EU GPSR Scope Covered Products

The GPSR covers products placed or made available on the market where no specific Union law regulates the same product-safety objective. A product can be in scope even if it is supplied for free, supplied during a service, interconnected with another item, or originally intended for professional use but likely to be used by consumers under reasonably foreseeable conditions.

The scope decision should identify the item, intended users, reasonably foreseeable consumer users, supply route, EU market availability, and whether the product is new, used, repaired, or reconditioned. Services themselves are outside the product scope, but products made available to consumers in the context of a service can still be covered.

A product offered online or through another distance-sales channel is treated as made available on the EU market when the offer targets consumers in the Union. Accessibility of a website from an EU Member State is not enough on its own; the scope record should capture targeting signals such as shipping destinations, order language, payment methods, Member State currency, and Member State domain use.

For an in-scope online offer, GPSR listing evidence should show the manufacturer name and contact details, the EU responsible person when the manufacturer is not established in the Union, product identifiers including a picture, and any warning or safety information required on the product, packaging, or accompanying documents.

GPSR expressly covers products placed or made available on the market whether they are new, used, repaired, or reconditioned. That means resale, refurbishment, repair-return, outlet, and reconditioned-stock programs need a product-level safety and traceability view when they re-enter a commercial supply chain.

The main carve-out is narrow: products to be repaired or reconditioned before use are outside this rule only when they are clearly marked as such. The scope file should keep the listing text, label, invoice language, or intake record that shows the product was presented as requiring repair or reconditioning before use.

Article 2 excludes medicinal products, food, feed, living plants and animals, GMOs and genetically modified microorganisms in contained use, plant and animal reproductive products listed in the provision, animal by-products and derived products, plant protection products, specified transport equipment directly operated by a service provider, certain aircraft, and antiques.

For products covered by specific Union safety requirements, GPSR does not simply disappear. It applies to aspects, risks, or categories of risks that are not covered by those specific requirements. For products subject to Union harmonisation legislation, the record should identify which GPSR chapters are displaced for covered risks and which GPSR provisions may still matter, such as online marketplace duties, accident obligations, recall and remedy rules, and Safety Gate operation where no specific provision with the same objective applies.

A defensible GPSR scope decision should connect the product facts to the operator role. Manufacturers need an internal risk analysis and technical documentation before placing products on the market. Importers must check the manufacturer documentation, product identification, and manufacturer contact information before placing a product on the market. Distributors must verify required product, manufacturer, importer, instruction, and safety-information checks before making the product available.

When a covered product is placed on the Union market, Article 16 requires an economic operator established in the Union responsible for the relevant Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 tasks. For higher-risk or complex products, the evidence file should also include documented checks that the product matches the technical documentation and required identification, contact, instruction, and safety-information data.