California Prop 65 warnings for electronics

Hugues Orgitelloupdated 7 Oct 202621 min read

California Proposition 65, formally the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, is one of the most misunderstood compliance questions for a company selling electronics into the United States. It is not a ban, it does not restrict any substance, and it is not a federal rule. It is a California law that requires a clear and reasonable warning before a business exposes a person to a listed chemical, unless the exposure stays below a safe-harbor level. For electronics that means lead, phthalates such as DEHP, cadmium, bisphenol A and a few other common materials can trigger a label, even on a product that passes RoHS and REACH. This page reads the statute (Health and Safety Code sections 25249.5 to 25249.13) and the Article 6 warning regulations section by section, gives the safe-harbor levels from the list OEHHA republished on July 31, 2026, explains the January 1, 2028 short-form cut-off, and shows what the Attorney General notice database says about enforcement.

What Proposition 65 is, and what it is not

Proposition 65 was adopted by California voters in 1986. It is codified in Chapter 6.6 of Division 20 of the California Health and Safety Code and administered by OEHHA, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, as lead agency. Its mechanism is narrow: the State publishes a list of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, and section 25249.6 provides that "no person in the course of doing business shall knowingly and intentionally expose any individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without first giving clear and reasonable warning to such individual".

The statute, section by section

Section	What it says	Why it matters for a product
25249.5	No discharge of a listed chemical into a source of drinking water	Relevant to factories, not to the product label
25249.6	Clear and reasonable warning before a knowing and intentional exposure	The product-warning duty
25249.7(b)	Civil penalty up to 2,500 dollars per day for each violation	The financial exposure
25249.7(c)	Public enforcers: Attorney General, district attorneys, city attorneys of cities over 750,000, some city prosecutors	Who can sue without a notice
25249.7(d)	Private action in the public interest only more than 60 days after notice, with a certificate of merit	The 60-day notice
25249.7(f)	Private settlements reported to the Attorney General; court approval requires a compliant warning, reasonable fees and a reasonable penalty	Why settlements are public
25249.8	The Governor publishes the list and revises it at least once a year	The list is a moving target
25249.10(b)	No warning needed for an exposure less than twelve months after listing	The fixed grace period
25249.10(c)	No warning below the "no significant risk" or "no observable effect at 1,000 times" level; burden on the defendant	Where NSRL and MADL come from
25249.11(b)	Businesses employing fewer than 10 employees are not a "person in the course of doing business"	The small-business exclusion
25249.11(f)	Warning burden to be placed on the producer or packager rather than the retail seller, to the extent practicable	Why brands, not shops, carry the label
25249.12(c) and (d)	75 percent of penalties to the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Fund, 25 percent to whoever brought the action	The private plaintiff incentive

The single most important thing to understand is the contrast with the restriction regimes:

Regime	Type	What it controls	Compliance route
Proposition 65	Warning law	Exposure to a listed chemical in California	Warn, or show exposure is below the safe-harbor level
RoHS	Substance restriction	Concentration in the homogeneous material	Keep the substance under the limit
REACH (restriction, authorisation)	Substance restriction and authorisation	Presence and use of the substance	Remove, reduce, or get authorisation

A product can contain a listed chemical and remain legal to sell in California, provided either that the exposure stays below the relevant level, or that an adequate warning is given. This is fundamentally different from RoHS, where exceeding 0.1 percent of lead in a homogeneous material makes the product non-compliant regardless of exposure, and from REACH restrictions, which cap or forbid the substance itself.

Reach outside California

Legally, Prop 65 covers exposures in California caused by businesses with 10 or more employees. OEHHA put this plainly in its October 2024 Final Statement of Reasons: the rules do "not require a warning to any consumers outside of California". It also added the signal words CA WARNING: and CALIFORNIA WARNING: so that businesses can identify the warning as California-specific on products that may be sold outside the state. Many brands still apply the label to every unit because they cannot separate California-bound stock, and a retailer may require it by contract; section 25600.2(i) of the regulations explicitly lets the parties in a supply chain allocate the warning duty among themselves in writing. Treat any nationwide labelling requirement as a commercial term, not as Prop 65.

