EU compliance audit — what it costs, what you get, how to start

What would an EU compliance audit of your products actually involve — and what would it cost?

"Compliance audit" is used loosely. Some providers mean a one-hour review call; others mean a months-long engagement with testing. This guide defines what a useful EU product compliance audit covers, what you should receive at the end, what the market charges, and how to start without committing to anything expensive.

What a compliance audit is (and is not)

An EU product compliance audit is a structured check of your products against every EU regulation that applies to them, ending in a written list of gaps and the actions that close them.

It is not:

• Product testing. An audit reviews whether the right tests have been done and documented. If a test is missing, the audit tells you — it does not run the test.
• Certification. For most consumer products there is no EU certificate to issue. The manufacturer declares conformity; a notified body is involved only for specific product types.
• Legal advice. A good audit cites the legal source for every finding, but interpreting a genuinely ambiguous case is a lawyer's job.

Who needs an audit

Almost every seller placing consumer products on the EU market benefits from one at least once, but it is most urgent if you:

• are about to launch in the EU for the first time;
• have received a marketplace notice or a letter from an authority;
• have added a new product category — a first product with a battery, a first children's product, a first product with sustainability claims;
• are entering new countries, which usually means new registrations;
• are preparing for investment, acquisition or a retailer onboarding, where a buyer's due diligence will ask the same questions.

There is no size exemption. GPSR, PPWR, the Battery Regulation and EmpCo apply to a one-person shop in the same way as to a multinational, though the volume of work is obviously different.

What a complete audit covers

A useful audit does five things.

1. Identifies every applicable regulation. For a typical consumer product sold online that means checking at least: general product safety (GPSR), packaging (PPWR), extended producer responsibility (EPR) by country, green claims (EmpCo), CE marking directives where relevant, chemical restrictions (REACH/SVHC), the Battery Regulation, Right to Repair and the Digital Product Passport timeline. Many audits check only one or two of these — which is how sellers pass a GPSR review and then lose a listing over a missing packaging registration number.

2. Assesses every obligation. Not "GPSR: amber", but each duty inside each regulation: is there a risk analysis, is the Responsible Person named on the product and the listing, is the battery marked with the right symbols, is the packaging registration number valid in each country?

3. Flags every gap, with severity. Critical gaps (a product that cannot legally be sold, or a listing that will be suspended) separated from housekeeping.

4. Reviews the documentation. Declarations of Conformity, test reports, supplier declarations, labels and listings — checked for completeness and consistency with each other.

5. Delivers an action plan. Who does what, in what order, by when. An audit without an action plan is an expensive list of worries.

What the market charges

Prices vary widely because scope varies widely. As a reference point, we built a worked benchmark for one electronic product sold in two EU countries, bought piece by piece from consultants, testing houses and representation providers at market rates: roughly €10,900 in the first year, covering assessment, testing, documentation, representation and registrations. The full itemised breakdown is here.

The assessment and documentation-review element alone — the audit — is typically priced per product and per regulation by consultants. That pricing model is why audits often stop at one or two regulations: covering all of them product by product becomes expensive quickly.

What Regonance charges

We price by product, with every regulation included:

The Compliance Scan is our audit product: every applicable regulation assessed, a gap report delivered within 48 hours, and a live workspace you keep. Managed Setup goes further — the whole catalogue is assessed and the documentation templates are completed for you, with 12 months of platform access included.

What the deliverable looks like

You receive a report and a workspace. The report shows:

• an overall readiness score and what it means;
• the number of critical, high, medium and resolved findings;
• coverage by regulation area, so you can see at a glance where the gaps cluster;
• a table of gaps, each with the regulation article it comes from and the evidence behind it;
• priority actions, in the order that removes the most risk first.

Every finding traces back to its source article and the product field that triggered it — evidence you can check, not a black-box verdict. See an example report for a sample product with gaps across GPSR, the Battery Regulation, EmpCo and packaging registration.

Audit scope by product category

The regulations that matter differ sharply by category. A useful audit starts from the product, not the regulation list:

If an audit proposal does not mention the regulations in your row, ask why.

A worked example: one product, one scan

A Compliance Scan of a single product — say, a rechargeable bicycle light sold on Amazon in Germany and France — typically surfaces findings like these:

• Battery Regulation: battery producer registration not evidenced in Germany or France; battery marking incomplete.
• WEEE: no registration number for the light itself in either country.
• GPSR: Responsible Person present on the listing but not on the packaging; warnings in English only.
• Packaging EPR: registered in Germany, not in France.
• CE marking: Declaration of Conformity references the right directives, but the technical file does not include the EMC test report.
• EmpCo: the listing's "eco-friendly light" wording is a generic environmental claim.

Each finding comes with its source article, its severity and the action that closes it. The listing suspension risk sits in the first, second and fourth items — which is why the priority actions list starts there, not with the claim wording.

A self-audit checklist

If you want to check where you stand before paying anyone, work through these questions for each product:

1. Do I know my role — manufacturer, importer, distributor — for this product in the EU?
2. Is there an economic operator established in the EU for it, and are their details on the product, the packaging and every listing?
3. Do I hold a risk analysis and technical file I could send to an authority within days?
4. Are warnings and instructions in the language of every country I sell into?
5. Do I have a packaging registration number for every country I ship to consumers in?
6. If the product has a plug, a cable or a battery, do I have WEEE and battery registrations in each country?
7. Does the product need CE marking, and do I hold a Declaration of Conformity and the test reports behind it?
8. Do my listings or packaging make any environmental claims — "eco", "green", "sustainable", "carbon neutral"?
9. Do I have supplier confirmation on substances of very high concern above 0.1% by weight?
10. When did I last check whether any of the above rules changed?

Every "no" or "not sure" is a finding. The free compliance quiz answers the scoping questions for you; the checklist above covers what a scan then checks in depth.

How to prepare for an audit

You will get more from any audit — ours or anyone else's — if you gather these first:

• A product list with names, identifiers (GTIN, SKU, model number) and where each product is sold.
• Supplier documents you already hold: declarations, test reports, safety data sheets, material lists.
• Labels and packaging — photos or artwork files.
• Listing URLs for each marketplace and your own store.
• Your role for each product: manufacturer, importer, distributor, or brand owner using a contract manufacturer.
• Any notices you have received from a marketplace or authority.

Missing information is not a reason to delay. An audit that finds "no test report on file" has done its job.

Questions to ask before you buy an audit

• Which regulations are in scope? Get the list in writing.
• Is the output per obligation, or per regulation? You want the former.
• Are findings cited? Every gap should reference the article or national rule it comes from.
• What do I keep? A PDF ages. A workspace that re-assesses when rules change does not.
• What happens next? Ask what closing the gaps would cost, and whether the audit fee is credited if you continue.

How to start

There are two low-commitment ways in:

1. Get a free snapshot. The compliance quiz takes 30 seconds and shows which regulations apply to your products, grouped by urgency. The free workspace assesses up to three products across all nine regulations.
2. Book a scoped proposal. Tell us what you sell and where on a short call, and we will quote a fixed price before you commit.