulation on Import of Cultural Goods – key issues and market impact.

An EU Regulation implementing a new EU wide database comes into effect on 28 June 2025 and is intended to establish that cultural goods of non-EU origin have been properly, and legally imported into the EU.

In its Regulation (2019/880) the EU prohibited the import of cultural goods into the EU where those cultural goods have been illegally exported from a non-EU country.

That Regulation provided that from 28 June 2025 a new EU-wide centralised electronic database will be implemented through which online licence applications will be managed for archaeological items more than 250 years old. Other goods will be able to be brought into the EU on the basis of an importer statement.