What does the EMC Directive actually require?

The EMC Directive 2014/30/EU sets two essential requirements in Annex I. First, the electromagnetic disturbance an equipment generates must not exceed a level that prevents radio and telecommunications equipment, or other equipment, from operating as intended. This is the emission limb. Second, the equipment must have a level of immunity to the electromagnetic disturbance to be expected in its intended use, so it keeps working without unacceptable degradation. This is the immunity limb. Both must be met together.

Does the EMC Directive require a notified body?

No. The standard route is module A, internal production control, set out in Annex II. The manufacturer performs the assessment in-house, compiles the technical documentation, draws up the EU Declaration of Conformity and affixes the CE marking under sole responsibility. Annex III adds an optional route where a notified body examines the technical documentation and issues a statement, but this is voluntary and rarely used for mass-market electronics.

Is radio equipment covered by the EMC Directive?

No. Radio equipment is covered by the Radio Equipment Directive 2014/53/EU, whose article 3.1(b) carries the same EMC essential requirement. Article 2(2) of the EMC Directive explicitly excludes radio equipment from its scope to avoid double regulation. A product with an intentional radio transmitter or receiver is assessed for EMC under the RED, not the EMCD, even though the underlying test standards are largely shared.

Which standards give presumption of conformity under the EMC Directive?

The product type decides. Generic standards EN IEC 61000-6-1 to 61000-6-4 apply when no dedicated standard exists, split by residential or industrial environment and by emission or immunity. Product-family standards such as EN 55032 (multimedia emission) and EN 55035 (multimedia immunity) take precedence where they apply. Dedicated product standards exist for specific equipment. Applying the right harmonised standard in full, in the version cited in the Official Journal, grants presumption of conformity.

How does the EMC Directive relate to the LVD and the RED?

The EMC Directive and the Low Voltage Directive 2014/35/EU are complementary and usually apply together to a mains-powered product, the LVD for electrical safety and the EMCD for electromagnetic compatibility. The RED 2014/53/EU absorbs both EMC and safety for radio equipment, so a connected product is assessed under the RED alone and the standalone EMCD and LVD no longer apply to it.

What is a fixed installation under the EMC Directive?

A fixed installation is a combination of apparatus, equipment and components assembled and installed at a given location to operate together, such as an industrial plant or a building electrical system. Fixed installations must meet the protection requirements but do not carry a CE marking or an EU Declaration of Conformity as an assembly. Good engineering practice must be documented and the responsible person identified. Apparatus placed on the market for incorporation is still individually in scope.

How long must I keep the EMC technical documentation?

Ten years. Under article 9 and Annex II the manufacturer must keep the technical documentation and the EU Declaration of Conformity for ten years after the apparatus has been placed on the market, and make them available to market surveillance authorities on a reasoned request. The file must let an authority assess conformity with the essential requirements, so it has to describe the design, the EMC analysis and the standards applied.

Does the EMC Directive apply to components and sub-assemblies?

It applies to apparatus, meaning a finished appliance or a combination of finished appliances made available as a single functional unit intended for the end user. A bare component with no direct function for the end user, such as an integrated circuit or a passive part, is outside scope. A board or module that the end user can configure and that has its own function is apparatus and is in scope on its own account.

EMC Directive 2014/30/EU: a guide

Author Hugues Orgitello Last updated 28 May 2026 ~14 min read

Guide · Electromagnetic compatibility directive

The EMC Directive, Directive 2014/30/EU, is one of the two directives that apply to almost every mains-powered electronic product sold in the European Union, alongside the Low Voltage Directive. It governs electromagnetic compatibility, the ability of an equipment to function in its electromagnetic environment without introducing intolerable disturbance into that environment. The EMC Directive is, with the LVD, the most frequently cited piece of CE legislation across this site, and it sits directly above the EMC test-method guides as the legal frame they all serve. This page sets out the scope, the exclusions, the two essential requirements on emission and immunity, the architecture of generic, product-family and dedicated standards, the module A conformity route, the technical documentation and EU Declaration of Conformity, the CE marking rules, and the boundaries with the RED, the LVD and the Machinery legislation.

