CE in Great Britain: indefinite is not automatic

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

News · Regulatory update

Great Britain accepts the CE marking with no end date for most industrial products, but the legal mechanism is almost always described the wrong way round. The Product Safety and Metrology etc. (Amendment) Regulations 2024 (S.I. 2024/696), made on 23 May 2024 and in force on 1 October 2024, did not introduce that recognition: they revoked the provisions that set its expiry. The recognition itself has been available since 31 December 2020. The same instrument opened a second route, and an instrument made on 22 July 2026 shows exactly where the word "indefinite" stops.

In short:

S.I. 2024/696 amends twenty-one sets of regulations and revokes the provisions setting the expiry of recognition of EU requirements.
The recognition itself was inserted by S.I. 2019/696 with effect from 31 December 2020.
The same instrument substituted a second route, headed "Further use of UK marking" for radio and "Further use of the UK marking" for EMC, which gov.uk calls Fast-Track UKCA: EU procedure, UKCA marking, no EU declaration of conformity.
S.I. 2026/867, made 22 July 2026 and in force 20 January 2027, re-points machinery recognition at Regulation (EU) 2023/1230.
Medical devices, construction products, rail and marine equipment sit on separate tracks with separate timetables.

What S.I. 2024/696 actually did

The Explanatory Note is unambiguous. The amendments "revoke provision that sets out the expiry of provisions which themselves allow obligations [...] to be met by complying with requirements of the corresponding EU law". What went was a deadline, not a permission. The policy behind that deadline was announced on 14 November 2022, recognising CE "for 2 years", until 31 December 2024; the date itself sat in regulation 76A(5) of the Radio Equipment Regulations 2017 and regulation 74A(5) of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Regulations 2016 until S.I. 2024/696 omitted paragraphs (4) to (6). The Department for Business and Trade announcement of 1 August 2023, covering the eighteen regimes it owns, received its statutory basis through this instrument.

Element	Instrument	Effect
Recognition of EU requirements	S.I. 2019/696, effect 31 December 2020	Inserts regulations 36A to 36C (radio, S.I. 2017/1206) and 38A to 38C (EMC, S.I. 2016/1091)
Expiry date	S.I. 2024/696, regulations 20(5) and 11(5)	Omits regulations 76A(4) to (6) (radio) and 74A(4) to (6) (EMC) from 1 October 2024
Second route	S.I. 2024/696, regulations 20(4) and 11(4)	Substitutes regulation 36B, "Further use of UK marking" (radio), and regulation 38B, "Further use of the UK marking" (EMC)
Reference to the Directives	S.I. 2024/696, regulations 11(2) and 20(2)	Reg 11(2) deletes the "immediately before IP completion day" wording (EMC); reg 20(2) substitutes a new definition of the Directive, referring to it as last amended in 2023 (radio)
Existing stock	S.I. 2024/696, regulation 23	Saves products placed on the market before 1 October 2024

Two points of scope. Regulation 1(3) extends the instrument to England and Wales and Scotland only; Northern Ireland sits under the Windsor Framework. And of the twenty-one regimes amended, two, aerosol dispensers and measuring container bottles, recognise the reversed epsilon rather than the CE marking.

Two routes, one test programme

Regulations 36A and 36B of the Radio Equipment Regulations 2017 offer two outcomes from the same body of technical work.

Requirement	Regulation 36A, CE route	Regulation 36B, Fast-Track UKCA
Essential requirements	Article 3 of Directive 2014/53/EU	Article 3 of Directive 2014/53/EU
Conformity assessment	Article 17	Article 17
Technical documentation	Article 21, prepared in or translated into English	Article 21, prepared in or translated into English
Declaration of conformity	EU declaration, Article 18, in English	No EU declaration required
Marking	CE, Articles 19 and 20(1) to (3)	UKCA marking
Legal effect	Regulations 7, 9, 10(1) and (3) treated as met; Part 3 and regulation 63 disapplied	Regulations 7, 9 and 45 treated as met, Part 3 disapplied except 42, 43 and 44(1) to (3)

Regulation 38A of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Regulations 2016 follows the same construction for Directive 2014/30/EU: Annex I essential requirements, Annex III technical documentation, the Article 14 conformity assessment procedure, CE marking under Articles 16 and 17(1) to (2), an EU declaration of conformity under Article 15, all of it in English. The language condition is not housekeeping: it sits in the operative list alongside the essential requirements. A technical file held only in French does not satisfy regulation 36A.

