Why it's worth acting now
The UK is shifting from paper Certificates of Conformity to digital ones. Under Assimilated Regulation (EU) 2018/858, from 5 July 2026 manufacturers must supply the CoC for newly built vehicles to the VCA as structured electronic data.
The VCA's new eCoC Portal — Phase 1 — comes online in the second half of June 2026. Alongside it, the VCA has opened sign-ups for a short run of free training webinars explaining how the Portal operates.
One caveat to bear in mind
A recent EU proposal would defer mandatory implementation to the end of November 2026, and the Department for Transport is still weighing it up. Nothing has been formally amended in the UK, so treat 5 July as your working date for now — but expect the picture to become clearer over the next few weeks.
If you file eCoCs for M, N or O category vehicles under the GB or UKNI schemes, there are really two things to sort right now: reserve a webinar place, and make sure the upstream task — producing valid, signed XML — is under control before you ever reach the upload stage.
The eCoC training webinars
The VCA's digital training team is hosting a short run of free webinars, each leaving room for live questions. Since all three sessions deliver the same content, you only need to choose a single date.
| Date | Time (GMT+1) |
|---|---|
| Tuesday 16 June 2026 | 14:30 – 15:30 |
| Thursday 25 June 2026 | 13:00 – 14:00 |
| Wednesday 1 July 2026 | 12:30 – 13:30 |
What the sessions cover
- An introduction to the eCoC Portal
- Submitting eCoC data through the Portal
- Handling users and access permissions
- The main system features, with walk-throughs
The emphasis is firmly on working with the Portal. Submitting through the system-to-system API is dealt with in separate VCA guidance rather than in these sessions. A recording will go up on the VCA website afterwards, so even if none of the dates suit you, the material will still be available.
Register here
VCA eCoC Portal training webinars — register now ↗
Each date has its own Teams registration link on that page.
What we know so far about the eCoC Portal
Source: VCA — Electronic Certificates of Conformity (eCoCs) ↗
- Launches in the second half of June 2026 (Phase 1).
- Scope: M, N and O category vehicles under the GB or UKNI schemes, medium and small series variants included. There is no obligation for vehicles built before 5 July 2026.
- Two routes in total: manual upload through the Portal (the subject of this post) and a system-to-system API aimed at higher-volume manufacturers. This piece concentrates on the Portal, but for any meaningful volume the API is the better fit.
- A Phase 2 is planned for July 2026, bringing a public VIN-search lookup across submitted eCoCs.
The crucial point: the Portal uploads, it doesn't generate
This is the detail that the headlines tend to gloss over. At launch the Portal's role is to take an already-signed XML file, check it against the UK IVI XML schema, and report back if something fails so you can fix and resubmit. It neither generates the XML nor signs it. All of that happens upstream in your own systems, well before the file reaches the Portal.
The tougher part: creating a valid, signed eCoC file to begin with
This is where most manufacturers will sink their preparation time. The VCA offers no file-generation software — producing a compliant file is the manufacturer's own responsibility. For the Portal to accept a submission, every eCoC must be:
- A valid XML file conforming to the UK IVI (Initial Vehicle Information) XML Schema Definition (XSD). Hand-editing this at any real volume simply isn't practical — IVI is dense, heavily nested, and littered with code-list values that look swappable but aren't.
- Filled with the right IVI technical fields, the UK-specific ones included — for instance the GB/UKNI approval codes (
g11,n11and the like) and the scheme codes (GB,UKNI). - Digitally signed to eIDAS standards, in line with the EU eCoC signing requirements. Any file lacking a valid digital signature is rejected at upload — the validator won't even get to the schema check until the signature clears.
The Portal makes the submission itself easy. What decides whether your submissions sail through on day one — XML generation, accurate IVI fields, eIDAS-compliant signing — is everything that happens before the Portal. That is the piece worth sorting out now.
Getting into the Portal
Source: VCA — improving how users access VCA online services ↗
The VCA is rolling out a single, secure customer login that lets manufacturers reach several services — Type Approval and the eCoC Portal among them — from one set of credentials.
- If you hold a VCA Type Approval Portal account already, you'll be able to use it to reach the eCoC Portal from launch.
- Within the Portal, account holders can add users and set permissions for their organisation.
- Nothing is required of you yet. Before the change takes effect, the VCA will email customers directly with instructions, including how to set a password at first sign-in. Your existing applications and account data are unaffected.
Put simply: access is being taken care of for you. What isn't taken care of is the file-generation pipeline sitting behind your account.
Where eCoC EU² fits in
The VCA webinars are exactly where you should learn how to operate the Portal. What tends to take manufacturers longer to pin down is the upstream pipeline — building a valid IVI XML file with the correct UK fields, signing it to eIDAS standards, and getting submissions accepted first time instead of chasing rejections.
That is precisely what eCoC EU² software is designed for: generating schema-checked IVI 2.0 XML from the vehicle data you already hold, applying a XAdES signature from a Qualified Trust Service Provider on the EU Trusted List, and submitting it directly into the VCA Portal (or over the API once you scale up).
If you're unsure your eCoC set-up will clear on day one — file generation, IVI fields, digital signing — book a call with one of our specialists and we'll walk through it with you before go-live.
In the meantime, register for one of the VCA webinars ↗ if you haven't already, and bookmark the VCA eCoC guidance page ↗ for the latest XSD and version-control updates.