EU Regulation 2023/988 (GPSR): A Plain-English Summary for Sellers

If you sell physical goods to anyone in the EU, the rules changed under one law: Regulation (EU) 2023/988, known as the General Product Safety Regulation, or GPSR. As one seller put it, "The European Union has introduced the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), which replaces the previous General Product Safety Directive (GPSD)." This page is the plain-English version: what the regulation says, clause by clause, and what each part means for the way you actually list and ship.

For the wider picture and where this fits, start with the pillar guide on what GPSR is. This article goes deeper on the legal text itself.

What Regulation (EU) 2023/988 replaced

The GPSR repeals the General Product Safety Directive (Directive 2001/95/EC), the rule that governed consumer product safety since 2001. That swap matters for a reason that sounds technical but isn't.

A directive sets a goal and lets each member state write its own national law to hit it. The result was a patchwork: 27 slightly different versions of the same idea. A regulation is directly applicable in every member state, with no national translation layer. So Regulation (EU) 2023/988 turns that patchwork into a single rulebook that reads the same in Berlin, Madrid, and Warsaw.

The old directive was written for shops and physical distribution. The GPSR was written for how people buy now: online, across borders, often from a seller on another continent. One seller summed up the scope plainly: it "applies to all consumer products placed on the EU market, including those imported from countries such as the United States, Canada, the UK, Switzerland, and Australia."

When it took effect

The regulation came into full effect on December 13, 2024. There is no grace period left and no separate phase-in for small sellers. If you placed a product on the EU market after that date, the GPSR applies to it. For the full timeline, see when GPSR came into effect.

The catch-all rule: what products are covered

This is the part most non-EU sellers get wrong. A common assumption is that the GPSR only touches high-risk categories like toys and electronics. That is false.

The GPSR is the safety net for every non-food consumer product that does not already have its own dedicated EU sector rules. If your product is covered by specific regulations (cosmetics, medical devices, and similar), those rules lead. Everything else falls under the GPSR. As one seller put it bluntly, "It is a catch-all safety regs for everything else. Books are included."

So home decor, accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, and handmade crafts are all in scope. The regulation also reaches new, second-hand, repaired, and reconditioned goods, with a narrow carve-out for certified antiques. And there is no size-based exemption: sole traders and micro-businesses comply on the same terms as large brands. If you sell, you comply.

Article 6: the redefined "safe product"

Under Article 6, a safe product is one that, under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use, presents no risk or only the minimum acceptable risk consistent with a high level of consumer safety. The phrase that does the heavy lifting is "reasonably foreseeable."

The old framing looked mostly at the physical object as intended. The GPSR widens the lens. As one seller described it, the regulation "broadens the definition of 'safe products', emphasizing that safety considerations must account for foreseeable misuse, evolving functionalities, and other threats." In practice your safety assessment now has to consider:

• Foreseeable misuse — how a buyer might realistically use the product in a way you didn't intend but should have predicted (a child chewing on it, an adult standing on it).
• Evolving digital functionalities — connected features that change after purchase, like firmware that adds capabilities.
• Cybersecurity risks — for connected products, a security flaw can be a safety flaw.
• Chemical safety — materials and substances in contact with the user.

This is why a documented risk assessment sits at the center of compliance. You can't claim a product is safe under Article 6 without a record showing you actually thought through the foreseeable ways it could hurt someone.

Article 19: the online distance selling rule

Article 19 is the clause that reshapes your product pages. If a product is offered for sale online, the listing itself counts as "placing on the market." The page is not an advertisement in the eyes of the regulation. It is the point of sale.

That means the listing must show, before the buyer clicks Buy:

• the manufacturer's name and postal address,
• an email or other electronic contact point,
• the name and address of the EU-based Responsible Person,
• and any required safety warnings, in the official language of the buyer's country.

So a German shopper sees German warnings; a French shopper sees French ones. For the labeling side of this, see the GPSR labeling requirements. Translating warnings into the languages you sell into is a real line item: professional translation across the EU's languages runs roughly €100 to €2,400 depending on volume.

The compulsory EU address

Tied to Article 19 is the requirement many offshore sellers find hardest. You can no longer sell into the EU from an entity with no physical presence there. Every product listing and every physical package must show a physical address in the EU.

For a non-EU seller, that address belongs to your EU-based importer or your appointed Responsible Person. The Responsible Person is a separate party with legal duties under the regulation; we cover what they do, and what EUProof does and does not provide, in the Responsible Person guide. Appointing one is also a budget item: an authorized representative typically costs somewhere between €199 and €3,000 a year.

