Which EU regulations apply to your product? A simple guide

"Does this apply to me?" is the most common compliance question on Reddit, in the Shopify community forums and in our own inbox. It is also the question people get wrong most often, usually in the optimistic direction.

This is the plain-language version. Nine EU mandates, what triggers each one, and the four beliefs that get sellers suspended.

The decision tree

Work down this list. Each answer is independent of the others — you can trigger six of the nine at once, and most physical consumer products do.

Is it a consumer product? Then the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988 applies. There is no category list to check; GPSR is the safety net under everything sold to consumers. It brings a risk assessment, technical documentation, traceability information on the product, and — for non-EU sellers — a responsible person established in the Union under Article 16.

Does it have packaging? Then the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation applies. Packaging means the box, the poly bag, the tissue paper, the hanger, the tape and the shipping carton. PPWR brings composition data, recyclability, recycled-content duties for plastic, labelling in a harmonised format, and producer obligations.

Does it contain or come with a battery? Then Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 applies — including for a coin cell in a greeting card. It brings battery producer registration per country, labelling, carbon-footprint and due-diligence duties for some categories, the removability requirement from February 2027, and the battery passport for certain categories.

Do you say anything environmental about it? "Eco-friendly", "sustainable", "carbon neutral", "recyclable", "plastic-free", a green leaf icon, an own-brand sustainability label. Then the Empowering Consumers Directive (EU) 2024/825 applies. It bans generic environmental claims without demonstrated excellent performance, bans offset-based carbon-neutrality claims, and regulates self-made sustainability labels.

Is it electrical or electronic? Then you are in CE marking territory: the Low Voltage Directive for mains power, the EMC Directive for emissions and immunity, RoHS for restricted substances, and the Radio Equipment Directive for anything with wireless. You will also have WEEE producer registration, which is separate from your packaging registration.

Does it contain chemicals or materials of concern? REACH restrictions under Annex XVII apply to articles as well as substances — phthalates in soft plastics, azo dyes in textiles, nickel release in jewellery and fasteners, lead in solder and coatings. Above 0.1% w/w of a substance of very high concern you also have communication duties.

Is it in an ESPR priority category? Digital Product Passport obligations are arriving category by category through delegated acts under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. Textiles and batteries are first. If you sell those, the preparation window is now, not on the deadline.

Is it a device with parts that wear out? The Right to Repair rules bring spare-part availability, repair information and repairability duties for specified product groups.

Do you place it on the EU market for the first time? Then you are the producer or importer for most of the above, whatever the label on the box says, and the obligations are yours rather than your supplier's.

A quick matrix

Note what recurs. GPSR and PPWR are on every row, because almost everything sold to a consumer is a consumer product in a box.

The four beliefs that cause suspensions

"I'm a small business, surely this doesn't apply." There is no size exemption in GPSR, PPWR, the Battery Regulation or EmpCo. A handful of EPR schemes have country-specific de minimis thresholds, and those are the exception rather than the rule. Most duties apply from the first unit you sell. We wrote the long version in do small businesses need EU product compliance.

"I sell on Etsy, not Amazon, so I'm exempt." There is no marketplace exemption anywhere in EU product law. What changes between marketplaces is enforcement intensity, not obligation. Amazon validates registration numbers at listing level; Etsy collects responsible-person data; Shopify checks nothing at all, which means your enforcement arrives from customs or a market surveillance authority instead. See what compliance you need per marketplace.

"I'm based in the US, so EU law doesn't affect me." EU product law follows the product, not the seller. If your product reaches an EU consumer you are a non-EU manufacturer or importer with the full duty set, plus representation requirements. See every EU regulation that applies to a non-EU seller.

"My supplier says it's CE certified." CE marking is usually a self-declaration by the person placing the product on the market. If that is you, the declaration is yours to make and the technical file is yours to hold. A supplier's certificate is evidence you can use; it is not a transfer of responsibility. And "CE certified" is not a thing — there is no certificate, there is a declaration of conformity.

What to do with the answer

Applicability is only step one. Each mandate that applies brings specific duties: documents to hold, data to collect, registrations to complete, labels to print, dates to meet. Regonance maps 431 obligations across the nine regulations, and the practical value is knowing which of them are yours and which are genuinely not applicable — because assuming everything applies is expensive too.

Do the scoping honestly, in writing, once. Then the rest is execution against a list rather than anxiety about a category.

Thirty seconds of questions will give you a far more specific answer than this article can. And if the answer looks large, our breakdown of what compliance actually costs puts numbers on it.

Working out which duties apply, not just which regulations

Knowing that PPWR applies is the easy half. The useful half is knowing which specific duties inside it are yours, because a regulation is not a task.

Three questions narrow it every time.

What is your role? Manufacturer, importer, distributor, fulfilment service provider or online marketplace. The duty sets differ substantially. If you design a product and have it made to your specification under your brand, you are the manufacturer even though a factory in another country built it. If you buy finished branded goods from outside the EU and bring them in, you are the importer, with verification duties rather than design duties. Getting your role wrong means answering the wrong list.

Where are you established? Inside the Union, you can hold your own documentation and deal with authorities directly. Outside it, you need representation — and, as covered in the non-EU seller guide, potentially three separate appointments.

Which countries do you place product in? Registration duties are national and repeat per country. Assessment duties do not.

Where sellers most often mis-scope

Forgetting the packaging. Sellers assess the product carefully and never think about the box, the bag or the void fill. Packaging duties are among the most actively enforced, because marketplaces validate the registration number.

Missing a coin cell. A greeting card with a sound module, a shoe with a light-up sole, a thermometer, a remote control included in the box. Each makes you a battery producer with registration duties in every market.

Treating a supplier's certificate as your compliance. A test report is evidence for your technical file. It is not a declaration, and it does not move responsibility to the supplier.

Assuming a variant inherits everything. Variants usually share a risk assessment and technical file, which is a genuine saving. They do not share it when the variant changes a material, a power supply, a wireless module or a claim.

Reading "not applicable" too generously. Deciding a regulation does not apply is itself a documented decision. An authority asking why you have no battery registration will accept "there is no cell in the product" if you can show the reasoning, and will not accept silence.

Turning applicability into a plan

Write the output down in a table: product, applicable mandate, specific duty, evidence needed, owner, date. That table is what compliance actually is; everything else is reading.

Then split it into three piles. Blocking — anything a marketplace validates, which is representation, registration numbers and listing data. Documented — risk assessments, technical files, declarations, packaging data, claim substantiation. Scheduled — the dated obligations arriving over the next five years, which you can see on the full deadline timeline.

Regonance produces that table automatically from a product record, across 431 obligations and nine regulations, and marks the genuinely non-applicable ones as decisions with reasons rather than blanks. That last part matters more than it sounds: the value is not a longer list of things to do, it is a shorter one you can defend.