INTRODUCTION
Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (1) on unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market (‘the UCPD’) constitutes the overarching piece of EU legislation regulating unfair commercial practices in business-to-consumer transactions. It applies to all commercial practices that occur before, during and after a business-to-consumer transaction has taken place. The purpose of this Guidance Notice (hereinafter referred to as ‘Notice’) is to facilitate the proper application of the Directive. It builds upon and replaces the 2016 version of the Guidance (2). The Notice also aims at increasing awareness of the Directive amongst all interested parties, such as consumers, businesses, the authorities of the Member States, including national courts and legal practitioners, across the EU. It covers the amendments introduced by Directive (EU) 2019/2161 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) as regards the better enforcement and modernisation of Union consumer protection rules that enter into application from 28 May 2022. Accordingly, a part of this guidance reflects and discusses the rules that have not yet entered into application as of the date of issuance of this Notice. The relevant sections and points are clearly indicated. Where quotations from the text of the Directive or from Court rulings contain visual highlighting, such emphasis has been added by the Commission. This Notice is addressed to the EU Member States and to Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway as signatories of the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA). References to the EU, the Union or the Single Market should therefore be understood as referring to the EEA, or to the EEA market. This Notice is intended purely as a guidance document – only the text of the Union legislation itself has legal force. Any authoritative reading of the law has to be derived from the text of the Directive and directly from the decisions of the Court. This Notice takes into account rulings of the Court published until October 2021 and cannot prejudge further developments of the Court’s case law. The views expressed in this document cannot prejudge the position that the European Commission might take before the Court. The information herein is of a general nature only and does not specifically address any particular individuals or entities. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the European Commission is responsible for any use that may be made of the following information. As this Notice reflects the state of the art at the time of drafting, the guidance offered may be modified at a later date.
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07