If you sell clothing into the EU, through your own shop, Amazon, or Etsy, the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) changed what has to be on your product since December 13, 2024. Most of it is not complicated. Most small brands are still missing at least one piece. This is the practical checklist, written for garment sellers. Not legal advice.
What the GPSR is, in one paragraph
Regulation (EU) 2023/988 replaced the old General Product Safety Directive. It applies to nearly all consumer products sold in the EU, textiles included. There is no small-business exemption and no "handmade" exemption. For clothing, its practical effect is traceability: every product needs to say who made it, how to reach them, who answers for it inside the EU, and which product it is exactly. Marketplaces have been enforcing this since day one, because the regulation makes them partly responsible for listings without the required information. That is why Amazon and Etsy now ask you for manufacturer and responsible-person data on EU listings.
The checklist
Work through these seven points per product. "On the product" means: on the garment (care label is fine), its packaging, or an accompanying document. The care label is the place that survives unboxing.
1. Manufacturer name (Art. 9)
The legal name of the manufacturer. For your own brand, that's your business name; "manufacturer" under GPSR is whoever markets the product under their name: the brand, not the sewing factory.
2. Postal address (Art. 9)
A real, current postal address. A P.O. box in a country you've never been to does not build confidence with market surveillance; use the address where you can actually receive mail.
3. Electronic address (Art. 9)
An email address or a URL. One line: [email protected] or yourbrand.com/contact.
4. EU responsible person (Art. 16, the one that catches non-EU sellers)
If the manufacturer is not established in the EU, the product needs a named responsible person inside the EU, with name and contact details on the product, packaging, or accompanying document. This can be:
- your EU-based importer,
- an authorized representative you appoint (there are paid services for exactly this),
- or an EU fulfilment service provider that takes on the role.
For a US or UK brand selling into the EU, this is the requirement that most often blocks listings: without a named EU person, the product may not be placed on the EU market, and marketplaces will ask for exactly this data field.
5. Product identification (Art. 9(5))
A type, batch, or model number that identifies the product; a style number on the care label satisfies this. It must let a specific product be traced, so "SS26-HOODIE-001" beats "Hoodie".
6. Warnings and safety information, where relevant
For most adult clothing there are none. For children's clothing, be aware that separate rules exist beyond GPSR (drawstring standards, flammability rules; in the US, children's sleepwear has its own flammability standards under 16 CFR 1615/1616). If you sell kids' products, treat that as its own compliance topic, not a footnote.
7. The rest of the label still applies
GPSR came on top of textile law, not instead of it. The same garment still needs, for the EU:
- fiber composition with Annex I names only (Regulation 1007/2011): "Acryl", "bamboo", and brand names like "Lycra" are not permitted names,
- percentages that sum to 100%, sorted descending,
- the language of the country of sale (German for Germany; multilingual labels are allowed),
- the animal-parts sentence, if there's leather, down, or horn on the garment.
The three mistakes we actually see
Checking real labels, the GPSR failures cluster in three patterns:
1. The 2023 label. Designed before the GPSR applied, never updated: fiber line and care symbols present, no address block at all. This is currently the single most common finding on otherwise clean labels, and it also affects stock that is still being offered for sale.
2. The half address. Brand name printed, but no postal address, or an Instagram handle instead of an email/URL. Art. 9 wants all three pieces: name, postal address, electronic address.
3. The missing EU person. A non-EU brand with a perfect label, and nobody named inside the EU. The listing works until a marketplace compliance sweep or a market-surveillance check asks for the responsible person.
Where to put it all (a layout that works)
A 35 mm care label fits everything. A layout that we see working:
60 % BAUMWOLLE / cotton 40 % POLYACRYL / acrylic [care symbols, 5 in ISO order] MADE IN PORTUGAL ──────────────────────── YOURBRAND GMBH MUSTERWEG 1 · 10115 BERLIN [email protected] STYLE SS26-001
If your manufacturer is outside the EU, add the responsible person under the manufacturer block ("EU responsible person: …"). If space runs out, the packaging or an enclosed card is a legitimate location for the GPSR block; the fiber composition, however, belongs on the garment.
Marketplace notes for Amazon and Etsy sellers
- Both marketplaces collect GPSR data fields (manufacturer, EU responsible person) for EU listings and can suppress listings without them. Filling the fields does not fix the product: the information must also physically accompany the product.
- Marketplace compliance checks are automated and account-wide. One flagged listing invites a look at the rest of your catalog. That is an argument for fixing the whole label template once, not listing by listing.
- The GPSR also has requirements beyond the label (online listings must show certain information, accident reporting, recalls). This checklist covers the product-marking part, which is where garment sellers most often fail first.
Frequently asked, quickly answered
"My products were made before December 2024. Am I exempt?" Don't count on it. The obligations attach to offering products on the EU market, and marketplaces apply their data requirements to live listings regardless of production date. Treat existing stock that is still for sale as in scope; updating a hangtag or insert is cheaper than arguing the point.
"Can the GPSR block live only in my webshop?" No. Online listings have their own information duties under the GPSR, but the name/address/responsible-person information must also accompany the physical product: label, packaging, or enclosed document. The webshop alone doesn't satisfy it, and neither does "it's in my Amazon backend".
"I dropship. Who is the manufacturer?" If products are made to your specification or sold under your brand, that's you, with everything that follows (your name, your address, your EU responsible person if you're outside the EU). If you resell someone else's branded product into the EU, you take on importer duties instead, including checking that the manufacturer's GPSR information is actually there. "The supplier handles compliance" is not a recognized role.
"Does one EU responsible person cover all 27 countries?" Yes: one person or entity established anywhere in the EU covers the whole market. You don't need one per country; you need exactly one, named, reachable, and actually willing to hold the role (it carries duties, which is why the paid services exist).
Check your label before the next production run
The full check for a garment label going into the EU: seven GPSR points above, plus the fiber line against Annex I, percentages, language, purity terms, animal parts, and care-symbol plausibility.
We built a free tool that does exactly this from a photo of your label: 48 rules across Germany/EU, UK, US, Canada, Australia, and Switzerland, result in under a minute, first finding shown in full: usecarelabel.com. Upload the label you're about to print; it's cheaper to fix it now than after the run.
(Not legal advice. Summarized as of 2026. The individual case always decides.)