GPSR: what actually applies to a CE-marked product

Author Hugues Orgitello Last updated 22 August 2026 ~7 min read

News · Regulatory evolution

Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety has applied since 13 December 2024. Article 50 repeals two acts with effect from that date, not one: Directive 2001/95/EC and Council Directive 87/357/EEC on products which, appearing to be other than they are, endanger consumer health or safety. For a product already covered by Union harmonisation legislation, the useful question is not whether the GPSR applies, but which chapters do. Article 2(1) names the ones that do not.

In short:

The GPSR has applied since 13 December 2024 and repeals two directives, not one.
For a harmonised product, Article 2 sets Chapter III Section 1 aside: neither Article 16 nor the ten-year file governs it.
The responsible person for a CE-marked product comes from Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, as Article 19 confirms.
Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/901 publishes 76 standard references; only two touch electronics, and EN IEC 62368-1:2020 only for its sound-exposure clauses.
Chapter IIa, inserted by Regulation (EU) 2024/2748, has applied since 29 May 2026, harmonised products excepted.

What Article 2 removes, and what it leaves

Article 2(1) sets the general rule: the GPSR reaches a product only where Union law holds no specific provisions with the same objective, and, for a product subject to specific safety requirements, only the risks those requirements do not cover. That is the safety net announced in recital 6.

The third subparagraph is sharper. For a product subject to Union harmonisation legislation as defined in Article 3, point (27), Chapter II is set aside for the risks that legislation covers, and Chapter IIa, Chapter III Section 1, Chapters V and VII and Chapters IX to XI are set aside outright, Chapter IIa having been added to that list by Regulation (EU) 2024/2748 with effect from 29 May 2026. Read against the structure of the Regulation, that produces a clean split.

Chapter or section	Articles	CE-marked product
I, general provisions	1 to 4	Yes
II, safety requirements	5 to 8	Risks not covered elsewhere
IIa, emergency procedures	8a to 8c	No, since 29 May 2026
III Section 1, economic operators	9 to 18	No
III Section 2, distance sales, accidents	19 to 21	Yes
IV, online marketplaces	22	Yes
V and VII, surveillance and Commission	23, 24, 28 to 32	No
VI, Safety Gate, Safety Business Gateway	25 to 27	Yes
VIII, information and remedies	33 to 39	Yes
IX to XI	40 to 52	No

Article 51 adds a transitional clause that is rarely quoted: Member States are not to impede the making available on the market of products conforming to Directive 2001/95/EC which were placed on the market before 13 December 2024.

The responsible person is not the Article 16 one

Article 16 bars placing on the market unless an economic operator established in the Union is responsible for the tasks set out in Article 4(3) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020. But it sits in Chapter III Section 1: for a harmonised product, it does not apply.

The Regulation says so itself. Article 19(b) requires a distance offer, where the manufacturer is not established in the Union, to carry the name and the postal and electronic address of the responsible person within the meaning of Article 16(1) of the GPSR or Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020. That "or" marks two distinct regimes.

For radio equipment, an EMC product, low-voltage equipment or a product subject to RoHS, Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 governs: its Article 4(5) list names Directives 2011/65/EU, 2014/30/EU, 2014/35/EU and 2014/53/EU. The practical consequence: the ten-year retention in GPSR Article 9(3), repeated for importers in Article 11(6), is not the rule for a CE-marked product; the applicable period is the one set by the sectoral act.

One narrow GPSR standard for electronics

Article 7(1) opens only two routes to a presumption of conformity, at its points (a) and (b): a European standard published in the OJEU under Article 10(7) of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012, or, failing that, the national requirements of the Member State where the product is made available.

Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/901 of 17 April 2026, published in the Official Journal on 27 April 2026, consolidates that list and repeals Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/1698, whose Article 1 nonetheless continues to apply to the four references listed in Annex II until 27 October 2027. Annex I holds 76 references, overwhelmingly non-electronic: children's furniture and child care articles, gymnastic and stationary training equipment (EN 957, EN ISO 20957), bicycles (EN ISO 4210 series), internal blinds, lighters, cigarette ignition propensity, floating leisure articles. Two entries do reach electronics, and both are narrow: EN 50689:2021 on consumer laser products, and EN IEC 62368-1:2020 with its A11:2020 amendment, published only for clauses 3.3.19 "Sound exposure" and 10.6 "Safeguard against acoustic energy sources".

For most connected products Article 7(1)(a) offers nothing, and the demonstration runs through Article 6 and the Article 8 elements: international standards, unpublished European standards, the state of the art, sectoral codes of good practice, reasonable consumer expectations. The exception is worth noting: for an audio product, Annex I publishes EN IEC 62368-1:2020 and its A11:2020 amendment for the sound-exposure clauses alone, which is precisely a risk the sectoral acts leave uncovered. Three of the Article 6 aspects bear directly on these products: point (g), the cybersecurity features needed to protect the product against external influences, including malicious third parties, and including the possible loss of interconnection; point (h), the evolving, learning and predictive functionalities; and point (b), the effect on other products where combined use is reasonably foreseeable. They give way only where the sectoral act already covers the risk.

What still binds, and the real deadlines

Provision	Content	Deadline in the text
Article 4	Online offer targeted at consumers in the Union	none
Article 19	Four mandatory items in the distance offer	none
Article 20	Accident notified to the Safety Business Gateway	without undue delay
Article 22(4)	Removal order acted on by the marketplace	two working days
Article 22(8)	Notices under Regulation (EU) 2022/2065	three working days
Article 26	National authority notification into the Safety Gate	four working days
Article 35	Direct notification of identifiable consumers	without undue delay

One claim keeps doing the rounds in the wrong shape: the GPSR sets no two-working-day deadline for a manufacturer to report a serious risk. The phrase appears once, in Article 22(4), and binds a marketplace acting on a removal order. For a harmonised product the trigger is Article 20(1): without undue delay from the moment the manufacturer knows about the accident. The four working days in Article 26 bind authorities and the Commission, not businesses.

Three online components carry similar names: the Safety Gate Rapid Alert System (Article 25) alerts authorities, the Safety Business Gateway (Article 27) receives business reports, the Safety Gate Portal (Article 34) is the public face, where marketplaces register under Article 22(1) and to which they link through the interoperable interface set out in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/1459. On recalls, Article 36(1) requires written recall information under Article 35(1) and (4) to take the form of a recall notice, and Article 36(2)(a) fixes the wording of the headline itself, the words "Product safety recall", in the language or languages of the Member States where the product was made available; Article 36(2)(c) goes further and bans terms such as voluntary, precautionary or discretionary. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/1435 lays down the template. Article 37(3) accepts repair by the consumer where the recall notice provides for it, with instructions, free replacement parts or software updates supplied.

Chapter IIa, dormant since 29 May 2026

Regulation (EU) 2024/2748 of 9 October 2024, applicable since 29 May 2026, amends six regulations including the GPSR. It inserts a Chapter IIa, "Emergency procedures", made up of Articles 8a, 8b and 8c, and adds that chapter to the exclusions in Article 2(1), point (b). Those procedures therefore do not reach harmonised products: for them the machinery sits in Regulation (EU) 2024/2748 itself, for the sectoral regulations, and in Directive (EU) 2024/2749 for the ten directives it amends. The two numbers look alike but cover different acts.

The mechanism stays dormant: Article 8a makes Articles 8b and 8c conditional on a Commission implementing act adopted under Regulation (EU) 2024/2747, on designation of the product as crisis-relevant goods, and on active internal market emergency mode.

For a CE-marked product the exercise comes down to three checks: the risks the sectoral act leaves uncovered, the responsible operator under Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, and the four Article 19 items on every product listing.