Plant passports and cut flowers: why none is needed, in the EU or Great Britain

The European Union

Cut flowers are plants, in law

Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 — the plant health law — defines plants as living plants and a list of living parts of plants, and point (f) of that list is cut flowers. So the exemption is not that flowers fall outside the regime. They are inside it, alongside seeds, fruits, cuttings and foliage.

The passport requirement is a list, and the law says what the list must contain

Article 79(1) requires the Commission to establish, by implementing act, the list of plants, plant products and other objects for which a plant passport is required for movement within the Union — and requires that list to include all plants for planting, other than seeds. Article 80 does the same for the protected-zone passport, the "PZ" passport required for movement into and within the zones that certain member states hold against certain pests.

The two lists, read in full

Annex XIII to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2072 is the Union list. In the consolidated text of 6 July 2026 it has twelve points: all plants for planting other than seeds; plants, other than fruits and seeds, of the citrus family and of Vitis; citrus fruits with leaves and peduncles; wood of named genera under named CN codes, including demarcated-area wood; and seed of named agricultural and vegetable species. No point covers cut flowers of Rosa, Dianthus, Gypsophila or any other genus Kenya exports.

Annex XIV is the protected-zone list: conifers of named genera, plants for planting of a list of ornamental and fruit genera, the fireblight host genera, and more. Nothing on it catches a Kenyan cut flower — and, as it happens, the Netherlands has no protected zones, so on the largest lane the question does not even arise on entry.

What that means in practice. A Kenyan consignment released at an EU border control post moves onward within the Union as any other cleared good. No plant passport is issued for it and none is asked for. The plant health obligations sit at the border and, for cut flowers, they end there.

Two limits

It is the plant health position only: whether the tariff preference survives a sale in free circulation is a customs question, and this site leaves it open. And the annexes are amended often — the 2019/2072 text carries four 2026 dates already and a fifth dated 15 October 2026 — so the reading is dated and the annex, not this page, is the authority.

Great Britain

Great Britain runs its own plant passport system for moving regulated material inside the country, and the material it covers is published as a list (last updated 9 September 2024). The list has three parts. Plants means all plants for planting — plants that are planted and meant to stay planted, whole plants or living parts of plants not yet planted but meant to be, and lifted plants meant for replanting. Then wood and wood products of named genera, and seed of named agricultural and vegetable species. Cut flowers appear in none of the three.

The list notes additional requirements for moving specified plants and seeds into and within pest free areas in Great Britain; cut flowers are not among the material it specifies. A consignment released at the border control post or the control point therefore moves on to a wholesaler, a florist or a supermarket depot with no further plant health document. The British inspection, and where release happens →

Why this is worth a page

Because three of the four exporter guides that rank for importing Kenyan flowers list documents without instruments, and none of them says what happens after clearance. A buyer building a distribution plan across Europe needs the negative stated with its source: nothing travels with the flowers. Every term on this page is defined in the glossary →

What to ask

• Is the consignment staying in the member state of entry or being sold on? Nothing plant-health-related changes either way; VAT and the customs-origin question do.
• Will any onward buyer ask for a plant passport? If they do, this page and the annex are the answer.