What the EMC Directive is for

Every electrical or electronic product is both a potential source of electromagnetic disturbance and a potential victim of it. A switching power supply radiates and conducts noise back onto the mains. A microprocessor clock generates harmonics that can couple into nearby radio receivers. At the same time, a sensitive analogue front end can be upset by a nearby motor, by an electrostatic discharge, or by the field of a mobile phone. The EMC Directive exists so that the whole population of equipment on the single market can coexist, each device staying quiet enough not to spoil its neighbours and robust enough not to be spoiled by them.

The directive is a New Approach instrument. It does not specify circuit design or component choices. It sets essential requirements as outcomes, then leaves the manufacturer free to demonstrate them, most commonly by applying harmonised standards that carry a presumption of conformity. The 2014 text is the recast of the earlier 2004/108/EC directive, aligned to the New Legislative Framework, and it has applied since 20 April 2016.

Scope: apparatus and fixed installations

The directive applies to equipment, a term that splits into two categories with very different obligations.

Apparatus is a finished appliance, or a combination of finished appliances made available on the market as a single functional unit, intended for the end user and liable to generate or be affected by electromagnetic disturbance. Apparatus is what carries the CE marking, the EU Declaration of Conformity and the full conformity assessment. A power supply, a sensor, a desktop computer, a household appliance, an industrial controller sold as a unit, all are apparatus.

Fixed installations are a particular combination of several types of apparatus, equipment and components assembled, installed and intended to be used permanently at a predefined location, for example a factory automation line, a building management system or a power substation. Fixed installations must meet the protection requirements, applying good engineering practice that has to be documented, with a named person responsible. But a fixed installation as an assembly does not receive a CE marking and does not get an EU DoC. The reasoning is practical, a one-off installation built on site cannot meaningfully be type-tested and serial-marked the way a product can.

Category	CE marking?	EU DoC?	Conformity route
Apparatus	Yes	Yes	Module A (or optional Annex III)
Fixed installation (as assembly)	No	No	Good engineering practice, documented
Apparatus placed on market for incorporation into a fixed installation	Yes	Yes	Module A, on its own account

The last row matters in practice. A controller sold separately and later built into a fixed installation is apparatus when it is placed on the market, and it must be fully CE marked in its own right. Only the bespoke, site-specific assembly itself escapes the marking obligation.

What is excluded

Several classes of product are explicitly out of scope, listed in article 2(2) and Annex I, and confusion here is a common source of compliance error.

Radio equipment is excluded. It is covered instead by Directive 2014/53/EU, the Radio Equipment Directive, whose article 3.1(b) carries the same EMC essential requirement. Any product with an intentional transmitter or receiver, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, a sub-GHz radio, is a RED product and its EMC is assessed under the RED. The EMC Directive does not apply to it, even though in practice the test standards overlap heavily.
Aeronautical products covered by Regulation (EU) 2018/1139 (civil aviation) are excluded.
Radio equipment used by radio amateurs that is not commercially available is excluded.
Equipment whose physics make it inherently benign or inherently robust, equipment that by its nature cannot generate or contribute to electromagnetic emissions above the level that allows normal operation, and is immune to the disturbance of its intended use without unacceptable degradation. A passive cable assembly or a simple resistor is in this category.
Custom-built evaluation kits for professionals at research facilities are excluded.

The first exclusion is the one that catches engineers most often. The rule of thumb is simple, the moment a product contains an intentional radio function it leaves the EMC Directive entirely and enters the RED, which subsumes EMC. There is no double CE assessment under both texts. See CE vs FCC for EMC for how the two regions handle this boundary differently.

