All WTO Member governments must maintain an Enquiry Point, an office designated to receive and respond to any requests for information regarding that country’s sanitary and phytosanitary measures. Such requests may be for copies of new or existing regulations, information on relevant agreements between two countries, or information about risk assessment decisions. The addresses of the Enquiry Points can be consulted electronically at the WTO’s home page ( http://www.wto.org, "Documents on Line", search document symbol "SPS/ENQ/").

Whenever a government is proposing a new regulation (or modifying an existing one) which differs from an international standard and may affect trade, they must notify the WTO Secretariat, who then circulates the notification to other WTO Member governments The notifications are also available to the interested public and can be consulted on the WTO web site (search document symbol "G/SPS/N/"). Alternatively, notifications can be requested from the Enquiry Point of the country which is proposing the measure.

Governments are required to submit the notification in advance of the implementation of a proposed new regulation, so as to provide trading partners an opportunity to comment. The SPS Committee has developed recommendations on how the comments must be dealt with.