Article 15

1. Member States shall not prohibit the placing on the market, sale, entry into service or use of new vehicles complying with this Directive. Only vehicles complying with this Directive may be presented for initial registration. 2. Member States shall not prohibit the placing on the market, sale or use of new separate technical units or new components complying with this Directive. Only separate technical units and components complying with this Directive may be placed on the market and sold for the first time for use in the Member States. 3. By way of derogation from paragraphs 1 and 2: Member States may exempt vehicles, systems, separate technical units and components intended: either for production in small series of up to a maximum of 200 units a year per type of vehicle, per system, per component or per separate technical unit; or for the armed forces, law enforcement agencies, civil defence services, fire brigades or public-works bodies, from compliance with any of the requirements of the separate directives. The other Member States shall be informed of these exemptions within one month of their being granted. Within three months these Member States shall decide whether they accept the type-approval for vehicles to be registered within their territory. The certificate of such type-approval may not bear the heading "EC type-approval certificate"; type-approval certificates issued at national level before 17 June 1999 shall remain valid within the Member States issuing them for a period of four years from the date on which national laws are required to comply with the relevant directives. The same period is also extended to types of vehicles, systems, components or technical entities conforming to national requirements of Member States applying other legislative systems than those for type-approval in force before the implementation of the relevant directives. Vehicles covered by the latter exemption may be placed on the market, sold and entered into service during this period with no time limit on their use. The placing on the market, sale and use of systems, separate technical units and components for these vehicles shall carry no time limit. 4. This Directive shall not affect the right of the Member States to lay down - in accordance with the Treaty - the requirements which they consider necessary to ensure the protection of users during the use of the vehicles in question, provided that this does not entail modification to the vehicles.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-06 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.