The US and the EU
Food additives permitted in one and not the other — and what each gap actually means.
194 additives are permitted in both. 495 are permitted in the US with no permission in the EU, of which 1 is explicitly prohibited or removed there. 204 are permitted in the EU with no permission in the US, of which 3 are explicitly prohibited or removed there.
A missing permission is rarely a ban. Usually no one has applied, the substance is named or grouped differently, or it falls under a different law. Only the first two groups below — prohibited, and removed — record a regulator’s decision against a substance, and even those are decisions about legal status, not findings this site draws about safety.
Permitted in the US, no permission in the EU
Removed from the EU’s list 1
The EU once permitted these and has removed them. The date and the instrument are on each additive’s page.
| Additive | Function | In United States | In European Union |
|---|---|---|---|
| Titanium dioxide E171 | Colour | 1 provision | Removed with effect from 7 February 2022. Instrument |
Possibly covered by a related listing in the EU 2
The EU lists a substance under the same number — often a group entry such as “E 322 Lecithins” where the other regulator lists a single form. This site cannot tell whether that listing covers this form, so these are not counted as absent.
| Additive | Function | In United States | In European Union |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grape skin extract INS 163(ii) | Colour | 1 provision | Anthocyanins (E163) |
| Magnesium phosphate INS 343(iii) | Acidity regulator | 1 provision | Magnesium dihydrogen phosphate, Magnesium hydrogen phosphate, Magnesium phosphates (E343) |
Regulated outside the additives list in the EU 160
Every function regulators give these — flavouring, enzyme, nutrient, solvent or processing aid — is one the EU regulates under separate rules, so they would not be expected on its list of food additives. Their absence here says nothing about whether the EU permits them.
Not on the EU’s list 332
The EU permits food additives only where it lists them, and these are not listed. That is not a finding against the substance: usually no one has applied for authorisation there. It does mean they may not be used as food additives in the EU today.
Permitted in the EU, no permission in the US
Prohibited in the US 3
The US explicitly prohibits these. This is a regulatory decision, and the citation names it.
| Additive | Function | In European Union | In United States |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calcium cyclamate INS 952(ii) | Sweetener | 22 provisions | 21 CFR 189.135 |
| Cyclamic acid and its Na and Ca salts E952 | Sweetener | 22 provisions | 21 CFR 189.135 |
| Sodium cyclamate INS 952(iv) | Sweetener | 22 provisions | 21 CFR 189.135 |
No listing in the parts of 21 CFR this site reads 201
The US does not require every food substance to be listed. A substance can be used as generally recognised as safe (GRAS) on the basis of a company’s own determination, or after an FDA response to a GRAS notice, neither of which appears in 21 CFR. So these may well be used in US food; this site cannot show it either way.
What this page is not
It is not a list of unsafe additives, and a regulator permitting something is not this site’s endorsement of it. Regulators reach different decisions on the same evidence, on different applications, and at different times. Each additive’s page shows every jurisdiction’s status with its citation, and where an assessing body has published a reading of the evidence, that reading, attributed.
Counts are of this site’s additive pages, which follow the regulators’ own listings: a group entry in one jurisdiction can correspond to several pages in another. Status as retrieved from each source; see Sources for dates.