§1.1 Which businesses are subject to obligations under the GPSR?

All businesses involved in the supply chain have a role to play in ensuring product safety and therefore have corresponding obligations to fulfil. The obligations of the GPSR are relevant for all sizes of business (4). In general, the GPSR differentiates between two main categories of businesses: A) Economic operators: the manufacturer, the authorised representative, the importer, the distributor, the fulfilment service provider or any other natural or legal person who is subject to obligations in relation to the manufacturing of products or making products available on the market in accordance with the GPSR. — The manufacturer is any natural or legal person who manufactures a product or who has a product designed or manufactured, and markets that product under that person’s name or trademark; — The authorised representative is any natural or legal person established within the EU who has received a written mandate from a manufacturer to act on that manufacturer’s behalf in relation to specified tasks with regard to the manufacturer’s obligations under the GPSR; — The importer is any natural or legal person established within the EU who places a product from a third country on the EU market; — The distributor is any natural or legal person in the supply chain, other than the manufacturer or the importer, who makes a product available on the market; — The fulfilment service provider is any natural or legal person who offers at least two of the following services in the course of a commercial activity: warehousing, packaging, addressing or dispatching, without having ownership of the products involved, excluding postal services as defined in Article 2 point (1) of Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, parcel delivery services as defined in Article 2 point (2) of Regulation (EU) 2018/644 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and any other postal services or freight transport services; — The responsible person for products placed on the EU market (‘responsible person’) is an economic operator established in the EU who is responsible for the tasks set out in Article 4(3) of the Market Surveillance Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/1020) and in the GPSR (see point 3.2 for details on these tasks). B) Providers of online marketplaces Providers of online marketplaces provide intermediary services for offers of third-party traders and consumers (business-to-consumers), using an online interface, as generally established under Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (the Digital Services Act –‘DSA’). Under the GPSR, the term ‘ trader’ means any natural person or any legal person who is acting, including through any person acting in that natural or legal person’s name, for purposes relating to trade, business, craft or profession. Purely consumer-to-consumer transactions do not fall under the scope of the GPSR. Your company can fall into more than one category of business, depending on the service it provides for different products. The service you offer for a given product determines whether you act as an economic operator or as a provider of an online marketplace. Example 1: A company that resells products can be both (i) a distributor for the products it has purchased from a manufacturer and resells on the market; and (ii) a manufacturer for products it has rebranded and sells under its own name. Example 2: A provider of an online marketplace can be considered as (i) a provider of an online marketplace for products for which it provides only an intermediary service(s); (ii) as a fulfilment service provider for products for which it provides fulfilment service, and (iii) as a manufacturer for products sold under its own name. Learn what responsibilities relating to product safety and established by the GPSR you have in the relevant sections of these guidelines. These guidelines explain to you what your obligations under the GPSR are. These obligations have been applicable since 13 December 2024 and concern all products on the EU market that fall within the scope of the GPSR, (regardless of their place of production). Member States must not prevent the making available on the market of products covered by the previous General Product Safety Directive (5) that are in conformity with that Directive and were placed on the market before 13 December 2024. The GPSR covers a wide variety of products and therefore does not establish specific obligations by sector. For products covered by specific EU sectoral rules, the GPSR complements these sectoral rules (as explained in more detail in point 2.2 of these guidelines). Remember that providing safe products to consumers is not only a legal requirement but also increases trust in your company.

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