The OEHHA list of chemicals

OEHHA publishes the Proposition 65 list in section 27001 of Title 27 and republishes it at least once a year, as section 25249.8 requires. The version current at the time of writing is dated July 31, 2026. A chemical is listed through one of four mechanisms shown in the list itself: authoritative bodies (AB), the State Qualified Experts (SQE), formally required to be labelled or identified (FR), and the Labor Code (LC). Under section 25249.10(b), a warning is not required for an exposure that takes place less than twelve months after the listing date. That twelve-month period is fixed by statute, so monitoring the list is a continuing task rather than a one-off check.

Electronics-relevant listings and their safe-harbor levels

The table below is read from the July 31, 2026 list (columns: type of toxicity, listing mechanism, date listed, NSRL or MADL in micrograms per day). Where the list gives no number, none is shown: a missing level means the business has to establish its own, not that any exposure is acceptable.

Chemical (as listed)	Endpoint	Mechanism	Date listed	Safe-harbor level in the list
Lead	Developmental, female, male	FR	February 27, 1987	MADL 0.5 µg/day
Lead and lead compounds	Cancer	AB	October 1, 1992	NSRL for lead 15 µg/day (oral)
Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP)	Cancer	SQE	January 1, 1988	NSRL 310 µg/day
Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP)	Developmental, male	AB	October 24, 2003	None given in the list row
Diisononyl phthalate (DINP)	Cancer	SQE	December 20, 2013	NSRL 146 µg/day
Di-isodecyl phthalate (DIDP)	Developmental	AB	April 20, 2007	MADL 2,200 µg/day
Cadmium and cadmium compounds	Cancer	SQE	October 1, 1987	NSRL for cadmium 0.05 µg/day (inhalation)
Cadmium	Developmental, male	SQE	May 1, 1997	MADL 4.1 µg/day (oral)
Bisphenol A (BPA)	Female	SQE	May 11, 2015	MADL 3 µg/day (dermal exposure from solid materials)
Bisphenol A (BPA)	Developmental	AB	December 18, 2020	None given
Nickel (metallic)	Cancer	LC	October 1, 1989	None given
Nickel compounds	Cancer	LC	May 7, 2004	None given
Antimony oxide (antimony trioxide)	Cancer	AB	October 1, 1990	NSRL 0.13 µg/day (inhalation)
Tetrabromobisphenol A	Cancer	LC	October 27, 2017	None given
Chromium (hexavalent compounds)	Cancer	LC	February 27, 1987	NSRL 0.001 µg/day (inhalation)

Three readings of that table matter in practice. Lead carries both endpoints, so a single chemical name can cover a combined cancer and reproductive warning under section 25601(b). DINP is listed for cancer only, so a DINP-only warning uses the cancer sentence, not the reproductive one. And the BPA MADL is the one level in the list written specifically for dermal contact with solid materials, which is the exposure model for thermal paper and handled plastics.

Cables are the classic trigger. A search of the Attorney General notice database for notices filed in 2025 with "cable" in the product field returns 11 notices; the chemicals named are DEHP in most of them, lead in two, and DIDP in one. A power cord or a USB lead can carry an exposure even when the device itself is clean.

Recent additions and dated changes

Date	Change	Source	Warning obligation from
December 29, 2023	Bisphenol S (BPS) listed, female reproductive toxicity	OEHHA list	December 29, 2024
November 26, 2024	Short-form and Article 6 amendments filed (Register 2024, No. 48)	27 CCR 25601 to 25603	Operative January 1, 2025
January 3, 2025	Vinyl acetate listed (cancer); BPS listed for male reproductive toxicity	OEHHA list	January 3, 2026
May 2, 2025	Federal court permanently enjoins the warning requirement for dietary acrylamide (California Chamber of Commerce case); the appeal by the State was dismissed on May 29, 2026	Attorney General Prop 65 page	Food only, not electronics
August 12, 2025	Federal court enjoins new suits over listed titanium dioxide in cosmetics and personal care products	Attorney General Prop 65 page	Cosmetics only
December 8, 2025	BPS listed for developmental toxicity; one further chemical listed for cancer	OEHHA list	December 8, 2026
July 17, 2026	Welding fumes listed (cancer), with three pharmaceutical substances	OEHHA list	July 17, 2027
July 31, 2026	Current republication of the list	OEHHA list	Not applicable
January 1, 2028	Old short-form content no longer safe harbor for product manufactured and labelled from this date	27 CCR 25603(c)	January 1, 2028

