Any cashew kernel or raw cashew nut (RCN) shipment entering the European Union has to clear two separate contaminant hurdles: an aflatoxin ceiling set by Regulation (EU) 2023/915, and a pesticide residue ceiling set by Regulation (EC) 396/2005, both checked and documented through the EU’s TRACES NT import-control system. Exporters who treat these as one generic “EU food safety” requirement, rather than two distinct legal instruments with their own numbers and mechanics, are the ones most likely to get a shipment held at the border. This page walks through the actual figures, what triggers the stricter versus looser aflatoxin tier, how pesticide MRLs work, and what documentation a European buyer or their customs broker will expect to see before a consignment clears.
The EU aflatoxin limit for cashew (Regulation (EU) 2023/915)
The EU sets two different aflatoxin ceilings for tree nuts including cashew, and which one applies depends entirely on what happens to the product next, not on where it came from or how it was grown. Regulation (EU) 2023/915 — the current EU regulation on maximum levels for certain contaminants in food, which recast and consolidated the older Regulation (EC) 1881/2006 — draws a hard line between nuts that will undergo further sorting or processing before reaching a consumer and nuts that are already in their final, direct-consumption form.
| Product status | Aflatoxin B1 limit | Total aflatoxins (B1+B2+G1+G2) |
|---|---|---|
| Nuts intended for further sorting/processing before human consumption | 5.0 µg/kg | 10.0 µg/kg |
| Nuts intended for direct human consumption (including for use as food ingredient) | 2.0 µg/kg | 4.0 µg/kg |
That’s not a small margin — the direct-consumption limit is 2.5 times stricter on the B1 figure alone. In practice, bulk RCN or partially graded kernel shipped to a European processor for further colour-sorting, re-grading, or roasting can move under the looser tier, but only if the shipping documentation and contract explicitly state that status; a retail-ready vacuum-packed kernel bag headed straight to a supermarket shelf has to meet the direct-consumption figures from the moment it’s tested. Buyers and their compliance teams check this distinction closely, and a shipment that arrives without clear documentation of its intended downstream use risks being defaulted to the stricter tier during border testing — with no easy way to argue otherwise after the fact. This is arguably the single most frequently checked compliance figure in cashew export contracts with EU buyers, and it deserves its own explicit line in every contract rather than a generic “meets EU standards” clause.
Aflatoxin contamination is a mould byproduct (chiefly Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus) that develops when nuts are stored or dried above safe moisture levels, which is exactly why the Codex Alimentarius Code of Hygienic Practice for Tree Nuts — the international baseline document these EU limits ultimately sit on top of — focuses so heavily on drying and storage discipline rather than end-of-line testing alone. Testing catches contamination; it doesn’t prevent it.
EU pesticide residue limits (Regulation (EC) 396/2005)
Cashew imported into the EU also has to comply with maximum residue levels (MRLs) for pesticide compounds under Regulation (EC) 396/2005, which is the EU’s harmonised framework covering pesticide residues across all food and feed products, cashew included. Unlike the aflatoxin rule, there isn’t a single headline number to quote here: MRLs are set compound-by-compound, meaning the allowable residue level for one pesticide active ingredient can be entirely different from another, and the applicable figure depends on which specific pre-harvest treatments were used on the crop. The EU’s public pesticide MRL database is the authoritative, searchable source for the current limit on any given compound, and it’s updated regularly as new scientific assessments come in — a number that was compliant eighteen months ago is not guaranteed to still be compliant today. Exporters should check the actual pesticide application record for a given lot against the current database rather than relying on a blanket assurance that “we don’t use anything unusual,” since even commonly used agricultural chemicals can carry MRLs low enough to be exceeded by ordinary field-level application if timing or dosage drifts.
How TRACES NT fits into the process
TRACES NT (Trade Control and Expert System) is the European Commission’s official online platform for managing the health certification and control checks that apply to consignments entering the EU, including food products like cashew that are subject to increased official controls at the border. A shipment flagged for increased checks moves through TRACES NT with its accompanying documentation — health certificates, lab results, and consignment details — logged and tracked electronically rather than on paper, and any mismatch between what’s declared and what a border inspection finds can trigger delays, additional sampling, or in serious cases rejection of the consignment. Because TRACES NT sits downstream of both the aflatoxin and pesticide rules, it’s effectively the enforcement layer that makes the regulatory figures above matter in practice — a shipment can be perfectly compliant on paper and still get held if the TRACES NT documentation trail doesn’t clearly support that compliance.
What this means for exporters
Aflatoxin risk is controlled almost entirely upstream, at drying and storage, not fixed after the fact by testing harder at the port — by the time a contaminated lot reaches a border inspector, the only options are rejection or costly re-sorting, neither of which a supplier wants to be negotiating under time pressure. Practically, that means exporters should keep documented moisture-control logs through drying and storage, run aflatoxin testing on a defined lot-sampling schedule rather than only when a buyer asks, retain reference samples tied to each lot number, and state the intended further-processing or direct-consumption status of each shipment explicitly in commercial documents so the correct aflatoxin tier is unambiguous before the goods ever leave port. It’s also worth building this documentation habit into routine plant operations rather than assembling it reactively — the kind of practice a cashew plant audit is specifically designed to check for, and the kind of documentation base that also supports pursuing a facility certification like those covered in Processing-Facility Certifications Compared. Buyers extending trade credit or financing against EU-bound shipments (see the cashew trade finance guide) will often want to see this same documentation as part of their own risk assessment, so treating it as one unified compliance file rather than separate paperwork for separate audiences saves real time.
This page summarises current EU regulatory figures and mechanisms for general reference. It is not a substitute for direct legal, regulatory, or laboratory advice on a specific shipment or contract — confirm current limits and documentation requirements with a qualified compliance professional or the relevant EU authority before relying on them commercially.