UN approval and food contact for pails, buckets and tins

Two questions decide whether a pail or a tin can be sold into a regulated market, and the price list answers neither. The first is whether the container holds a UN approval for the contents going into it. The second is whether the supplier can produce a food-contact declaration for the surface the product touches. This is how both are settled for the pails, buckets and tins on this site, and where the answers differ from the jerry cans.

Why the codes are not the ones on our jerry cans

The UN code you need is decided by the shape of the container, not by what it is called in a catalogue. The definitions are precise and they cut across the way the trade talks:

• A drum is a flat-ended or convex-ended cylindrical packaging.
• A jerrican is a metal or plastic packaging of rectangular or polygonal cross-section.

So a round tinplate pail is a drum and certifies in the 1-series. A square metal tin is a jerrican and certifies in the 3-series, the same series as the fuel cans elsewhere on this site, despite looking nothing like one. The word “pail” does not appear in the code list at all.

The rest of the code reads as it does everywhere. The first digit is the kind of packaging (1 drum, 3 jerrican, 4 box) and the letter is the material (A steel, B aluminium, H plastic, G fibreboard). The final digit is 1 for a non-removable head or 2 for a removable one.

The code a design would take, not a claim that a given build holds it. Approval is per design type, and which packing instructions a substance permits is a separate question from the geometry. Ask us for the certificate that covers your specification.

The mark on a small tin is usually not on the tin

Below about five litres the container normally travels as an inner packaging inside a fibreboard shipper, and the two are tested and certified together as a combination packaging. The UN mark goes on the 4G box. A buyer who inspects the tins for a stamped code and does not find one has not found a problem, and a buyer who assumes the tin is approved on its own has.

The consequence is that the approval belongs to the pair. Changing the shipper, the count per box or the internal fitments can put the consignment outside the tested configuration even though every tin in it is unchanged.

Limited quantities: the relief that does reach a tin

Our ADR reliefs guide rules limited quantities out. For a 20 litre can that is right. At tin scale the same relief applies.

The limited quantity value for UN 1263 PAINT in packing group II is 5 litres per inner packaging, in an outer not exceeding 30 kg gross, and a 5 litre paint tin sits exactly on that limit. Inside limited quantities there is no requirement for UN-approved packaging at all: the package carries the LQ diamond, no dangerous goods transport document is needed, and the consignment moves under simplified conditions.

So the same physical tin can be a UN packaging question or not, depending on the fill. Five litres of paint is inside the relief. The identical body filled to six is outside it, and now needs an approved design. Settle the fill volume before the tooling.

Food contact follows the surface, not the container

On a lacquered tin, the food-contact article is the internal coating, not the steel. That fact redirects the whole documentation trail, because the plastics instruments people reach for do not apply to it.

In every one of those the deliverable is the same document: a Declaration of Compliance naming the instrument, the contents it covers and the conditions of use. A DoC that names the wrong instrument is worse than none, because it looks like an answer.

Ask for these four things

Enough to tell a specified pail from an unspecified one, and short enough to put in an email:

• The coating system, not its colour. “Gold lacquer” is a look. The chemistry is what survives the contents or does not, and it is what a DoC has to name.
• Tinplate temper and tin coating weight. A thickness in millimetres does not specify tinplate. The temper and the coating weight in g/m² do.
• Resin grade and melt flow index on the plastic side, plus recycled content, which decides whether the UK plastic tax is charged at all.
• The UN certificate, with the plant named on it. Approval is per design type, and the authority decides what each plant making it must show, so a certificate for another factory proves nothing about yours.

How many 20-litre pails fit in a container

Pails ship on volume, the same as jerry cans, so units per container sets the freight cost of each one. Across our 20-litre range the figure runs from 960 to 3,400 per 20GP, more than a threefold spread at the same capacity.

The spread comes from shape. A tapered open-head pail, wider at the rim than at the base, nests inside the next one, so the container carries several pails in the space of one. A square bucket with parallel walls cannot nest and ships its full volume. Ask for the loading figure alongside the unit price: at the same capacity it can change the freight cost per pail more than threefold.

Units per container, unpalletised, from our factories’ published loading tables, the same figures that appear on each product page. Figures are for planning; the packing list on your order is the number that ships.

Where we stand on this

We do not publish UN codes, coating systems, tempers or food-contact declarations against the standard range, and those fields are marked quoted-on-enquiry on every product page rather than left blank. They are build-specific: the same body gets a different lacquer, a different certificate and a different declaration depending on what goes in it, and publishing one figure would be wrong for most buyers.

We settle the specification at enquiry rather than discover it afterwards. Tell us the contents, the fill volume and the destination market, and we come back with the code the design certifies under, the coating specified against your product, and the declaration that covers it. If one of the three would have to be obtained, we say which.

Where to start

Common questions

What UN code does a steel pail have?

A round tinplate pail with a removable head certifies as UN 1A2. The first digit is the kind of packaging and a drum is defined by its shape: a flat-ended or convex-ended cylindrical packaging. A is steel and the final 2 is a removable head. A tight-head round metal bucket is 1A1 on the same logic.

Why is a square metal tin coded as a jerrican?

Because the UN definitions go by cross-section. A jerrican is a metal or plastic packaging of rectangular or polygonal cross-section, and a drum is cylindrical. A square tin therefore falls in the 3-series alongside fuel jerricans, and a round pail of the same capacity falls in the 1-series. The catalogue name has no bearing on it.

Where is the UN mark on a small tin?

Usually on the box, not the tin. Below about five litres a tin normally travels as an inner packaging inside a fibreboard shipper, and the two are tested together as a combination packaging with the mark applied to the 4G outer. Changing the shipper or the count per box can put the consignment outside the tested configuration even if the tins are unchanged.

Do I need UN approved packaging for 5 litre paint tins?

Often not. For UN 1263 PAINT in packing group II the limited quantity value is 5 litres per inner packaging in an outer not exceeding 30 kg gross. Inside that relief there is no requirement for UN approved packaging: the package carries the LQ diamond and no dangerous goods transport document is needed. Fill the same tin to six litres and the relief is lost.

How many 20 litre pails fit in a 20ft container?

Between 960 and 3,400 per 20GP, unpalletised, on our factories’ loading tables. Shape sets the count more than material does: a tapered open-head pail nests inside the next, so the tinplate flower-lid pail reaches 3,400 and the round polypropylene pail 3,020, while a parallel-walled square tinplate bucket cannot nest and ships 1,296. A 40ft high cube takes about 2.3 to 2.5 times the 20GP figure.

Which food-contact regulation applies to a lacquered tin?

The framework regulation, 1935/2004 in the EU, applied to the internal coating rather than to the steel, because the coating is the article that contacts the food. Plastics Regulation 10/2011 does not reach a coating. In the US the corresponding instrument is 21 CFR 175.300 for resinous and polymeric coatings, where a polypropylene pail would be assessed under 21 CFR 177 instead.

References

The standards and regulations this page relies on, at their issuing body. Where a market rule is named here, check the current revision before you specify against it.

• UN Model Regulations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (Rev. 24)
• UNECE: the ADR agreement, whose Chapter 6.1 sets packaging codes and marking
• ADR: Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road (UNECE)
• European Commission: food contact materials
• US FDA: food contact substances

Last reviewed 26 October 2026 by Clarence Cheang, Co-Founder.