Chemical Hazards Database (OpenFoodTox)
When evaluating the safety of chemicals, EFSA scientists determine whether and how substances may be hazardous for humans, animals and/or the environment. This includes identifying critical health effects, the levels at which these effects may occur to derive a reference point as the basis for a reference value, and, when possible, establishing health‑based guidance values or other reference values.
EFSA’s Chemical Hazards Database – OpenFoodTox – provides structured summaries of hazard information for individual substances drawn from EFSA’s risk assessments. The database covers substances assessed across EFSA’s remit, including food additives and flavourings, pesticides, contaminants, food contact materials, feed additives and nutrients.
Since its creation in 2002, EFSA has produced risk assessments for thousands of substances through scientific opinions, conclusions, statements and technical reports prepared by its scientific panels, Scientific Committee, and scientific staff.
OpenFoodTox 3.0 provides open access to structured hazard data supporting these assessments, including:
Substance characterisation and identifiers
Human health, animal health and ecotoxicological hazard assessments
Toxicological reference values and reference points
Physicochemical properties
Toxicokinetic and ADME data
Environmental fate and behaviour data
The database supports transparency and facilitates reuse of EFSA data for scientific and regulatory purposes. It can be used by risk managers, risk assessors at scientific advisory bodies, other scientists and researchers, or anyone with an interest in chemical risk assessment.
Accessing the database
OpenFoodTox 3.0 is available through:
These datasets reflect the structure of the IUCLID 6 data model and are updated on a regular basis.
What’s new in OpenFoodTox 3.0
OpenFoodTox 3.0 represents the latest evolution of the database and is built on the full migration of OpenFoodTox 2.0 into the International Uniform Chemical Information Database (IUCLID 6). Released in April 2026, the updated database is structured in line with OECD Harmonised Templates, enabling standardised data collection, reporting and interoperability of chemical hazard information. This alignment underpins EFSA’s contribution to the EU Common Data Platform on Chemicals, supporting data sharing, reuse and integration across EU agencies in line with the “one substance, one assessment” approach. The migration to IUCLID also supports consistent dossier creation and updating, linking substances to EFSA outputs in a transparent and reproducible manner.
OpenFoodTox 3.0 expands the existing database expanded with new data extracted from EFSA outputs published up to December 2025.
The database currently contains:
7,880 distinct substances, including constituents and metabolites
45,682 study results across human health, animal health and environmental endpoints
19,452 toxicological reference values used in EFSA risk assessments.
New endpoint areas have been introduced, including environmental fate and behaviour, alongside expanded physicochemical and toxicokinetic datasets.
OpenFoodTox 3.0 will also be updated regularly as new EFSA outputs become available.
Supporting development of new approach methodologies (NAMs)
Beyond data storage, OpenFoodTox 3.0 supports EFSA’s methodological evolution through enabling:
Re-use of data for grouping chemicals, read-across and risk assessment of multiple chemicals (‘chemical mixtures’)
Development and validation of in silico (QSAR/QSPR) models
Integration within EFSA and external tools for computational toxicology.
Several QSAR models derived from OpenFoodTox data have been developed and published, and further integration within modelling and read‑across platforms is ongoing.
Legal notice
Openfoodtox is a compilation of chemical and toxicological information on chemicals assessed by EFSA since its creation and included in already published scientific opinions. The database represents the data that was available to EFSA at the time of assessment and does not provide any reassurance on whether any of the chemicals are suitable or not for food applications in Europe. EFSA owns this database and its content. This database does not disclose any commercially sensitive or otherwise confidential information. Reference to the original scientific output should be provided in case of re-use for legal or regulatory purposes within or outside the European Union.
EFSA will update Openfoodtox on a regular basis. EFSA does not warrant that the use of this database is error free. In case of discrepancy between the data provided in the original scientific output and that in this database, preference shall be given to the former. Comments from users, should be written to IDATA [at] efsa.europa.eu.