§1.8 Possible exemption of low value off-premises contracts

Article 3(4) allows Member States not to apply the Directive to off-premises contracts, for which the payment to be made by the consumer does not exceed EUR 50 or a lower value as defined under national law. If a Member State chooses to use this regulatory choice, there is a risk that the Directive gets circumvented by traders who may decide to artificially split a single contract above the set threshold into several contracts. As explained in Recital 28: ‘[…] Where two or more contracts with related subjects are concluded at the same time by the consumer, the total cost thereof should be taken into account for the purpose of applying this threshold.’ This principle would apply to: — For example, selling each book of a trilogy under three separate contracts or selling a pair of earrings under two separate contracts at the same time. For long-term contracts (subscriptions), the relevant amount for the application of this exception is the total amount that the consumer commits to pay when concluding the contract. i.e. the total amount of monthly instalments or charges over the agreed contractual period, including any ‘free’ periods.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07