When Did GPSR Come Into Effect? The 13 December 2024 Deadline Explained

If you have been chasing a clear answer to one question, here it is. The EU General Product Safety Regulation became mandatory on 13 December 2024. As one law firm summary put it, "On December 13, 2024, the Regulation (EU) 2023/988... on general product safety... came into force." After that date, products you place on the EU market have to meet the new rules.

But there is a second date that trips people up, and getting the two straight saves you a lot of confusion. The regulation actually entered into force eighteen months earlier. Below is what each date means and what it changes for you.

The two dates that matter

GPSR has an entry-into-force date and an application date. They are not the same thing, and the gap between them was built in on purpose.

• 12 June 2023 — entry into force. This was 20 days after the regulation was published in the Official Journal. Entry into force is a legal milestone. It means the text is official and the clock starts ticking, but it does not yet create obligations you have to act on.
• 13 December 2024 — date of application. This is the date the rules became mandatory. From this point, every product placed on the EU market has to be GPSR-compliant. When sellers ask "when did GPSR come into effect," this is almost always the date they mean.

The eighteen months between the two dates was the transitional period. The point was to give businesses, marketplaces, and Responsible Persons time to prepare. If you missed it, you are not alone. Forum threads from late 2024 and early 2025 are full of sellers realizing the deadline had already passed. One eBay-style marketplace forum warned bluntly that "you will not be able to sell your products to customers in Europe or Northern Ireland from the 13th December without complying with the new regulations."

For a fuller picture of what the regulation actually requires, start with our pillar guide, /blog/what-is-gpsr. For the legal text itself, see our /blog/eu-regulation-2023-988-summary.

A quick timeline

Here is the sequence in one place:

• 10 May 2023 — Regulation (EU) 2023/988 signed by the European Parliament and the Council.
• 23 May 2023 — published in the Official Journal of the EU.
• 12 June 2023 — entered into force (20 days after publication).
• 13 December 2024 — became mandatory. The General Product Safety Directive (GPSD) and the Food Imitating Product Directive were repealed and replaced on this date.

That last point matters. GPSR did not arrive in a vacuum. As one customs specialist wrote on the day it landed, "As of 13 December 2024, the EU's updated General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) has become mandatory. This regulation modernises and replaces the General Product Safety Directive." The old directive worked through national transpositions, so the rules varied country to country. A regulation applies directly and identically across every member state, which is why the same obligations now hit a seller in Spain and a seller in Poland the same way.

What changed on 13 December 2024

If your products touch the EU market, the new rules apply to everything you place on it from that date forward. The headline obligations:

• A named EU-based Responsible Person for every product. No EU economic operator, no legal sale. We cover who can fill this role and what they do in /blog/gpsr-responsible-person.
• A safety risk assessment kept on file for each product. This is the analysis that shows you actually checked the product against foreseeable hazards. See /blog/gpsr-risk-assessment for how to build one.
• Technical documentation you can produce if an authority asks.
• Clear labeling with manufacturer and Responsible Person contact details, plus traceability information such as a model or batch number.
• Online listing information for consumers. Amazon told its sellers months ahead of time: "From December 13, 2024, you are required to display this information on most non-food consumer product detail pages to comply with the General Product Safety Regulation."

The enforcement side has teeth. Any product placed on the market on or after 13 December 2024 has to be fully compliant, and non-compliant goods can be intercepted at the border and destroyed. If you want to see exactly which documents you need before you ship, our /blog/gpsr-compliance-checklist walks through each one.

What about inventory that was already on the market?

This is the question that generates the most heat in seller forums, and the honest answer is that it is a gray area.

The regulation's rules apply to new products launched from 13 December 2024. Items that were already placed on the EU market before that date may be exempt in certain cases. "Placed on the market" has a specific legal meaning. It refers to the first time a product is made available in the EU, not every later sale of the same unit.

In practice, though, the binding constraint for most online sellers is not the regulation. It is the platform. Marketplaces have moved faster and harder than the letter of the law requires. Amazon, for example, has been pushing for all active listings to carry compliance information regardless of when the stock first entered the EU. As one Shopify community member summarized it, the regulation "came into full effect on December 13, 2024, and applies to all consumer products placed on the EU market." Sellers are still testing where the line sits, so do not assume grandfathered stock buys you a pass on your sales channel.

If you are unsure whether your specific situation is covered, our quick checker can help: /tools/am-i-affected.

Is the deadline still relevant in 2026?

Yes, and arguably more than ever. The 13 December 2024 date was the start of enforcement, not a one-off event. Market surveillance authorities and customs have had time to ramp up checks, and marketplaces now treat compliance fields as a condition of listing. The deadline did not pass and disappear. It switched the rules on, permanently.

So if you sell into the EU and you have not sorted your documents yet, you are already past due rather than ahead of a deadline. The good news is that the paperwork is well-defined and you can produce it quickly. EUProof generates the GPSR documents you need from your product details, including the declaration, risk assessment, and labeling content. See /blog/generate-gpsr-documents-5-minutes for how that works, or jump straight to /pricing.

One thing to be clear about: EUProof creates your compliance documents. It does not act as your EU Responsible Person. You still need a named operator inside the EU, and we explain your options for that in the Responsible Person guide above.

The short version

The date you are looking for is 13 December 2024. That is when GPSR became mandatory. The earlier date, 12 June 2023, is when it entered into force and the transitional clock started. New products on the EU market have had to comply since the December date, and platforms are extending that expectation to active listings of older stock too. If you have not built your file yet, treat today as the deadline.

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