New Commission guidelines on the GPSR – clarifications and scope for action for companies

The European General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988 ("GPSR") is applicable since 13 December 2024. It applies to all types of non-food consumer products. The regulation acts as a sort of safety net for gaps in consumer protection in product-related harmonisation legislation. Economic operators must comply with numerous new requirements for handling digital product information, e-commerce, marketplace regulation and recall management. For products that are not harmonised at European level, it also comprehensively determines the requirements for product safety.

The GPSR has been the subject of criticism since it has been applicable on 10 May 2023. Numerous requirements that are of enormous practical relevance to the industries affected are unclear, virtually impossible to implement if interpreted literally, or conflict with other harmonisation legislation in a way that cannot be easily resolved.

Due to the numerous ambiguities, the Commission’s Guidelines (C(2025) 7699 final – the "GPSR Guidelines") announced in the text of the GPSR itself were eagerly awaited. The GPSR Guidelines were published on 19 November 2025. At the same time, the Commission also published Guidelines for the Safety Business Gateway (C(2025) 7701 final). Neither set of guidelines is legally binding. Nevertheless, they reflect the position of the Commission as one of the three institutions involved in the legislative process in European law and are likely to be used by European enforcement authorities as an aid to interpretation.

Key content of the GPSR Guidelines

1. Harmonised standards

Article 7(1) GPSR provides for a presumption of conformity as soon as a product complies with the applicable harmonised standards, the references of which have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The GPSR Guidelines create legal certainty in that the harmonised standards adopted for the predecessor law, the General Product Safety Directive 2001/‌95/EC ("GPSD"), also have a presumption of conformity under the GPSR.

2. Relationship to other harmonisation legislation

With regard to other harmonisation legislation such as the Toy Safety Directive 2009/‌48/‌EC or the Type Approval Regulation (EU) 2018/‌858, there has been discussion as to how far the catch-all function of the GPSR extends. Some voices in legal literature have called for a comparison of the requirements of harmonisation legislation and the GPSR. By means of this gap analysis, the obligated companies should determine which manufacturer obligations, for example, apply to them under the harmonisation legislation and which under the GPSR. Such a requirement cannot be inferred from the GPSR Guidelines. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the Commission does not want the obligations of economic operators under Chapter III, Section 1 of the GPSR to apply in addition to the obligations under the specific harmonisation legislation.

3. Risk analysis and submission of technical documentation

If a product is subject to the requirements of the GPSR, Article 9(2) GPSR always requires a risk analysis to be documented in the technical documentation. The scope of the technical documentation depends on the complexity of the product. As a minimum, the technical documentation shall include a general description of the product and its essential characteristics relevant to the assessment of its safety. The GPSR Guidelines provide a template for the technical documentation that is useful for many companies in practice. This includes instructions for product description and guidelines for risk management.

4. Labelling and electronic address

With regard to the provision of the electronic address of manufacturers (Article 9(6) GPSR), importers (Article 11(3) GPSR) or EU representatives (Article 16(3) GPSR), the Commission provides clarification in the GPSR Guidelines that was already included in the FAQs published by the Commission. In its opinion, an electronic address within the meaning of the GPSR is an email address or a specific section of the company’s website that enables consumers to contact it directly and easily.

5. Accident reporting

The accident reporting requirement under Article 20 GPSR introduced a completely new reporting obligation for obligated companies. According to paragraph 1 of the provision, the manufacturer shall ensure that, through the Safety Business Gateway, an accident caused by a product placed or made available on the market is notified, without undue delay from the moment it knows about the accident, to the competent authorities of the Member State where the accident has occurred.

In the German legal text, it was unclear whether the reporting obligation under Article 20 GPSR also covered temporary non-serious adverse effects. The GPSR Guidelines clarify that only incidents resulting in death or serious adverse effects trigger the reporting obligation. This shows that reporting is only necessary once a materiality threshold has been exceeded.

6. Conclusion

Many questions remain unanswered – such as the conflict between the requirement to provide digital information only “additionally” to paper documentation under Article 21 GPSR and the provision in Article 10(7) of the Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, which expressly permits digital operating instructions for consumers in all cases. Nevertheless, some sections of the GPSR Guidelines – such as in the case of accident reporting or the template for technical documentation – finally provide more clarity for users. Ultimately, the Commission’s GPSR Guidelines remain just one of many interpretative tools. They are not legally binding and in no way replace the text of the law. Keeping this in mind prevents the Commission from effectively becoming the sole interpreter of the regulations – a scenario that is already emerging with the Deforestation Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, for example.