Apply to use the MSC label

People increasingly care about where their seafood comes from. The blue MSC label makes it easy for your customers to select sustainable, wild seafood that they can trust.

Cost to use the MSC label

Most organisations that sign a licence to use the MSC label are liable to pay annual fees and, depending on the label use, royalties. If you’re an education institute, media, charity, an ASI approved assessment body or NGO raising public awareness of sustainable seafood, then you can apply to use the MSC label for free.

Your licensing fees help us reach more fisheries around the world increasing the supply of certified sustainable seafood.

Annual fee

Once you've signed a licence you will pay an annual fee. The level of the annual fee payable is determined by the total net value of MSC certified product sold by your company during a UK financial year (April – March), except for menu or fish counter items where the annual fee is based on net purchases.

The annual fee is due at the beginning of each royalty year, which starts 1st April.

For existing licensees, the actual sales from the previous royalty year are used to determine the annual fee. For new licensees, the annual fee will be based on an estimation of sales for the royalty year.

Value of MSC certified seafood purchased/sold	Annual fee
£0 – £130,000 GBP	£160 GBP
£130,001 – £330,000 GBP	£800 GBP
> £330,000 GBP	£1,600

If you are a consumer facing organisation, i.e. fishmonger or restaurant, reporting annual purchases of up to £130,000 GBP, you’ll pay an annual fee of £160 GBP and no royalties.

Royalties

If you are using the MSC ecolabel on consumer facing products, you will also need to pay royalties starting at 0.5% on the net wholesale value of your MSC labelled product sales.

For fresh fish counter or menu items will be charged on net purchases.

MSC-labelled sales / purchases (GBP) of consumer facing products	Royalty rate
£0 GBP – £10,000,000 GBP	0.5%
£10,000,001 GBP – 20,000,000 GBP	0.45%
£20,000,001 GBP – 30,000,000 GBP	0.4%
£30,000,001 GBP – 40,000,000 GBP	0.35%
£40,000,001 GBP and greater	0.3%

Reporting your sales

We will request a completed turnover declaration on a quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis – depending on how much MSC labelled seafood your company has sold – in order to calculate the annual fees and royalties.