Welding fumes matter for a factory and its workers rather than for a finished electronic product, but an electronics manufacturer with a metal shop in California should note the July 17, 2027 date.

The clear and reasonable warning

The law requires a "clear and reasonable warning", but it does not force one wording. Article 6 of Title 27 defines "safe harbor" methods and content: if you use them, the warning is deemed clear and reasonable (section 25601(a)). Section 25600(f) confirms you may use other content or methods that still satisfy section 25249.6, but then you carry the argument that they were adequate. Section 25600(e) adds a third route: a warning set by a court-ordered settlement or final judgment is deemed clear and reasonable for that exposure.

Anatomy of the safe-harbor consumer-product warning

Section 25603(a) sets out the full-length warning:

• Symbol (25603(a)(1)): a black exclamation point in a yellow equilateral triangle with a bold black outline, placed to the left of the text, no smaller than the height of the word WARNING. It may be printed in black and white only where the sign, label or shelf tag for the product is not printed using yellow.
• Signal word (25603(a)(2)): WARNING:, CA WARNING: or CALIFORNIA WARNING: in capitals and bold.
• Text naming the chemical: at least one listed chemical for each endpoint warned, unless one named chemical is listed for both (25601(b)).
• Website: the closing sentence "For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov."

For a chemical listed for both endpoints, such as lead, section 25603(a)(2)(D) gives: "This product can expose you to chemicals including [name of one or more chemicals], which is [are] known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov." Where the warning covers a single chemical, the words "chemicals including" may be deleted (25603(a)(2)(E)). Supplemental text is allowed only to identify the source of exposure or explain how to reduce it (25601(e)).

Where the warning has to be

Section 25602(a) lists the safe-harbor methods for a consumer product: a product-specific sign, shelf tag or shelf sign at each point of display; an electronic device or process that gives the warning automatically before or during purchase; a full warning on the label; or a short-form warning on the label. For internet purchases, section 25602(b) requires the warning on the product display page, through a clearly marked hyperlink using the word WARNING (or CA WARNING, CALIFORNIA WARNING) on that page, or otherwise prominently displayed before the purchase is completed; a warning the purchaser has to search for in the general content of the site does not count. Catalogue sales need the warning in the catalogue, clearly associated with the item (25602(c)). If the label gives consumer information in another language, the warning must also appear in that language, in addition to English (25602(d)). A warning only in the manual after the sale is none of these methods.

Who has to give it

Section 25600.2 places the duty on the manufacturer, producer, packager, importer, supplier or distributor. They comply either by labelling the product or by sending a written notice, with all warning materials and the online wording, to the authorized agent of the business they sell to; the notice must be renewed annually while the product is sold in California, and a further notice is due within 90 days when the chemical name or endpoint changes. The retail seller is responsible only in the cases of section 25600.2(e): own brand, chemical introduced by the retailer, label covered or altered, warning materials received but not displayed, or no responsible upstream business reachable in California.

The amended short-form warning and the 2028 transition

OEHHA rewrote the short-form rules in 2024. The amendments to sections 25601, 25602, 25603, 25607.1 and 25607.2, with new sections 25607.50 to 25607.53 for passenger and off-highway motor vehicle parts and recreational marine vessel parts, were filed on November 26, 2024 and are operative from January 1, 2025 (Register 2024, No. 48). The change for electronics is simple to state and slow to implement: a short-form warning must now name a listed chemical, exactly as the long form always had to.

Element	Old short form, now section 25603(c)	Amended short form, section 25603(b)
Warning symbol	Yellow triangle with black exclamation point, per 25603(a)(1)	Unchanged, still 25603(a)(1)
Signal word	WARNING: in capitals and bold	WARNING:, CA WARNING: or CALIFORNIA WARNING: in capitals and bold
Chemical name	Not required	Required, at least one listed chemical for each endpoint warned
Body text	The endpoint alone, Cancer, Reproductive Harm or Cancer and Reproductive Harm, followed by www.P65Warnings.ca.gov	One of two defined sentences per endpoint case, for example Cancer risk from exposure to [name of chemical]. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
Type size	Before 2025, 25602(a)(4) required the whole warning to be no smaller than the largest type size used for other consumer information on the product, never below 6-point	25602(a)(4) as amended: a type size that complies with the conspicuousness rule of 25601(c), never below 6-point

What the amended short form has to say

The naming requirement sits in section 25601(b). Before 2025 it opened with "Except as provided in Section 25603(c)", and that cross-reference was the exemption the short form lived on. The 2024 amendment replaced the carve-out with "Except as otherwise specified in Section 25607 et seq." and repealed the old subsection that let a short form omit the chemical. Naming is now the general rule.

Section 25603(b) does not leave the wording open. It sets out two permitted sentences for each endpoint case:

Case	Option 1	Option 2
Carcinogen	Cancer risk from exposure to [name of chemical]. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.	Can expose you to [name of chemical], a carcinogen. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
Reproductive toxicant	Risk of reproductive harm from exposure to [name of chemical]. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.	Can expose you to [name of chemical], a reproductive toxicant. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
A carcinogen and a reproductive toxicant	Risk of cancer from exposure to [name of chemical] and reproductive harm from exposure to [name of chemical]. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.	Can expose you to [name of chemical], a carcinogen, and [name of chemical], a reproductive toxicant. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
One chemical listed for both	Risk of cancer and reproductive harm from exposure to [name of chemical]. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.	Can expose you to [name of chemical], a carcinogen and reproductive toxicant. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.

For a cord whose concern is lead, the last row gives a short form such as "WARNING: Risk of cancer and reproductive harm from exposure to lead. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov."

The type-size rule moved the other way. Section 25601(c) requires the warning to be displayed with such conspicuousness, compared with other words and designs on the label, "as to render the warning likely to be seen, read, and understood by an ordinary individual under customary conditions of purchase or use". The Final Statement of Reasons is blunt about the trade: "a short-form warning on a large appliance will need to be presented in a much larger type size than is currently being used". Six-point type in the corner of a large enclosure will not satisfy 25601(c). OEHHA also recalls that the short form "was originally intended to be used on very small packages".

How long an existing short-form label stays lawful

The regulation answers by date of manufacture, not date of sale. Section 25603(c), as amended, opens:

A short-form warning on a product manufactured and labeled prior to January 1, 2028, may use the following content regardless of when the product is sold to a consumer:

• The new content may be used immediately. OEHHA records that the amended short-form language "can be used immediately upon the adoption of the regulation".
• Old labels applied before the cut-off stay good indefinitely. The Final Statement of Reasons describes "an unlimited sell-through period for products manufactured and labeled with the existing short-form warnings before or during the three-year transition period", and adds that "it does not matter when that product is eventually sold to a consumer".
• Units manufactured and labelled on or after January 1, 2028 need the new content, the full-length warning of 25603(a), or another method listed in 25602.

The protection attaches to labelled product, not to label stock. OEHHA refused to extend it to preprinted labels and packaging held in inventory, reasoning that it would "incentivize businesses to stock up on preprinted labels that could be used for many years". A reel of unused short-form labels bought in 2027 is worth nothing in 2028; a pallet of chargers already carrying them can be sold long afterwards.

The online listing has its own clock. Under section 25602(b)(2), for internet purchases made before January 1, 2028, a retail seller is not responsible under section 25600.2(e)(4) for posting the updated warning online until 60 calendar days after it receives a warning or written notice under section 25600.2(b) and (c) that replaces 25603(c) content with 25603(b) content. For a brand the reading is practical: the retailer's 60 days do not start until you notify it in writing, so send the new wording with the notice.

