Product Safety: Which Regime Catches Which Branded Gift, and the Duties a Logo Buys

Nothing on an invoice records the moment a buyer becomes the manufacturer of record. It happens when a logo replaces a maker's brand, or when a purchase order goes direct rather than through a European supplier. Which of five EU safety regimes a gift line falls under decides what that moment costs in paperwork, and the buyer does not choose the regime.

Harmonisation decides which rulebook you are in

In 2025 Safety Gate validated 4,671 alerts, close to a hundred a week: 36% cosmetics, 16% toys, 11% electrical appliances and equipment; the total includes 420 alerts from the UK authority for Northern Ireland (European Commission, 2025). Cosmetics and toys have their own regimes and guides — the spa and personal care piece for the responsible-person rule, the toys guide below for CE evidence on children's products. The 11% is this article.

The split runs along harmonisation, which our toys and family gifts guide used to get a toy off the General Product Safety Regulation and onto its own legislation; the hinge works in reverse too. Article 16 of Regulation (EU) 2023/988, applicable since 13 December 2024, bars a product from the market unless an EU-established operator holds the Article 4(3) tasks of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 — and Article 2(1) disapplies the section Article 16 sits in for anything already covered by Union harmonisation legislation (EUR-Lex, 2023). So a notebook, umbrella or cotton tote runs on Article 16; a speaker, charger or power bank runs on Article 4, where the duties bite.

The nineteenth instrument on the Article 4 list

Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 admits a covered product only where an EU-established operator takes the Article 4(3) tasks — confirming the declaration of conformity and technical documentation exist, cooperating on corrective action — and Article 4(4) puts that operator's name and postal address on the product, packaging, parcel or accompanying document (EUR-Lex, 2019).

Article 4(5)'s list of covered instruments runs to nineteen, not the eighteen of the 2019 text: Article 91 of the Batteries Regulation added Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, applying since 18 February 2024 (EUR-Lex, 2023). A 20,000mAh power bank imported direct is the stack worked through. EMC and RoHS catch every unit, and the Batteries Regulation catches the cell. The Radio Equipment Directive catches it only where the model has a radio function of its own — Qi pairing, Bluetooth, a tracker — so confirm the function before asking for that declaration; a USB-only model is not radio equipment. The Low Voltage Directive does not reach it at all: Article 1 of 2014/35/EU starts at 50 V AC and 75 V DC, so a request for an LVD declaration on a 5 V power bank comes back refused, and only a bundled mains adapter carries one. One EU-established operator can take the Article 4(3) tasks for every instrument on the list, so what doubles is the paperwork, not the operator. Article 4(2) limits who it can be: an EU-established manufacturer, an importer where the manufacturer sits outside the Union, a mandated authorised representative, or, failing those, an EU fulfilment provider. Import direct and you are the importer, so the role is yours.

A logo turns a reseller into the manufacturer

Three directives a gift catalogue touches carry the same sentence. In the EMC Directive 2014/30/EU it is Article 11: an importer or distributor is considered a manufacturer, with the manufacturer's obligations, where it places apparatus on the market under its own name or trade mark, or modifies apparatus already on the market such that compliance may be affected (EUR-Lex, 2014). The Low Voltage Directive 2014/35/EU has it at Article 10 (EUR-Lex, 2014), the Radio Equipment Directive 2014/53/EU at Article 14. The technical documentation, declaration of conformity and CE marking then become yours.

The Radio Equipment Directive reaches any electrical or electronic product intentionally emitting or receiving radio waves for radio communication or radiodetermination (EUR-Lex, 2014): every Bluetooth speaker, earbud, tracker and wireless charger with pairing. A 30W Bluetooth speaker under its maker's brand is the maker's product; with your mark replacing theirs, yours. The toy regime carries the same own-name rule.

The steel body is not in the plastics regulation

Commission Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 is a plastics measure and nothing wider: Article 2(1) limits it to articles consisting exclusively of plastics, plastic multi-layer articles, and those printed or coated (EUR-Lex, 2011). Steel bottles, steel vacuum travel mugs, glass and ceramic bodies sit outside it, as does bamboo in its solid wood form — as our home and kitchen gifting guide notes for boards and serveware. A travel mug with a plastic rather than a steel body is inside it like any other plastic article. And bamboo stops sitting outside it once it has been milled into a filler: bamboo-fibre, hemp-fibre and rice-husk cups and tumblers are melamine or polypropylene articles with a plant-fibre additive, which puts them inside Regulation (EU) No 10/2011, and the filler is not on the Union list. If a quotation says bamboo, establish before artwork whether the body is turned from the culm or moulded from powder.

Because Article 16(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 attaches the written-declaration duty only to materials covered by a specific measure adopted under it, there is no EU-level declaration duty for a steel, glass or bamboo body (EUR-Lex, 2004). Those answer to the Article 3 general safety requirement, Directive 84/500/EEC for ceramics, and national rules differing by Member State.

