Bladed & Corrosive Legislation Changes

Important new rules impacting how bladed and corrosive products are allowed to be sold and delivered to UK recipients.

As you may know, the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 comes into force from 6 April 2022 (TBC) and includes a number of measures to tackle serious violence.

The key areas that affect you as a UPS customer are about ensuring bladed products (i.e. knives) and corrosive products are only sold and delivered to adults aged 18 and over:

Bladed products

• It is forbidden to sell and deliver bladed products to someone at a residential address without verifying that they are over 18 years of age

Corrosive products

It is forbidden to deliver corrosive products to a person of any age via a residential addresses or alternative delivery location (e.g. a UPS Access Point)

It is forbidden to sell and deliver corrosive products to a person at a business address without verifying that they are over 18 years of age

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Get familiar with the new legislation and definitions

The guidance for the offensive weapons legislation can be found on gov.uk.

1. Clearly label your parcels

All domestic and international parcels containing a bladed product that requires age verification (see below) must be clearly labelled.

Additionally, when placing your shipment please use the description field of your UPS shipping application to state the contents of the package.

1. Use our “Adult Signature Required” service

You must select the value-added UPS service “Adult Signature Required” in the cases highlighted below. We will then obtain the adult recipient's signature and provide you with a printed copy.

This table outlines the instances where an adult signature is or is not required, or if the delivery itself is not allowed: