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The international trade in plants for planting (P4Ps) is a major pathway for the introduction of plant pests. The global trade in P4Ps is both voluminous and highly diverse, but there is little detailed knowledge about its diversity and dynamics. This makes it difficult to assess the risks associated with this trade and to prioritise high-risk commodities (genus-origin combinations) for detailed inspection or regulation. Using the ISEFOR database, this paper describes the diversity and dynamics of P4P imports into the EU, based on genus-level data for lots imported into fourteen Member States that provided this data for different periods between 2005 and 2014, totalling over 30Bn plants and over 7500 commodities. There was great variety, as well as complementarity, in terms of the imported genera, origins and commodities among the countries. Two-thirds of the imported commodities changed every year. Based on the 10-year data from the Netherlands, the greatest importer of live plants in the dataset, we developed a risk categorisation approach for prioritising the highest risk commodities, based on risk associated information concerning the imported genus and the history of trade with respect to the exporting countries, genera and type of plant material traded. Application of this risk categorisation led to the identification of a modest number of commodities that represent elevated risk, to which more inspection resources can be allocated while lower-risk commodities could be subject to less-intensive phytosanitary inspections., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published