GPSR Requirements: What the Regulation Actually Asks of You (2026)

GPSR doesn't ask for one big thing. It asks for a handful of smaller ones, and which of them land on you depends on your role in the chain. A factory in Shenzhen, an importer in Rotterdam, and an Etsy seller in Texas all touch the same product and all carry different parts of the load.

This page lays out what the General Product Safety Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/988, actually requires. If you want a step-by-step audit to run against each SKU, use the GPSR compliance checklist. If you're still working out what GPSR is at all, start with what GPSR is. This page is the obligations, sorted so you can find your own.

The five requirements behind everything else

Strip away the roles and GPSR comes down to five demands:

1. The product is safe. Article 5 says you may only place a safe product on the market. Article 6 lists what "safe" is judged against: the product's characteristics, its effect on other products, presentation, labelling, and the consumers at risk, especially children and older people.
2. You can prove it. A risk assessment and a technical file that show you checked. No file, no defence.
3. Someone in the EU is responsible for it. An economic operator established in the Union has to stand behind the product.
4. It's traceable. A model or batch number, plus the names and addresses of the people behind it, on the product or its packaging.
5. The buyer sees the right information before they buy. Contact details and safety warnings in the listing, in the right language.

Everything below is just these five, assigned to whoever you are.

If you're the manufacturer (or private-label seller)

Most non-EU sellers reading this are manufacturers under GPSR without realising it. If you put a product on the EU market under your own brand or trademark, you are the manufacturer, even if a factory you've never visited made it.

Article 9 puts the heaviest obligations here. You run an internal risk assessment before the product goes on sale. You compile and keep technical documentation and hold it for 10 years. You make sure the product carries a type, batch, or serial number so it can be identified, and that your name, registered trade name, and a postal and electronic address are on the product or its packaging. You supply clear instructions and safety information in a language buyers understand. If you learn a product you sold is dangerous, you act: corrective measures, and a report through the EU Safety Gate.

If you're the importer or distributor

An importer brings a product from outside the EU and places it on the market. You don't get to assume the manufacturer did the work. You verify that the risk assessment exists, that the labelling and documentation are in order, and that your own details are added. If you have reason to believe a product isn't safe, you don't place it on the market.

A distributor, further down the chain, acts with due care: check that the product carries the required traceability and contact information, and that the manufacturer and importer met their obligations, before you pass it on.

The Responsible Person requirement

This is the one that pulls listings down fastest. Under GPSR, a product can only be placed on the EU market if there is an economic operator established in the Union responsible for it. For a non-EU seller, that usually means appointing an EU-based Responsible Person by written mandate. They keep your documentation reachable, talk to authorities, and act on safety issues.

To be clear about what we do: EUProof generates the documents your Responsible Person needs. We are not your Responsible Person. Plenty of sellers already have one through their marketplace or a separate service. You still have to name one.

What your listing has to show (distance selling)

Article 19 covers selling at a distance, which is every online sale. Before the buyer is bound by the purchase, the offer has to show the manufacturer's name and postal and electronic address, the name and contact details of the responsible economic operator if the manufacturer isn't in the EU, a way to identify the product including a picture, and any warnings or safety information. Your compliant label and your listing have to tell the same story.

What GPSR does not require

It does not require a certificate. GPSR runs on self-declared conformity, so there is no official GPSR certificate to buy, whatever an agency's sales page says. It does not require lab testing for every product, only that your risk assessment justifies the level of checking you did. And it has no small-business exemption: the baseline is the same whether you ship five units a month or fifty thousand.

The requirements are finite and they're written down. Answer the questions about your product once and EUProof drafts the risk assessment, technical file, label, and Declaration of Conformity from your answers, ready for the Responsible Person and the 10-year file. That's the loop.