How to Find EU Product Regulations and Directives

One of the main challenges when selling products in the EU is finding out which regulations and directives your product must comply with. In this guide, we explain where you can find this information and how you can determine which EU regulations and directives are relevant to your products.

This guide also explains how you can determine if you are classified as a manufacturer, importer and distributor, and how this impacts what you must do to comply.

Finally, you will also learn what to look for inside each applicable EU regulation and directive to understand what you must do to comply in practice.

Key sources for EU regulations and directives

Here are some of the key sources for EU regulations and directives:

EUR Lex

EUR Lex is the main source for finding the latest published versions (also known as consolidated versions) of EU regulations and directives. This is the source we use to research and understand requirements within EU regulations and directives.

European Commission

The European Commission provides guidance pages, documents and lists of harmonised standards. We often use the information provided by the European Commission website for the following reasons:

1. Identify harmonised standards

2. Understand grey areas or edge cases (i.e., what is a toy)

3. Learn how to classify products

National legislation databases

EU Directives are adopted into national legislation, which may require that you also research the corresponding legislation in the EU member state where you sell the product. You can learn more about how EU Directives differ from EU regulations in the FAQ on this page.

Compliance Gate Platform

You can also use the Compliance Gate Platform to find EU regulations and directives. All you have to do is follow these steps:

1. Select country/market

2. Select product modules (i.e., electronics, batteries, and toys)

3. Set specifications (i.e., input voltage)

Learn more about the Compliance Gate Platform

How to find applicable EU regulations and directives

Knowing where to find information about EU product regulations and directives is only the first step. The real challenge often lies in determining which requirements apply to your product.

This is the method we often apply:

1. EU regulations applicable to consumer products

Some EU regulations are generally applicable to all consumer products. Identifying these is therefore the first logical step of the process. Examples include the GPSR and REACH.

2. Find product-specific EU regulations and directives

The next step is to determine product-specific EU regulations or directives. For example, electronics are subject to various EU regulations and directives:

• Low Voltage Directive
• EMC Directive
• Radio Equipment Directive
• Ecodesign Directive

Likewise, toys are subject to the Toy Safety Directive, while batteries are subject to the Batteries and Batteries Waste Regulation. Further, EU regulations and directives stack on top of each other. As such, an electronic toy containing a lithium battery could be subject to a whole range of regulations and directives applicable to:

a. Electronics

b. Toys

c. Batteries

At this stage, I recommend that you focus only on identifying regulations and directives that are potentially applicable to your product. You can move on to the next step once you have a preliminary list of regulations and directives to work with.

3. Analyse the scope

Now that we have a list of EU regulations and directives that may apply, we can take a closer look at the scope.

Let’s use the Low Voltage Directive as an example. While it covers electronics, it does not apply to all types of electronics. Instead, the scope of the Low Voltage Directive limits its applicability to products that fall within this scope.

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This Directive shall apply to electrical equipment designed for use with a voltage rating of between 50 and 1 000 V for alternating current and between 75 and 1 500 V for direct current, other than the equipment and phenomena listed in Annex II.

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If we use the battery powered toy as an example, it is therefore quite likely that the Low Voltage Directive would not be applicable. If I include an AC adapter on the other hand, then we would need to comply with the Low Voltage Directive.

Assessing each possible regulation and directive is time consuming, but this is also the only way to determine if a certain EU regulation or directive is applicable to your product.

Who is responsible?

Next we need to determine who is responsible for ensuring compliance with the relevant EU regulation and directive. In the European Union, responsibility is often defined for the following entities:

Manufacturers

Manufacturers are often one of the following:

• The factory that produced the product
• The company that designed or applied their brand to the product

As such, the manufacturer is not necessarily the factory. If you are, for example, buying products with your branding from a factory you found on Alibaba, then you are likely the manufacturer.

Generally speaking, the manufacturer is responsible for the following:

1. Ensuring that the product is designed to comply with applicable standards

2. Tested according to the applicable standards

3. Correctly labelled and documented

Importers

Importers are generally defined as EU companies that buy products from manufacturers outside the European Union. Note that some EU importers can also be defined as the manufacturer if they apply their brand or have a product made according to their specification.

The importer is generally responsible for checking all the documentation and labels. This requires that the importer has a thorough understanding of the specific requirements in the EU regulations and directives.

Some assume that importers are somehow less responsible than the manufacturer. This may be true in theory. However, the practical outcome of a recall is that the importer is left holding the bag in most cases.

Distributors

Distributors are generally EU companies buying goods from other EU companies. For example, a retailer in Spain buying a product from a German manufacturer would likely be deemed to be a distributor.

Generally speaking, the distributor has less responsibility for the compliance process than EU manufacturers and importers.

Identify product requirements

Now that we have concluded which regulations and directives our product must comply with, as well as the role of our company, we can finally proceed and identify what we must do in practice to make our product compliant.

To do this, we must go back to the latest consolidated version of the relevant EU directive or regulation on EUR Lex.

Specifically, you will need to find all articles that contain information for the following:

1. Mandatory standards

2. Testing requirements

3. Technical documentation requirements

4. Declaration of Conformity requirements (if any)

5. Traceability labelling requirements

6. CE marking or other compliance marks (if any)

7. Registration requirements (if any)

8. Reporting requirements (if any)

9. Substance restrictions and limits (if any)

FAQ

What is an EU regulation?

EU regulations are legislation that is applicable in all EU member states. For example, the General Product Safety Regulation is applied in the same way in Sweden as it is in Poland.

What is an EU directive?

EU directives can essentially be seen as a set of minimum requirements that must be adopted into national legislation. However, EU member states have some room to make adjustments to the national regulations adopted based on the directives.

For example, the national regulations adopted on the basis of the Low Voltage Directive can have minor differences between EU member states.

What is the difference between EU regulations and directives?

EU regulations are applied uniformly in EU member states, while EU directives are adopted into national regulations, which creates a more uneven landscape.

In recent years, the EU has replaced many EU directives with regulations. For example, the General Product Safety Regulation replaced the General Product Safety Directive in 2024.

What is a consolidated version?

EU regulations and directives can be amended. For example, if the EU wants to make changes to labelling requirements under a certain regulation they must then publish an amendment.

The consolidated version is the latest version of that regulation or directive, which also includes the latest amendment that is published on EUR lex. This is also the version you should look at when you research requirements for your products.