In ten years of purchasing, I was never once reprimanded for paying a few cents more per pallet. I have seen a colleague nearly lose his job over a container held at the destination port because of a stamp.
Pallets are the cheapest item in your shipment — and the one most capable of destroying it.
What non-compliance actually costs
When wood packaging fails ISPM-15, customs at the destination may order on-site treatment, re-export, or destruction. The bill that follows is never just the pallet: demurrage and detention charged by the day, re-packing at foreign labour rates, late-delivery penalties, L/C discrepancies — and a buyer who remembers the incident at renewal time.
Heat treatment or methyl bromide?
ISPM-15 covers all solid wood packaging: pallets, crates, cases and dunnage. Two methods are accepted: heat treatment (HT), where the core of the wood reaches 56°C and holds for at least 30 minutes, and methyl bromide (MB) fumigation. The EU has banned methyl bromide and other markets are restricting it. If you ship to Europe, heat treatment is not optional.
Shipments held despite a valid-looking stamp
- A stamp with no treatment record behind it. Inspectors can trace the facility code. The liability lands on the shipper — you.
- Repaired pallets. A single untreated replacement board voids the whole unit. Repaired pallets must be re-treated and re-marked.
- Bark, soil or contamination. Australia and New Zealand enforce this aggressively, stamp or no stamp.
- Marks that are illegible or wrongly placed.
One exemption worth knowing
Pallets built from processed wood — plywood, LVL, engineered board — are exempt from ISPM-15 entirely, because heat, pressure and adhesives in manufacturing have already done the job. On some routes this removes quarantine risk altogether and lowers chargeable weight.
How QP Pallet handles it
Our export pallets are treated under our own facility code HT-029 — we do not borrow codes and we do not stamp on anyone’s behalf. Every delivery ships with complete treatment documentation, ready for inspection. And we ask which market you are shipping to before quoting, because the EU, the US, Japan and Australia do not share one rule.
Send us your destination port and product. We will confirm the quarantine requirements that apply — before the container sails, not after.