What this means for existing label artwork

The amendment turns a labelling decision into a bill-of-materials decision. An old short-form label could be applied without knowing which chemical triggered it. The amended one cannot: somebody has to establish whether the honest answer is lead, DEHP or something else, for every product carrying the label. That is the material declaration and exposure work described below, brought forward by a deadline that started running on January 1, 2025.

NSRL, MADL and the safe-harbor levels

A warning is only required when the exposure is above a level that matters. Section 25249.10(c) defines the two tests, and Article 7 and Article 8 of Title 27 turn them into numbers.

Level	Applies to	Legal test	How OEHHA sets the number
NSRL (No Significant Risk Level)	Carcinogens	"No significant risk assuming lifetime exposure at the level in question" (25249.10(c))	Level calculated to give one excess case of cancer in an exposed population of 100,000, assuming lifetime exposure (27 CCR 25703(b))
MADL (Maximum Allowable Dose Level)	Reproductive toxicants	"No observable effect assuming exposure at one thousand (1000) times the level in question" (25249.10(c))	No-observable-effect level divided by 1,000 (27 CCR 25801(b))

The principle is straightforward: if the realistic daily exposure a user receives from your product stays below the relevant level, no warning is required for that chemical. The trap is the burden of proof. The last sentence of section 25249.10(c) reads: "In any action brought to enforce Section 25249.6, the burden of showing that an exposure meets the criteria of this subdivision shall be on the defendant." Establishing it requires an exposure assessment: how much of the chemical migrates or is released, by which route, under reasonably foreseeable use. The levels in the list are revised by rulemaking, so always read the current list rather than a number copied into a supplier declaration.

Exposure pathways for electronics

A user does not eat a charger, but they handle it daily, and a child may mouth a cable. The list itself shows why the route matters: several levels are route-specific (the BPA MADL for dermal exposure from solid materials, the antimony trioxide and cadmium NSRLs for inhalation, the lead NSRL for oral exposure).

• Dermal contact. The dominant route for cables, cords, grips, wearable bands and handheld housings. Contact time and contact area drive the dose.
• Oral and hand-to-mouth. Relevant where small parts, cords or accessories may be mouthed, especially for products used by or around children.
• Inhalation. Less common for solid electronics, but relevant for products that heat or off-gas, and for respirable particles in manufacturing.

Because one part can present more than one route, the assessment is done per chemical per pathway, and the warning decision follows the worst case.

Enforcement: the 60-day notice and private plaintiffs

Proposition 65 is enforced through lawsuits, which makes it a litigation risk rather than an inspection risk.

1. Public enforcers. Under section 25249.7(c), the Attorney General, any district attorney, the city attorney of a city with more than 750,000 inhabitants and, with the consent of the district attorney, a full-time city prosecutor can sue.
2. Private enforcers. Under section 25249.7(d), any person may sue "in the public interest" if the action starts more than 60 days after notice of the alleged violation was given to the Attorney General, to the district attorney, city attorney or prosecutor in whose jurisdiction the violation occurred, and to the alleged violator, and if no public enforcer is diligently prosecuting the same violation.
3. Certificate of merit. A notice alleging a missing warning must include a certificate of merit stating that the noticing party consulted a person with relevant expertise who reviewed data on the exposure. If the Attorney General finds no merit, it serves a letter saying so (25249.7(e)).
4. Penalties. Up to 2,500 dollars per day for each violation (25249.7(b)(1)), with 75 percent going to the State fund and 25 percent to the person who brought the action (25249.12).
5. Settlements. A private settlement must be reported to the Attorney General, and a court approves it only if the warning complies with the law, the award of attorney fees "is reasonable under California law", and the penalty is reasonable (25249.7(f)).

The Attorney General numbers 60-day notices sequentially in each calendar year. In its public database, the last notice filed in 2023 is numbered 2023-04142, the last in 2024 is 2024-05403, and the last in 2025 is 2025-05235; by October 6, 2026 the 2026 series had reached 2026-04783. Volume is in the thousands per year, and the notices are public, searchable by product, chemical and defendant.

