Seafood Imports Allowed from Three Countries

The Department of Commerce’s National Marine Fisheries Service has announced that imports of fish and fish products from Grenada, Ireland, and New Caledonia may resume effective March 16.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act’s import provisions prohibit the import of fish or fish products from commercial fishing operations that result in the incidental mortality or serious injury of marine mammals (bycatch) in excess of U.S. standards. Fish and fish products from fisheries identified by the DOC in its list of foreign fisheries can only be imported into the U.S. if the harvesting nation has applied for and received a comparability finding.

In September 2025 the DOC announced that, beginning Jan. 1, 2026, it would prohibit imports of fish and fish products from 240 fisheries from 46 nations that had been denied comparability findings.

The DOC states that New Caledonia, Grenada, and Ireland were denied comparability findings for some or all of their fisheries at that time but have now been determined to have addressed the issues underlying those denials. As a result, the DOC has removed the corresponding import prohibitions for fisheries 1251, 1252, 1253, 1258, and 1260 in Grenada; fisheries 1388 and 1386 in Ireland; and fishery 1880 in New Caledonia.