In scope is the plastic half of the same object — lid, seal, straw, inner coating — for which Article 15(1) requires the declaration to be available at every marketing stage other than retail, and Article 15(3) renewal when a change in composition or production alters migration (EUR-Lex, 2011). So for a stainless steel double bento box the ask is two-part: a plastics declaration for the plastic contact parts, Article 3 and national-law evidence for the steel body. If one declaration comes back covering the whole article, ask which parts it was drawn against.

The battery has to come out, from 18 February 2027

Article 11(1) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 obliges anyone placing products incorporating portable batteries on the market to make those batteries readily removable and replaceable by the end user at any time in the product's lifetime, and Article 96(2)(a) applies Article 11 from 18 February 2027 (EUR-Lex, 2023). Removability is not unregulated until then: Article 95(a) keeps Article 11 of Directive 2006/66/EC in force to that date.

Article 11(3) is a separate, self-standing exemption where continuity of power supply is necessary and a permanent connection is required for the safety of user and appliance, or, in products whose main function is collecting and supplying data, for data integrity: the argument a sealed-tracker supplier will run. Article 11(7) requires the battery to stay available as a spare part for five years after the model's last unit is placed on the market, at a reasonable price — real exposure on a one-off branded run. Article 11(8) bars software that impedes replacement.

The Article 11(2) derogation list is not closed: a delegated regulation adopted on 14 July 2026 adds further categories and was still in Parliament and Council scrutiny (European Commission, 2026). Article 11 is also in play in the Omnibus VIII negotiation: the Commission's 10 December 2025 proposal would carve light-means-of-transport battery packs out of Article 11, and the Council's negotiating mandate adds a postponement for certain product categories (European Parliament, 2026) — proposals, not law, with nothing yet aimed at the portable batteries in gift lines.

Two periods, two standards, and the difference decides whether a sealed line is a problem now or later. Until 18 February 2027, Article 11 of Directive 2006/66/EC asks only that the battery can be readily removed, by the end user or by an independent qualified professional, with removal instructions supplied — so a sealed speaker or tracker is lawful to buy today. From that date the Regulation requires removal and replacement by the end user, with the five-year spare-part duty and the software ban alongside, unless the line genuinely fits the Article 11(3) exemption. The date attaches to the unit, not to the catalogue: stock placed on the market before 18 February 2027 stays lawful to hold and to give afterwards, while the same SKU reordered after it does not. Specify it that way.

The registrations you acquire, and the file to ask for

Article 3(1)(f) of the WEEE Directive 2012/19/EU gives four routes to being a producer: own-name manufacture or own-brand marketing in that Member State; own-brand reselling, with the carve-out that a reseller is not the producer where the actual producer's brand appears on the equipment; professional importing into that Member State; and distance selling into it from another Member State or a third country (EUR-Lex, 2012). The fourth is the wide one: unlike the first two it is not territorial, catching a supplier shipping cross-border into a market where it has no establishment — hence authorised representatives. Anyone exclusively providing financing under a finance agreement is excluded. Being a Directive, it reaches companies through national transposing law, and the registers are national.

Packaging is explicit: Article 44(2) of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 requires producers to register in each Member State where they first make packaging or packaged products available, or unpack packaged products without being an end user, and Article 44(4) bars supply without that registration; it has applied since 12 August 2026 (EUR-Lex, 2025). The honest caveat: Article 44(1) gives each Member State 18 months from the first implementing act under Article 44(14) to build its register, and that act, due by 12 February 2026, was still unadopted as at 1 October 2026. The Article 44 duty is live; the register it points to, in its new form, is not. That is not a grace period. Packaging EPR registration under the national law transposing Directive 94/62/EC is already in force in every destination you ship to, and those registers exist today — Germany's LUCID under the VerpackG is a precondition of supply, France requires a Citeo identifier, and Spain, Italy and Austria each run their own. So the ask per destination country is unchanged: who is registered there today, under which identifier, and is it you or your supplier. Get the identifier itself, not an assurance.

One question per regime. Article 4: who the EU-established operator is, and whether their name and postal address appear where Article 4(4) requires. Harmonised electrical: which instruments the existing declaration was drawn against, and whether your decoration changes that answer. Per non-harmonised line: the responsible person, named. Per food-contact line: the plastics declaration for the plastic parts and Article 3 evidence for the body. Per battery line: removal instructions and whether the spare part outlives the model. Per destination country: the WEEE producer of record and who holds the packaging registration. None of this is a reason to avoid an electrical or food-contact gift, only to settle one question per line before artwork rather than after a market-surveillance letter: whose name is on the file. For most catalogue lines the answer is the maker's, and decoration applied while the maker's brand stays visible on the product and the retail packaging is the ordinary case that leaves the file where it is. Note the asymmetry before relying on it: WEEE Article 3(1)(f) writes that carve-out into the text, while the EMC, Low Voltage and Radio Equipment directives do not — their test is marketing under your own name or trade mark, read across packaging, manual, warranty and declaration, plus any modification that may affect compliance. For electrical lines treat a visible maker brand as strong evidence, not a statutory shield. Change that, or buy direct from outside the Union, and it becomes yours — a cost to price deliberately, not a prohibition. Send the lines you are weighing and we will name the regime and the current file-holder for each; prices are in the catalog, but the shortlist is the quicker conversation — contact us.