The two essential requirements

Annex I sets the protection requirements as two complementary obligations. Both apply to every in-scope apparatus.

Emission

The electromagnetic disturbance generated must not exceed the level above which radio and telecommunications equipment, or other equipment, cannot operate as intended. This is what the radiated emissions and conducted emissions test campaigns measure. The product is, in effect, asked to keep its electromagnetic noise below a ceiling so that the rest of the equipment population is not disturbed.

Emission is sub-divided in the standards into:

Radiated emission, energy leaving the equipment through space as an electromagnetic field, measured with antennas in a chamber or test site, typically over 30 MHz to several GHz.
Conducted emission, energy leaving the equipment along its cables, especially the mains lead, measured with a LISN typically over 150 kHz to 30 MHz.
Harmonics and flicker on the mains supply current, covered by the EN 61000-3-2 and EN 61000-3-3 series for equipment drawing significant current.

Immunity

The equipment must have a level of immunity to the electromagnetic disturbance to be expected in its intended use that allows it to operate without unacceptable degradation. This is the mirror of emission, the product must keep functioning when the environment is noisy. Immunity is verified by injecting controlled disturbances and checking that the equipment behaves to defined performance criteria.

The immunity phenomena are codified in the EN 61000-4 series and include:

Phenomenon	Basic standard	What it simulates
Electrostatic discharge	IEC 61000-4-2	A charged person or object touching the equipment
Radiated RF field	IEC 61000-4-3	Nearby transmitters, mobile phones
Electrical fast transient / burst	IEC 61000-4-4	Switching of inductive loads on the supply
Surge	IEC 61000-4-5	Lightning, large switching events
Conducted RF	IEC 61000-4-6	RF coupled onto cables
Voltage dips and interruptions	IEC 61000-4-11	Brown-outs and short mains outages

The two limbs are not interchangeable. A product can pass emission and fail immunity, or the reverse. Both must be demonstrated before the apparatus is compliant.

The standards architecture

The EMC Directive itself sets no numerical limits. Those live in the harmonised standards listed in the Official Journal of the European Union. Understanding which standard applies to a given product is the core of EMC compliance, and the standards are organised in a clear three-tier hierarchy.

Tier 1: generic standards

Generic standards apply when no product-family or dedicated product standard covers the equipment. They are split by environment and by emission versus immunity.

Standard	Covers	Environment
EN IEC 61000-6-1	Immunity	Residential, commercial, light industrial
EN IEC 61000-6-2	Immunity	Industrial
EN IEC 61000-6-3	Emission	Residential, commercial, light industrial
EN IEC 61000-6-4	Emission	Industrial

The choice of environment matters. The residential emission limits in 61000-6-3 are tighter than the industrial limits in 61000-6-4, because a home sits closer to broadcast and consumer radio reception. Conversely the industrial immunity levels in 61000-6-2 are higher than the residential levels in 61000-6-1, because the factory floor is electromagnetically harsher. Declaring the wrong environment is a classic way to under-test a product.

Tier 2: product-family standards

Where a product-family standard exists, it takes precedence over the generic standards. The most important pair for general electronics is the multimedia family.

EN 55032, based on CISPR 32, covers the emission requirements for multimedia equipment, that is information technology, audio, video and broadcast receiver equipment. It defines two classes, Class B for the residential environment and Class A for the commercial and industrial environment, with Class A allowing higher emissions but requiring a warning notice.
EN 55035, based on CISPR 35, covers the immunity requirements for the same multimedia equipment. It pulls together the relevant 61000-4 phenomena with the performance criteria for this class of product.

Other product families have their own pairs, for example the EN 55011 / CISPR 11 family for industrial, scientific and medical equipment, the EN 55014 family for household appliances and tools, and the EN 55015 family for lighting.

Tier 3: dedicated product standards

A few equipment types have a single dedicated EMC standard that addresses both emission and immunity for that specific product, taking precedence over both the product-family and generic tiers where it applies. Medical electrical equipment, for instance, points to IEC 60601-1-2 as its EMC collateral standard.