What a manufacturer typically does

• Get a full material declaration from suppliers, not only a RoHS or REACH statement, because the Prop 65 list overlaps with neither.
• Cross-check the bill of materials against the current OEHHA list, paying particular attention to cables, cords, grips, plated parts and soft PVC.
• Decide per exposure pathway: assess exposure against the NSRL or MADL where the analysis is worth it, or apply a safe-harbor warning where it is not.
• Use the safe-harbor content and method on the product or package and on the product web page before purchase, and plan the move to the amended short form before January 1, 2028.
• Allocate the warning duty in writing with distributors and retailers (25600.2(i)), and track the annual renewal and 90-day update of any written notice (25600.2(b)(4) and (c)(3)).
• Keep the file: declarations, list checks, exposure assessments and the wording used, so a 60-day notice can be answered with evidence.

How Prop 65 fits with the other US and EU chemical rules

Question	Prop 65	RoHS	REACH
Jurisdiction	Exposures in California	EU and aligned markets	EU
Legal nature	Warning law	Restriction directive	Restriction and authorisation regulation
Trigger	Exposure above the safe-harbor level	Concentration in homogeneous material	Presence, use, or supply of the substance
Compliance options	Warn, or stay below the level	Stay below the limit	Remove, reduce, authorise, or notify
Enforced by	Public prosecutors and private plaintiffs in court	Market surveillance authorities	Member-state authorities

The four chemical-content regimes a global electronics maker tracks (Prop 65, RoHS, REACH, and the conflict minerals reporting under Dodd-Frank) all read the same bill of materials with different legal logic. RoHS and REACH ask "is the substance present above a limit". Conflict-minerals reporting asks where the tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold came from. Prop 65 asks "is a person exposed, and was a warning given". The federal TSCA adds a fifth question for chemical substances and articles in the US. For an overview, see the REACH and SVHC guide and the glossary entries on RoHS and WEEE.

Claims the texts contradict

Common claim (including earlier versions of this page)	What the text says
"The triangle can be black and white if no other colour appears on the label."	Black and white is allowed only where the sign, label or shelf tag for the product is not printed using yellow (27 CCR 25603(a)(1)).
"A newly listed chemical commonly has a grace period of about twelve months."	The period is fixed by statute: no warning is required for an exposure less than twelve months after listing (HSC 25249.10(b)).
"The 60-day notice goes to the company and the Attorney General."	It also goes to the district attorney, city attorney or prosecutor with jurisdiction, and a missing-warning notice must carry a certificate of merit (HSC 25249.7(d)(1)).
"A prevailing private plaintiff recovers attorney fees under Prop 65."	The statute makes court approval of a settlement conditional on fees being "reasonable under California law" and gives the plaintiff 25 percent of penalties (HSC 25249.7(f)(4), 25249.12(d)); it does not itself grant a fee award.
"Prop 65 is in practice a US-wide legal requirement."	OEHHA: the rules do "not require a warning to any consumers outside of California"; it added CA WARNING signal words for products sold elsewhere (Final Statement of Reasons, October 2024).
"The MADL has a built-in safety factor."	The factor is specific: no observable effect at one thousand times the level (HSC 25249.10(c)), so the MADL is the no-effect level divided by 1,000 (27 CCR 25801).
"Old short-form labels must be replaced by 2028."	Product manufactured and labelled before January 1, 2028 can be sold with the old content "regardless of when the product is sold" (27 CCR 25603(c)). Only newly labelled product changes.
"Six-point type is always enough for a short form."	Six-point is a floor; the type size must satisfy the conspicuousness rule of 25601(c), and OEHHA expects much larger type on large appliances.
"The retailer is responsible for the warning."	The duty sits upstream; the retailer is responsible only in the five cases of 27 CCR 25600.2(e).
"BPA is listed as a reproductive toxicant, no safe-harbor level."	BPA is listed for female reproductive toxicity (May 11, 2015) and developmental toxicity (December 18, 2020), with a MADL of 3 µg/day for dermal exposure from solid materials.

