EU 2025/1891 - inorganic arsenic in fish and other seafood

Scope

Commission Regulation (EU) 2025/1891 amends Regulation (EU) 2023/915 by setting maximum levels for inorganic arsenic in fish and other seafood. The new inorganic-arsenic rows apply to Annex I points 3.4.5 to 3.4.8 for fish muscle meat, crustaceans, bivalve molluscs, and cephalopods. The source defines inorganic arsenic for these rows as the sum of As(III) and As(V).

The regulation also restates the total-arsenic row for salt at Annex I point 3.4.9. That salt row is recorded separately as tAs; it must not be treated as an inorganic-arsenic value.

Exact limit and units

The values below are transcribed from the Annex to Regulation (EU) 2025/1891. The source uses decimal commas in mg/kg; the structured evidence register converts each value to ug/kg.

Annex point	Species	Matrix	Limit	Unit	Basis
3.4.5.1	iAs	Fish species other than those listed under 3.4.5.2	0.10	mg/kg	wet weight; muscle meat, or whole fish if eaten whole
3.4.5.2	iAs	Anglerfish, monkfish, giant stargazer, flatfishes, haddock, herring, ray, and shark	0.50	mg/kg	wet weight; muscle meat, or whole fish if eaten whole
3.4.6.1	iAs	Crabs and crab-like crustaceans, prawns, and shrimps	0.10	mg/kg	wet weight; appendage muscle for crabs and crab-like crustaceans
3.4.6.2	iAs	Crustaceans other than 3.4.6.1 and 3.4.6.3	0.20	mg/kg	wet weight; muscle meat from appendages and abdomen, cephalothorax excluded
3.4.6.3	iAs	Langoustine and rock lobster	1.5	mg/kg	wet weight; muscle meat from appendages and abdomen, cephalothorax excluded
3.4.7.1	iAs	Scallops	0.10	mg/kg	wet weight; for Pecten maximus, adductor muscle and gonad only
3.4.7.2	iAs	Bivalve molluscs other than scallops	0.50	mg/kg	wet weight
3.4.8	iAs	Cephalopods	0.050	mg/kg	wet weight; animal without viscera
3.4.9	tAs	Salt	0.50	mg/kg	product as placed on the market

The seafood limits apply from 8 October 2025. Fish and seafood lawfully placed on the market before that date may remain on the market until their date of minimum durability or use-by date.

How tested

Regulation (EU) 2025/1891 sets the legal maximum levels and species definitions but does not create a new analytical method on this page. Compliance interpretation should use Regulation (EU) 2023/915, applicable EU sampling and analysis rules for contaminants, and a method capable of measuring inorganic arsenic as the sum of As(III) and As(V) for the seafood rows.

Enforcement posture

These are binding EU maximum levels. Covered fish and seafood above the applicable inorganic-arsenic maximum level may not be placed on the EU market after the transition rule has run its course. Salt is covered by the restated total-arsenic maximum level, not by the seafood iAs rows.

History of changes

Regulation (EU) 2025/1891 was adopted on 17 September 2025 and published in the Official Journal on 18 September 2025. It entered into force on the twentieth day following publication, 8 October 2025, and amended Regulation (EU) 2023/915 by adding seafood inorganic-arsenic rows in Annex I section 3.4.

How it compares

The 2025 amendment is narrower than the full EU contaminants framework: it targets inorganic arsenic in fish and other seafood and should not be generalized to total arsenic occurrence data. It is most comparable to seafood-specific contaminant limits in Codex or national food-contaminant rules, but comparisons must preserve arsenic species, edible tissue, and wet-weight basis.

For seafood occurrence studies, total arsenic (tAs) is not a substitute for these iAs limits unless the source measured inorganic arsenic directly or supplies a legally accepted conversion basis for the specific comparison.

Sources

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.

Commit	Date	Change	Description
a8052bb	2026-08-09	major	2 sources added; contamination-profile values revised; 7 sections added