Short answer
The General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) has applied since 13 December 2024 as the EU's horizontal safety framework for consumer products. Sector-specific EU harmonisation rules govern risks they cover; the GPSR fills uncovered gaps and adds specified complementary rules, including marketplace, accident, recall and Safety Gate duties where sector law has no equivalent objective.
Manufacturers own product safety, risk analysis and technical documentation. Importers verify compliance before placing third-country products on the EU market. Distributors perform defined factual checks and must stop or escalate suspect products. An EU-established responsible economic operator is required; a fulfilment service provider occupies that role only as the statutory fallback where no manufacturer, importer or mandated authorised representative is available. Online marketplaces have distinct listing, notice, order, recall and cooperation duties. They become manufacturers, importers or distributors only where their separate conduct satisfies that role.
The same company can therefore hold several roles, each carrying its own statutory obligations and evidence.
Start with product and risk scope
Regulation (EU) 2023/988 applies to products placed or made available on the EU market insofar as no specific EU rule with the same safety objective governs them. For products under sector harmonisation—such as toys, machinery, medical devices or radio equipment—the sector act controls covered risks. GPSR provisions can still apply to risks the sector regime does not address and to complementary matters where no equivalent sector rule exists.
This prevents both gaps and double regulation. A business should map the product, each relevant risk and every applicable act provision by provision, rather than label the product simply “GPSR” or “sector regulated”.
The baseline remains:
“Economic operators shall place or make available on the market only safe products.” —
An online offer targeted to EU consumers counts as making the product available. Dispatch destinations, ordering language, currency and domain may show targeting; mere accessibility of a website in a Member State is insufficient by itself.
Manufacturer: design and evidence owner
The manufacturer must ensure safety by design and carry out an internal risk analysis before placing a product on the market. It must prepare technical documentation proportionate to complexity and risk, keep it for ten years, identify the product and itself, provide understandable instructions and safety information, and maintain complaint and corrective-action channels.
If the manufacturer learns that a product is dangerous, it must take effective corrective action—potentially withdrawal or recall—and inform consumers and authorities through the Safety Business Gateway. It also reports qualifying product-caused accidents.
A person becomes the manufacturer for GPSR purposes by placing the product under its own name or trademark. A person who substantially modifies a product, physically or digitally, also assumes manufacturer duties for the affected part or whole product where safety is affected. Contract labels do not override those rules.
Importer: EU market-entry gatekeeper
An importer established in the EU must verify that the manufacturer performed the risk analysis, prepared documentation, marked the product and supplied the required information. It adds its own contact details and ensures instructions and warnings are understandable in the destination Member State.
An importer that believes a product is non-compliant must not place it on the market until conformity is restored. For a dangerous product, it must inform the manufacturer, ensure authorities are informed and make sure corrective action occurs—taking that action itself if others have not. Storage and transport under its responsibility must not compromise safety.
Importing is a legal role tied to placing a third-country product on the Union market, not merely arranging a parcel or customs paperwork.
Distributor: factual checks and downstream control
Before making a product available, a distributor checks specified identification, manufacturer/importer and instruction requirements:
“distributors shall verify that the manufacturer and, where applicable, the importer have complied with” the listed GPSR requirements. —
This is a factual verification, not a duty to recreate the manufacturer's engineering assessment. But a distributor with reason to believe a product is dangerous or non-compliant must stop availability, inform the manufacturer or importer, and ensure corrective action and authority notification. It must preserve safety during storage and transport and cooperate on traceability, complaints and recalls.
Responsible person and fulfilment providers
Article 16 GPSR extends the Market Surveillance Regulation's responsible-economic-operator rule to covered products. A product cannot be placed on the EU market without an EU-established operator performing Article 4 tasks. The sequence is manufacturer, importer, authorised representative with the relevant mandate, or—only where none of those exists—fulfilment service provider.
A fulfilment service provider offers at least two of warehousing, packaging, addressing and dispatching without owning the product, excluding postal, parcel and freight services. Its fallback responsible-person tasks include checking that conformity documentation exists, keeping specified documentation available, cooperating with authorities and helping corrective action.
That does not automatically make the provider the manufacturer or importer. It may acquire another role through separate conduct, such as placing goods on the market in its own name.
Online marketplaces: a separate safety layer
A marketplace that only intermediates a sale is not automatically an economic operator. Article 22 nevertheless imposes product-safety duties. It must register with Safety Gate, designate authority and consumer contact points, maintain internal processes, act on authority orders, process notices and design listings so traders can provide manufacturer, responsible-person, product-identification and warning information.
The timing rule is concrete:
Marketplaces must process product-safety notices “without undue delay and in any event within three working days from the receipt of the notice”. —
They must cooperate on removals, recalls, accident information and trader suspensions. DSA duties also remain relevant, including notice-and-action, authority orders, trader traceability and compliance-by-design. GPSR is the product-safety-specific layer; it does not erase the DSA.
If a marketplace also stores and dispatches, imports, distributes or sells own-brand products, each activity is assessed separately. The same company may therefore owe marketplace duties and economic-operator duties for the same product.
Recalls and consumer contact
When a dangerous product is recalled or needs a safety warning, responsible operators and, where applicable, marketplaces must directly notify identifiable affected consumers without undue delay. Customer data held through purchases, registration or loyalty programmes must be used for that safety purpose. Where direct contact cannot reach everyone, a clear, visible recall notice must receive the widest practicable dissemination.
Recall remedies under GPSR include at least two effective options among repair, replacement and adequate refund, subject to the Regulation's conditions. Product-safety action is distinct from civil product liability for injury or property damage.
Written recall information must follow the standard EU recall-notice template established by , which has applied alongside the GPSR since 13 December 2024. The notice must also satisfy the GPSR's clarity, content and accessibility requirements; a business should not replace the prescribed template with an informal marketing message.
Practical role map
- Identify each product, target market and regulated risk.
- Apply sector legislation first to the safety objectives it covers; map GPSR gap-filling and complementary duties.
- Determine who designs/brands, first places, distributes, fulfils and intermediates each product.
- Confirm an EU responsible operator and display its details in distance-sale offers.
- Preserve technical documentation, traceability and complaint channels.
- Build stop-sale, authority-notification, accident and recall workflows across the chain.
- Configure marketplace listings, notice handling and Safety Gate cooperation.
- Reassess roles when products are rebranded, substantially modified or sold directly by a platform.
Conclusion
EU product safety follows function, not contractual labels. Manufacturers carry the deepest design and evidence duties; importers guard EU market entry; distributors verify and react; fulfilment providers serve as the responsible-operator fallback only in defined circumstances. Marketplaces have their own strong online-safety duties and may simultaneously become economic operators through additional conduct. The first compliance task is therefore a product-by-product, risk-by-risk and role-by-role map across the GPSR, sector legislation, Market Surveillance Regulation and DSA.
Sources
- — checked for direct judicial interpretation of Regulation (EU) 2023/988; no directly relevant judgment was identified through the review cutoff
This article provides general legal information, not advice for a specific matter. Laws, facts and procedural deadlines may change the result. Follow the linked primary sources and obtain local advice before acting.