EUProof generates the GPSR documents you need (the technical file, risk assessment, labeling, and a Declaration of Conformity where required), not the Responsible Person service itself. A formal Declaration of Conformity is only mandatory for products covered by specific EU harmonisation legislation (for example CE-marked toys or electronics); for GPSR-only goods it is a self-declaration that marketplaces often request, not a statutory requirement. You still arrange the Responsible Person separately.

Article 22: marketplace accountability

Article 22 puts duties on the platforms, not just the seller. Online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay are legally required to check that listings carry the required compliance details and to promptly take down non-compliant listings flagged by regulators.

This is why platforms have moved at different speeds, and why your experience depends on where you sell:

• Amazon and eBay added structured compliance fields to their listing tools and account health dashboards. Leave those fields empty and you can face automatic listing suspensions. See the guides for Amazon and eBay.
• Shopify gives you no native compliance fields. You update your product templates yourself or buy a third-party app. A Shopify store can keep running without an immediate platform check, which is convenient and also a trap: the legal obligation still applies even when nothing forces you to fill a box. See the Shopify guide.

The lesson: a quiet platform does not mean a compliant store.

Recall remedies: you must offer a choice

Under the GPSR, a recall is not just "send it back." If a product is recalled, you must offer affected consumers a choice between at least two of three remedies. As one seller quoted the rule, "consumers who have purchased the product shall be offered the choice between at least two of the following remedies: the repair of the recalled product, a replacement, or a refund."

So you can't quietly issue a partial credit and call it handled. The consumer picks. The cost of a recall is open-ended too: the low end is the full product value per unit, and the high end scales with batch size.

Accident reporting: the 2-day window

If a product causes a serious accident or a health issue, the manufacturer or the Responsible Person must report it to EU authorities within 2 days of becoming aware of it. Two days. That is a short window, and it only works if you are tracking what happens to your products after they ship.

Those reports feed the Safety Gate, the EU's rapid alert system where member states post and track dangerous non-food products so recalls can be coordinated across borders. Once a product hits the Safety Gate, the recall machinery moves fast.

Economic operators: who carries which duty

The regulation calls businesses in the supply chain "economic operators," and it assigns duties by role. As one seller noted, economic operators "are also required to put in place internal procedures and standards for product safety." The main roles:

• Manufacturer — makes the product (or has it made under their name) and owns the core safety duties: the risk assessment, the technical file, and, where the product falls under specific EU harmonisation legislation, a formal Declaration of Conformity.
• Importer — the EU-based entity that brings non-EU products into the single market, and is liable for what they import.
• Authorized representative / Responsible Person — the EU contact point named on the product when the manufacturer sits outside the EU.
• Distributor — makes a product available on the market without being the manufacturer or importer, and must check that the compliance basics are present.

Liability here is strict: importers and manufacturers can be liable for damage caused by a defective product regardless of negligence. Doing your best is not a defense if the product was unsafe.

The documents and the 10-year rule

Article 6's safe-product standard only holds up if you can prove it. The GPSR expects a technical documentation file behind each product, containing the product description, the risk assessment, and any test reports. You keep that file available to authorities for at least 10 years. A formal Declaration of Conformity only joins it where the product is covered by specific EU harmonisation legislation (for example CE-marked toys or electronics); for GPSR-only goods it is a self-declaration a marketplace may ask for, not a statutory document. More on the retention rule and the technical documentation template.

Budgeting for the paperwork is straightforward: a risk assessment file runs roughly €150 to €1,200 if you outsource it, and secure document archiving over the 10-year period costs about €50 to €300. EUProof's job is to produce these files for you, so you are not assembling them by hand. You can generate a full GPSR document set in about five minutes and check whether the regulation even applies to you with the Am I Affected tool.

What this means in practice

Strip Regulation (EU) 2023/988 down to what changes on your desk:

1. Cover everything. If your non-food product has no sector rule of its own, it is in scope. No category and no business size is too small.
2. Document safety. Article 6 wants a real risk assessment that thinks about foreseeable misuse, not a checkbox.
3. Show an EU address. On the listing and on the package. No EU presence, no sale.
4. Translate warnings. Into the language of each country you sell into.
5. Plan for recalls and reports. Offer a choice of remedies; report serious accidents within 2 days.
6. Keep the file for 10 years. The technical file, ready for any authority that asks. Add a Declaration of Conformity only where your product is covered by specific EU harmonisation legislation, or where a marketplace asks for one.

Most of that is paperwork and listing hygiene, not engineering. The fastest way to clear it is to generate the document set, fill the address and warning fields the platforms ask for, and keep the files where you can find them. Start with the compliance checklist or browse the templates.

This article is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm your obligations with a qualified advisor or your Responsible Person.