On conformity assessment bodies, gov.uk is blunt. UK Approved Bodies, accredited by UKAS and listed in UKMCAB, "can only be used to certify products for UKCA marking"; EU Notified Bodies "can only be used to certify against EU requirements", which serve the Great Britain market "under CE recognition or Fast-Track UKCA".

S.I. 2026/867, or why indefinite does not mean dynamic

S.I. 2024/696 removed the IP-completion-day freeze from the radio and EMC definitions of "the Directive". It does not follow that Great Britain tracks every subsequent EU change automatically, and machinery has just demonstrated the point.

S.I. 2026/867, made 22 July 2026 and coming into force 20 January 2027, replaces regulations 12A, 12B and 12C of the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 so that recognition points at Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery, which applies directly in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework from 20 January 2027. The new regulation 12A keeps the familiar shape: Annex III essential health and safety requirements, Annex IV Part A technical documentation in English and kept available for at least ten years, the Article 25(2) or 25(3) conformity assessment, an EU declaration of conformity and instructions for use in English, and the CE marking under Article 24. Regulation 12B carries the UKCA route across, without the CE marking or the EU declaration.

The practical lesson: when the EU replaces an instrument, a fresh British instrument is needed before recognition follows. S.I. 2026/867 is made under sections 1 and 2 of the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025 (2025 c. 20, royal assent 21 July 2025), and its preamble records the section 2(8) duty to have regard to the social, environmental and economic impact of regulation 2(4) and (5), the provisions that carry the recognition.

The call for evidence of 28 July 2025 drew 48 responses, 45 of them in favour of continued recognition of EU product requirements. The government response of 25 February 2026 also sets the limit: "full replication or 'alignment' is not possible as any legal text introduced in GB must be tailored to national requirements, such as omitting references to EU reporting requirements, institutions and language, as well as providing for conformity assessment by UK recognised conformity assessment bodies and the UK conformity marking (UKCA)".

What falls outside the scope

Regime	Position in Great Britain	Reference
Medical devices	CE recognised until 23:59 on 30 June 2028 (regulations 19B and 30A) or 30 June 2030 (regulations 19C, 44ZA and 44ZB)	Regulation 1ZA, Medical Devices Regulations 2002, substituted by S.I. 2023/627
Construction products	Commitment of 2 September 2024 to continue recognising CE, subject to system wide reform, any later change carrying a minimum two-year transition	Construction Products (Amendment) Regulations 2025 (S.I. 2025/1172)
Marine equipment	Red Ensign marking; the Wheelmark is excluded since 1 January 2023 unless manufactured before that date and installed before the last placing on board date	Merchant Shipping (Marine Equipment) Regulations 2025
Rail	No marking for interoperability constituents, UK or EU declaration, subject to NTSN "UK specific cases"	Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2011
Transportable pressure equipment	UK "Rho" marking in Great Britain, Pi in Northern Ireland	gov.uk marking table
Uncrewed aircraft	UK0 to UK6 class marks since 1 January 2026; CAA market surveillance authority since 16 December 2025; further conformity assessment rules from 1 January 2028	gov.uk, product regulations by sector

The MHRA targeted consultation on indefinite recognition of CE marked devices opened on 16 February 2026 and closed on 10 April 2026. No outcome has been published.

What this changes in a technical file

Language. Technical documentation, conformity assessment correspondence and the declaration must be prepared in or translated into English, on the CE route and the Fast-Track UKCA route alike.
Marking. Several markings may coexist provided the product meets the corresponding requirements and the markings stay visible: standard form, at least 5 mm high unless the legislation says otherwise, legible and indelible.
Labelling. The easement allowing the UKCA marking on a label or accompanying document runs until 11pm on 31 December 2027 (regulation 44(1A) of the Radio Equipment Regulations 2017, and regulation 44(2A) for the packaging).
Declaration. A UK declaration of conformity may cite either UK legislation or recognised EU product regulations, and reference designated or harmonised standards.
Economic operators. The importer under the Radio Equipment Regulations 2017 is a person established in the United Kingdom who places radio equipment from a country outside the UK on the market. A UK authorised representative is "essential or voluntary depending on the regulation(s) applicable to the product": the duty is regime-specific, not general.

Two follow-ups have since closed. The ecodesign consultation ran from 9 December 2025 to 20 January 2026; the government response of 6 July 2026 records 17 responses, all of them in favour, and confirms that CE recognition will be extended to products covered by the EU ecodesign regime, with the statutory instrument to be laid in summer 2026. The noise emission regime for equipment used outdoors has been in force since 13 April 2026 (S.I. 2025/1073).