What a UK Plant Passport register is for
A plant passport is the official label that lets plant health inspectors trace a plant for planting back through every professional business that handled it. If a serious pest turns up in a garden centre in Kent, the passport on the pot leads to the nursery that issued it, and that nursery's records lead to the batch, the growing site and every other customer who received plants from the same lot. The chain only works if each business in it keeps its records. This register is a straightforward way to do that on paper, in the order an inspector will ask for it.
The four parts of a GB passport
Under Great Britain plant health rules overseen by the Animal and Plant Health Agency, a GB passport carries the distinct header UK Plant Passport. Unlike an EU plant passport it shows no flag. Beneath the header are four mandatory elements:
- Part A — the botanical name of the genus or species, for example Monstera deliciosa.
- Part B — the APHA registration number of the professional operator who issued the passport.
- Part C — the traceability code for the batch or lot.
- Part D — the two-letter ISO code of the country of origin, such as GB or NL.
An optional Part E is added for plants moving into Pest-Free Areas or Protected Zones where that applies. The live format check on this sheet takes the first line of your register and lays it out as a passport, so you can see straight away whether all four parts were captured. A missing Part C is the most common gap we see on paperwork from smaller suppliers.
Who issues passports and who keeps records
Professional operators supplying plants for planting must be registered with APHA, and only operators who are also authorised may issue UK Plant Passports. Distance sales — online or mail-order sales — directly to final consumers in Great Britain require a physical UK Plant Passport on each trade unit, which is why every plant we post leaves York with one. A brick-and-mortar shop selling directly to non-professional final consumers generally does not have to issue an outgoing passport. It must, however, record the incoming passported consignments it receives from suppliers and keep those traceability records for at least three years.
That is the job of the incoming register. Choose the outgoing log if you are an authorised nursery or online seller recording passports you issue, or the combined audit sheet if you do both, for example a shop with a mail-order side.
How to fill it in
Complete a line the day a delivery arrives, before plants go onto the shop floor. Enter the delivery date, the supplier and their invoice or delivery note number, then copy Parts A to D exactly as printed: do not abbreviate the botanical name or tidy up the batch code, because the inspector needs it to match the supplier's records character for character. Add the quantity and pot size, and the result of your visual check: clean, quarantined, or notified to APHA if you found something you suspect is a notifiable pest or disease. The sheet adds the retain-until date for each line, three years after its entry date, and stamps the whole register with the latest of those dates.
Check on arrival, not after
The visual check column is there because a passport tells you the plant met the rules when it left the supplier, not that it is free of every pest today. Turn leaves over, look into petiole sheaths and at the substrate surface, and isolate anything doubtful. Our 21-day quarantine checklist gives you a bench card for exactly that, and the plant passport guide explains what each part means for buyers. If you suspect a notifiable pest, contact APHA rather than treating and selling the plant.
Keeping the register
Print a fresh sheet each month or quarter, file it with the delivery notes and keep the folder for at least three years from the last entry. A paper register is perfectly acceptable; what matters is that it is complete, legible and can be produced on request. Keep the passport labels on the plants until sale: customers who buy rare aroids increasingly look for them, and they connect the plant on your shelf to the line in your register.
Stocking passported plants
Every plant we supply to trade arrives with a complete UK Plant Passport and a delivery note that lists Parts A to D for each batch, so your register can be filled in straight from the paperwork. See trade and wholesale for account terms, or print shelf talkers for the plants once they are on the bench.