Machinery 2023/1230: 20 October 2026 is a penalties date

Author Hugues Orgitello Last updated 22 August 2026 ~6 min read

News · Upcoming deadline

Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery applies from 20 January 2027 and repeals Directive 2006/42/EC on that same date. The 20 October 2026 milestone, often described as the cut-off for designating notified bodies under the new regime, is about something else: it is the date from which Article 50(1) on penalties applies, and the date by which Member States must notify their national rules to the Commission. Chapter V, notification of conformity assessment bodies, has itself applied since 20 January 2024.

In short:

20 October 2026 makes Article 50(1) applicable and sets the deadline for notifying national penalty rules.
Articles 26 to 42, the whole of Chapter V on notification of conformity assessment bodies, have applied since 20 January 2024.
A corrigendum in OJ L 169 of 4 July 2023 corrected 14 dates in the original text.
Annex I Part A leaves no self-assessment route: all three available procedures run through a notified body.

What Article 54 actually staggers

Article 54 phases the Regulation in. Only the corrected version is authentic.

Date	What becomes applicable	Basis
19 July 2023	Entry into force; Article 6(7), Articles 48 and 52	Article 54 first paragraph and third paragraph point (c)
20 January 2024	Articles 26 to 42, Chapter V, notification of conformity assessment bodies	Article 54 third paragraph point (a)
20 July 2024	Article 6(2) to (6), (8) and (11), Articles 47 and 53(3)	Article 54 third paragraph point (d)
20 October 2026	Article 50(1), penalties; notification of national rules	Article 54 third paragraph point (b); Article 50(2)
20 January 2027	General application; repeal of Directive 2006/42/EC	Article 54 second paragraph; Article 51(2)

Article 50(1) requires Member States to lay down the rules on penalties applicable to infringements by economic operators and to take all measures necessary to ensure they are implemented: penalties that are effective, proportionate and dissuasive, and that may include criminal penalties for serious infringements. Article 50(2) sets 20 October 2026 as the date by which those rules are notified to the Commission. The duty falls on Member States rather than on manufacturers, but it fixes the regime those manufacturers will face from 20 January 2027.

The 4 July 2023 corrigendum moves 14 dates

The text published in OJ L 165 of 29 June 2023 carries wrong dates: the corrigendum published in OJ L 169 of 4 July 2023, page 35, corrects 14 of them. Where the original reads 14 January 2027, 14 January 2024 and 14 October 2026, the operative text reads 20 January 2027, 20 January 2024 and 20 October 2026. It also replaces 13 July 2023 with 19 July 2023 in Article 47(2), in the second sentence of Article 52(1), and in Article 54 third paragraph point (c). Of the 14 corrections, 13 move a date by six days, 14 to 20 or 13 to 19. The remaining one is of a different order: in Article 54 third paragraph point (b) the original reads 14 October 2023 where the corrected text reads 20 October 2026. Work from the uncorrected text and you would date the application of Article 50(1) to 2023.

Notified bodies: a scope question, not a deadline

No designation deadline falls in October 2026. The pressure comes from Article 25, which closes off self-assessment for part of the scope.

Product situation	Available procedures	Notified body
Annex I Part A, 6 categories	Module B followed by module C, module H or module G	Mandatory, no exception
Annex I Part B, 19 categories, designed in accordance with the harmonised standards or common specifications specific to that category covering all relevant essential health and safety requirements	Module A, internal production control	Optional
Annex I Part B, without that standards coverage	Module B followed by module C, module H or module G	Mandatory
Category not listed in Annex I	Module A	Not involved

Part A lists six categories: removable mechanical transmission devices including their guards; guards for those devices; vehicle servicing lifts; portable cartridge-operated fixing and other impact machinery; safety components with fully or partially self-evolving behaviour using machine learning approaches ensuring safety functions; and machinery with embedded systems of that kind that have not been placed independently on the market, in respect only of those systems.

The wording matters. The Regulation does not say "artificial intelligence". It says self-evolving behaviour using machine learning approaches ensuring safety functions. A component that performs no safety function, or whose behaviour is not self-evolving, falls outside Part A on that basis.

Article 6(2), applicable since 20 July 2024, lets the Commission amend Annex I by delegated act, so the lists can move before 20 January 2027.

What Directive 2006/42/EC leaves behind

Article 51 handles the repeals: Article 51(2) repeals Directive 2006/42/EC with effect from 20 January 2027, references to the Directive being read in accordance with the correlation table in Annex XII; Article 51(1) repeals Council Directive 73/361/EEC with no deferred date. Article 50, by contrast, deals with penalties.

The transitional provisions sit in Article 52. Article 52(1) bars any impediment to the making available on the market of products placed on the market in conformity with the Directive before 20 January 2027; Chapter VI of the Regulation, market surveillance and safeguard procedures, nevertheless applies to those products from 19 July 2023, mutatis mutandis, instead of Article 11 of the Directive. Article 52(2) keeps EC type-examination certificates and approval decisions issued under Article 12 of the Directive valid until they expire; the Regulation sets no cut-off date of its own.

Digital documentation and protection against corruption

Article 10(7) permits instructions for use in a digital format, on three cumulative conditions: marking on the product, or failing that on its packaging or in an accompanying document, how to access them; presenting them in a format that lets the user print, download and save them on an electronic device so they can be accessed at all times, in particular during a breakdown; and keeping them accessible online for the expected lifetime of the product and for at least 10 years after it is placed on the market. Paper survives: at the request of the user made at the time of purchase, paper instructions are due free of charge within one month. Article 10(8) allows the accompanying EU declaration of conformity to be replaced by an internet address or machine-readable code, subject to the same retention periods.

Article 10(3) requires the technical documentation and the declaration to be kept at the disposal of market surveillance authorities for at least 10 years, and provides that the source code or programming logic it contains be made available, upon a reasoned request, where that is necessary to check compliance with the essential health and safety requirements in Annex III.

Annex III section 1.1.9, protection against corruption, requires hardware components transmitting signal or data that are relevant for connection or access to software that is critical for compliance to be adequately protected against accidental or intentional corruption, the product to collect evidence of legitimate or illegitimate intervention in them, and critical software and data to be identified as such and protected. Section 1.2.1 covers safety and reliability of control systems. Article 20(9) opens a presumption of conformity with both sections for products certified, or for which a statement of conformity has been issued, under a cybersecurity certification scheme adopted in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2019/881 whose references are published in the OJEU, insofar as the certificate or statement covers them.

What to do before January 2027

Classify every product line against Annex I: Part A, Part B, or unlisted. That classification alone decides whether a notified body is unavoidable.
For Part B, check the standards coverage before relying on module A.
Open the conversation with a notified body now for Part A products, since no self-assessment route exists.
Inventory existing EC type-examination certificates and approval decisions and their expiry dates: Article 52(2) keeps them valid until they expire.
Overhaul the documentation set: 10 years of online hosting, on-product marking of how to reach the instructions, paper copies within one month, and identification of the software that is critical for compliance.