You will deal with somewhere between nine and fifteen separate authorities before your first container leaves. Their names differ by country; the functions barely differ at all.
This chapter gives the generic sequence and its logic. Jurisdiction detail — which ministry, which form, which fee — changes faster than any guide can track, so confirm it with the authority itself.
The generic sequence
| # | Approval | Typical authority | What it gates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Entity registration and constitutional documents | Companies registry | Everything downstream — bank account, land, contracts, every other application |
| 2 | Land title or lease, and zoning confirmation | Land registry, municipality, industrial estate authority | Site acquisition, building approval, your ability to pledge the asset |
| 3 | Building plan approval and construction permit | Municipal or industrial authority | Lawful construction |
| 4 | Environmental screening, assessment and consent to establish | Environment agency or pollution control board | Construction itself, in most regimes |
| 5 | Factory licence and factory plan approval | Factory inspectorate | Putting workers into the building |
| 6 | Food business licence | National food safety authority | Manufacture and sale of food |
| 7 | Fire safety approval | Fire and emergency service | Occupancy, and usually the factory licence itself |
| 8 | Boiler and pressure vessel registration | Boiler inspectorate | Firing the boiler, and therefore commissioning |
| 9 | Labour and social security registrations | Labour department, pension and social insurance bodies | Lawful payroll — non-compliance accrues silently and surfaces at audit |
| 10 | Export registration | Trade ministry, export council or commodity board | The first shipment |
| 11 | Tax registrations | Revenue authority and customs | Invoicing, duty exemption, refunds |
| 12 | Destination-market registrations | The importing country’s regulator | Entry at the discharge port, not at yours |
Row 12 is the one first-time exporters find last. A US food facility registration and a Chinese GACC registration are not export formalities issued at home. They are permissions issued abroad, on foreign timetables, and they belong on the project critical path.
What each approval actually requires
The pattern repeats. Each authority wants proof of who you are, a technical description of what you propose to build and run, and evidence that somebody competent signed the drawings.
Entity. Incorporation certificate, constitutional documents, directors, registered address. Check the objects clause against your export registration requirements before filing — some export councils reject companies whose memorandum contains no export object, and amending it later costs weeks.
Land and building. Title or registered lease, survey, zoning confirmation, architectural and structural drawings, and a structural stability certificate from a licensed engineer. That certificate usually feeds two other files: the factory licence and the environmental consent to operate.
Factory licence. Plans showing machinery layout, ventilation, sanitary facilities and escape routes, worker numbers and installed power. Most regimes set a threshold in workers-with-power; a cashew plant clears it easily.
Food business licence. A layout showing product flow and zoning, a water source with its analysis, a food-safety plan, the nominated technically competent person, and the product list.
One pattern is worth planning around: several jurisdictions exempt a business already certified to GMP, HACCP, ISO 22000, IFS, BRC or FSSC 22000 from the domestic food-safety certificate altogether. Where that holds, your certification decision is also a licensing decision, and its timing changes accordingly.
Environmental consent. Project description with capacity, process description, an inventory of emissions, effluent and solid waste, and a mitigation and monitoring plan. Three items draw attention every time: the shell-fired boiler, the cook-station condensate carrying CNSL, and the shell stockpile.
Boiler. Design certification, manufacturer’s drawings and certificates, hydrostatic test, erection inspection, and registration before operation. Alterations and repairs generally need prior approval — which matters more than it sounds. An undocumented modification during commissioning can invalidate a registration you are days away from receiving.
Export registration. An exporter code or identification number, membership of the relevant council or commodity board, and in several producing countries an annual sector approval with an application window that opens and closes on fixed dates. Miss the window and you wait a year.
Sequencing and the critical path
Three approvals sit on the critical path before a foundation is poured: land and zoning, environmental consent, and building plan approval.
The environmental consent is the long pole, and it is the only one whose answer can be “not here”. Start it the day you have a site and a nameplate capacity — not when the drawings are finished.
| Approval | Indicative elapsed time | Precedes |
|---|---|---|
| Entity registration | Days to weeks | Everything |
| Land, zoning, building plan | 1–6 months | Construction |
| Environmental consent | 1–6 months, longer if a full assessment is triggered | Construction |
| Factory and fire | Weeks to months | Occupancy |
| Boiler registration | Weeks, after erection inspection | Commissioning |
| Food business licence | Weeks to months | First production for sale |
| Export and tax registrations | Weeks, window-dependent | First shipment |
| Destination-market registration | Months, foreign timetable | Discharge, not despatch |
Two scheduling habits save the most time. Run the registrations that have no dependencies — entity, tax, labour — in parallel from day one rather than in sequence. And treat every approval with a fixed annual window as a date on the project plan, because those are the only ones that cannot be accelerated by paying attention to them later.