Uruguay Country Commercial Guide
Learn about the market conditions, opportunities, regulations, and business conditions in uruguay, prepared by at U.S. Embassies worldwide by Commerce Department, State Department and other U.S. agencies’ professionals
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Standards for Trade
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Overview

The Mercosur standards association (In Spanish, Asociación Mercosur de Normalización or “AMN”) includes the standards setting bodies from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.  The AMN’s executive secretariat is located in San Paulo, Brazil and develops and harmonizes standards among the member countries.  The AMN develops voluntary standards through 16 technical committees and harmonizes regional technical regulations with the Mercosur governments.  Separate working groups for the telecommunications and healthcare sectors focus on industry specific regulations.  Approved Mercosur regulations are not automatically applicable in each country; each country must adopt harmonized regulations for them to be applicable.  The member countries generally adopt all Mercosur regulations, though at different speeds.

In Uruguay, UNIT carries out establishes technical norms and certification procedures and is the exclusive representative of ISO (International Organization for Standardization), IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), and the World Quality Council (WQC) in Uruguay. 

UNIT mainly transposes standards developed by other organizations such as ISO, IEC, and Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) for the national standardization system.  OHSAS is a British standard for occupational health and safety management systems.

Standards

LATU (In Spanish, Laboratorio Tecnológico del Uruguay) is the officially approved agency, which controls standards and quality control of imports and exports.  A national quality committee reviews and recommends issuance of ISO 9000/9001 certificates, if warranted.  A mix of standards exist in Uruguay.  Recently, the Automotive Safety Standards Entity (UNASEV) adopted EU vehicle safety standards, however they are open to also incorporating automotive safety standards from the United States and other countries.

Testing, Inspection and Certification

LATU (In Spanish, Laboratorio Tecnológico del Uruguay) is the officially approved agency, which controls standards and quality control of imports and exports.  A national quality committee reviews and recommends issuance of ISO 9000/9001 certificates, if warranted. 

Publication of Technical Regulations

The national gazette publishing new regulations is the Diario Oficial.  The comment period for a new regulation is variable, but it is usually a period of 2-3 months.  U.S. entities could comment by reaching the unit or Ministry who has headed the initiative.  For contacts you can reach Commercial Services in Montevideo at Office.Montevideo@state.gov.

Contact Information

Contact information for the Regional Standards Attaché can be found here.

Use ePing to review proposed technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures. 

The ePing SPS&TBT platform (https://epingalert.org/), or “ePing”, provides access to notifications made by World Trade Organization (WTO) Members under the Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), distributed by the WTO from January 16, 1995 to present.  ePing is available to all stakeholders free of charge and does not require registration unless the user wishes to receive customized e-mail alerts.  Use it to browse notifications on past as well as new draft and updated product regulations, food safety and animal and plant health standards and regulations, find information on trade concerns discussed in the WTO SPS and TBT Committees, locate information on SPS/TBT Enquiry Points and notification authorities, and to follow and review current and past notifications concerning regulatory actions on products, packaging, labeling, food safety and animal and plant health measures in markets of interest. 

Notify U.S., operated and maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 2003 to distribute and provide access to notifications (and associated draft texts) made under the WTO TBT Agreement for US stakeholders, has reached its end of life. Per obligation under the TBT Agreement, each WTO Member operates a national TBT (and an SPS) Enquiry Point.  National TBT Enquiry Points are authorized to accept comments and official communications from other national TBT Enquiry Points, which are NOT part of the WTO or the WTO Secretariat.  All comment submissions from U.S. stakeholders, including businesses, trade associations, U.S domiciled standards development organizations and conformity assessment bodies, consumers, or U.S. government agencies on notifications to the WTO TBT Committee should be sent directly to the USA WTO TBT Inquiry Point.  Refer to the comment guidance at https://tsapps.nist.gov/notifyus/data/guidance/guidance.cfm for further information. This guidance is provided to assist U.S. stakeholders in the preparation and submission of comments in response to notifications of proposed foreign technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures.