As a buyer of fish, you are obliged to pass on information about landings to the Greenland Fisheries License Control Authority (GFLK). It is important that a landing declaration contains all information about the fisherman’s fishing trip, including whether there have been bycatches or discards along the way. If the fisherman himself retains parts of the catch for own consumption, this must also be stated in the landing declaration.

Sales note reporting is necessary for GFLK to calculate quota uptake of those fisheries where there is no obligation to keep a logbook.

Sales note reporting is also an important prerequisite for being able to export fish products to the EU. The sales note reporting must be sent before the exporter can request validation of catch certificates for use in the EU certificate.

Landing declaration

When a fisherman lands his catch, you as the buyer must fill in a landing declaration, which the fisherman then signs.

Three different types of landing declarations can be made:

• Landing declaration for Greenlandic vessels with logbook obligation (vessels 9.4 meters in length over all or above)
• Landing declaration for Greenlandic vessels without logbook obligation (vessels less than 9.4 meters in length over all)
• Landing declaration for landings outside of Greenland or in Greenland for direct export

As a buyer of fish, you must forward information about the transaction in the sales note reporting to GFLK in computer-readable form.

You can download a template for sales note reporting and instructions here.

Reporting procedures

You must send information about sales note reportings to GFLK no later than the following Monday at 12:00 am West Greenland time.
GFLK may require you, as the buyer, to submit the reports more often than once a week. This may be relevant, for instance if a quota is close to depletion.

As a buyer, you are obliged, at GFLK’s request, to forward all landing declarations to GFLK that commercial fishermen have signed when selling fish. The landing declarations must be kept at the place of purchase for at least 3 years.

It is also the buyer’s duty to forward logbooks, which are handed in with the transaction. The buyer must stamp, sign and date the logbooks that are handed in. The fisherman shall have a copy of the logbook and the original logbook shall be sent to GFLK’s office. You must send the logbooks every Monday for the preceding week.

GFLK will acknowledge the receipt of the sales note reports by email, and if there are any corrections to the submitted information, GFLK will contact the buyer directly.

Corrections to older sales note reportings

If you, as the buyer, have corrections to older sales note reports that have already been submitted to GFLK, the corrections must be submitted to GFLK as soon as possible. It is important that the corrections are registered with GFLK, as this may have an impact on the national quota and in some cases also the fisherman’s own quota.

You do this by submitting an email to GFLK with a file in the same format and the same reporting period as the original sales note reporting. In this way the corrections are made.