How the tiers interact

The selection rule is top-down by specificity: a dedicated product standard wins over a product-family standard, which wins over a generic standard. You apply the most specific standard that fits the product, and you fall back to the generic standards only when nothing more specific exists.

Conformity assessment: module A

The EMC Directive offers a deliberately light conformity assessment. Annex II sets out module A, internal production control, and this is the route used for the overwhelming majority of products.

Under module A the manufacturer:

Performs an EMC assessment of the apparatus, taking into account all intended operating conditions and configurations, to demonstrate the essential requirements are met. In practice this means testing against the relevant harmonised standards in an accredited laboratory.
Compiles the technical documentation described in Annex II.
Draws up the EU Declaration of Conformity.
Affixes the CE marking under sole responsibility.

There is no notified body. No four-digit number appears alongside the CE mark for an EMC-only product. The manufacturer alone is responsible for the declaration, and that responsibility is real, market surveillance authorities can demand the technical file and re-test the product at any point in its ten-year retention window.

The optional Annex III route

Annex III provides a second, voluntary route. The manufacturer may submit the technical documentation to a notified body, which reviews it, assesses whether it properly demonstrates the essential requirements, and issues a statement on the documentation. The manufacturer still draws up the EU DoC and affixes the CE marking itself.

This route is uncommon. It does not make a notified body number appear on the product and it is not a type certificate. It exists mainly for novel apparatus where the manufacturer wants third-party reassurance that the documentation is adequate, or where harmonised standards have been applied only in part. For routine mass-market electronics it is essentially never used. The wider question of when to involve a notified body is covered in self-declaration vs notified body.

Technical documentation and the EU DoC

The technical documentation under Annex II must let market surveillance authorities assess the conformity of the apparatus with the essential requirements. It has to contain, at a minimum:

A general description of the apparatus.
Conceptual design and manufacturing drawings, schematics, component and sub-assembly layouts.
Descriptions and explanations necessary to understand those drawings and the operation of the apparatus.
A list of the harmonised standards applied in full or in part, with references to the Official Journal listing.
Where standards were not applied, or applied only in part, a description of the solutions adopted to meet the essential requirements, including a list of the other technical specifications used.
The results of design calculations and examinations.
The EMC test reports.

The EU Declaration of Conformity is the manufacturer's single signed statement that the apparatus meets the directive. Its required content is set in Annex IV, and a single DoC can cover several directives at once, EMC, LVD, RoHS, where they all apply to the product. See the EU Declaration of Conformity for the full content and the common drafting errors.

The retention period is ten years from the date the apparatus was placed on the market, under article 9. The obligation falls on the manufacturer, or on the importer where the manufacturer is outside the Union.

CE marking

The CE marking is the visible outcome of the whole process. For EMC it follows the general rules of Regulation 765/2008 and the directive itself:

Affixed visibly, legibly and indelibly to the apparatus, or to its data plate, before it is placed on the market.
Where that is not possible because of the nature of the apparatus, affixed to the packaging and the accompanying documents.
No notified body number for an EMC-only product, because module A involves no notified body. A four-digit number next to a CE mark on an EMC-only product is itself a non-conformity.
The CE marking on a product subject to several directives means the product meets all of them. You cannot CE mark for EMC alone while ignoring an applicable LVD or RoHS obligation.

See the CE pillar for the cross-directive marking rules and the general affixing requirements.

Boundaries with neighbouring legislation

EMC almost never applies alone. The hardest part of scoping an electronic product is drawing the lines between the EMC Directive and the legislation that sits next to it.

EMC and the Low Voltage Directive

The EMC Directive and the Directive 2014/35/EU (LVD) are complementary and apply together to most mains-powered products. They address different hazards and do not overlap:

The LVD covers safety hazards arising from electricity, electric shock, fire, mechanical and thermal injury, for equipment within defined voltage bands.
The EMCD covers electromagnetic compatibility, emission and immunity, regardless of voltage.