Common pitfalls

• Treating RoHS compliance as Prop 65 compliance. A RoHS-compliant cable can still carry DEHP, and the 2025 notices against cables show it.
• Warning on everything by reflex. Since the 2024 amendments, every newly designed warning has to name a chemical, so a blanket label still needs a justified chemical name per product.
• Using a legacy short-form label on product labelled on or after January 1, 2028. Products labelled before that date keep the old short form indefinitely; units labelled afterwards must use section 25603(b) content or another safe-harbor method.
• Putting the warning only in the manual. It is not one of the safe-harbor methods of section 25602.
• Forgetting the online listing. Internet sales need the warning on the product display page or behind a clearly marked WARNING link before purchase.
• Assuming a small company is exempt everywhere. The fewer-than-10-employees exclusion is real, but a retailer can still require the warning by contract.
• Quoting an old NSRL or MADL. Safe-harbor levels are revised; read the current OEHHA list for the specific chemical and route.

Practical takeaways

For an electronics company selling into the US market, Proposition 65 is best handled as a standing process. Build a material declaration program, map the bill of materials against the live OEHHA list, decide warning versus assessment per exposure pathway, use the safe-harbor content including the triangle and the P65Warnings.ca.gov reference, move short-form artwork to the chemical-naming content before January 1, 2028, allocate the duty in writing along the supply chain, and keep the evidence. Done that way, a 60-day notice becomes a request for a file you already have.

See also

• Environmental compliance: what it asks of a product
• NRTL / UL listing: US product safety explained
• PPWR: the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste rules
• TSCA: the US Toxic Substances Control Act

Working on California Proposition 65 warnings on an electronic product for a real product? AESTECHNO can audit your design and certification plan. Get in touch

Sources & references

1. Proposition 65 Warnings Website (consumer-facing portal), California OEHHA www.p65warnings.ca.gov/
2. OEHHA, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, California OEHHA oehha.ca.gov/proposition-65
3. The Proposition 65 List of chemicals (list dated July 31, 2026, with NSRL and MADL column), California OEHHA oehha.ca.gov/proposition-65/proposition-65-list
4. Safe Harbor Levels (NSRLs and MADLs), California OEHHA oehha.ca.gov/proposition-65/general-info/current-proposition-65-no-significant-risk-levels-nsrls-maximum
5. New Proposition 65 Warnings (clear and reasonable warning regulations), California OEHHA www.p65warnings.ca.gov/new-proposition-65-warnings
6. Title 27 CCR, Article 6, final regulatory text approved by OAL on November 26, 2024 (sections 25601, 25602, 25603, 25607.1, 25607.2, new 25607.50 to 25607.53), California OEHHA oehha.ca.gov/sites/default/files/media/2025-01/finalregtext112624approval_0.pdf
7. Final Statement of Reasons, Article 6 Clear and Reasonable Warnings, Safe Harbor Methods and Content (October 2024), California OEHHA oehha.ca.gov/sites/default/files/media/2025-01/fsor112624approval_0.pdf
8. Health and Safety Code section 25249.7, enforcement, penalties and the 60-day notice, California Legislature leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=HSC&sectionNum=25249.7
9. Health and Safety Code section 25249.10, exemptions (twelve months after listing, no significant risk, burden of proof), California Legislature leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=HSC&sectionNum=25249.10
10. 27 CCR 25603, consumer product exposure warnings, content (Cornell LII mirror of the official CCR), Cornell Legal Information Institute www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/california/27-CCR-25603
11. 27 CCR 25600.2, responsibility to provide consumer product exposure warnings (Cornell LII mirror of the official CCR), Cornell Legal Information Institute www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/california/27-CCR-25600.2
12. Proposition 65 enforcement reporting and court injunction notices, California Attorney General oag.ca.gov/prop65
13. 60-Day Notice search, California Attorney General oag.ca.gov/prop65/60-day-notice-search