A mains-powered appliance that is not radio equipment typically needs both, plus RoHS. The EU DoC then lists all the applicable directives together.

EMC and the Radio Equipment Directive

The Directive 2014/53/EU (RED) is the decisive boundary. As soon as a product contains an intentional radio transmitter or receiver, the RED applies and the EMC Directive does not. The RED article 3.1(b) carries an EMC essential requirement equivalent to the EMCD, and the RED article 3.1(a) carries the safety requirement equivalent to the LVD. So a connected product is assessed under the RED alone, which absorbs both EMC and safety. There is no separate EMC Directive assessment for radio equipment.

Product	Applicable directive for EMC
Mains appliance, no radio	EMC Directive 2014/30/EU
Wi-Fi / BLE connected sensor	RED 2014/53/EU (art. 3.1(b))
Wired industrial controller	EMC Directive 2014/30/EU
Cellular gateway	RED 2014/53/EU (art. 3.1(b))

EMC and the Machinery legislation

For machinery, the picture is layered. The Directive 2006/42/EC (Machinery Directive, being replaced by Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 applicable from January 2027) covers the safety of machinery but does not cover EMC, which remains the province of the EMC Directive. A machine with electrical and electronic control therefore typically needs both, the Machinery legislation for mechanical and functional safety and the EMC Directive for electromagnetic compatibility, unless the machine is itself radio equipment.

Common pitfalls

Treating a radio product as an EMC Directive product. The single most frequent scoping error. The moment an intentional radio is present, the product is a RED product and the EMCD is the wrong legal basis. The DoC must cite the RED, not the EMCD.
Declaring the wrong environment. Testing a product destined for homes against the looser industrial emission limits, or claiming Class A limits for a Class B product without justification, is under-testing. Class A products also need the warning notice in the instructions.
Forgetting immunity. Many small teams run an emission scan, see it pass and stop. Immunity is an equal essential requirement, and ESD in particular catches a great deal of consumer electronics. See the ESD test guide.
Citing a withdrawn standard. A standard version no longer cited in the Official Journal no longer grants presumption of conformity. The lists are updated several times a year.
Missing harmonics and flicker. Equipment drawing significant mains current must meet EN 61000-3-2 and 61000-3-3, easy to overlook on a power-hungry product.
Putting a notified body number on an EMC-only CE mark. Module A involves no notified body, so any four-digit number next to the mark on an EMC-only product is itself a defect.
Assuming a certified module clears the whole product. Integrating a pre-tested sub-assembly does not exempt the final apparatus from its own EMC assessment in its real configuration.

A worked example

Case: a mains-powered, non-radio industrial temperature controller sold as a unit.

Scope: it is apparatus, not a fixed installation, and it has no intentional radio, so it is in scope of the EMC Directive. It is mains-powered within the LVD voltage bands, so the LVD applies too, and it contains electronics so RoHS applies.

Standards: there is no dedicated product standard, so the manufacturer applies the generic standards for the industrial environment, EN IEC 61000-6-4 for emission and EN IEC 61000-6-2 for immunity, plus EN 61000-3-2 for harmonics. Emission testing covers radiated and conducted; immunity testing covers ESD, radiated RF, fast transients, surge, conducted RF and voltage dips.

Route: module A across all three directives. No notified body. The manufacturer compiles one technical file, draws up one EU DoC citing the EMCD, LVD and RoHS together, and affixes the CE marking with no four-digit number.

Had the same controller carried a Wi-Fi module, the entire EMC and safety assessment would have moved under the RED instead, and the EMC Directive would not apply at all.

See the CE procedure and the RED pillar for the detail of each route, and the EMC test-method guides on radiated emissions and conducted emissions for what happens in the laboratory.