GPSR · Deadlines & penalties
GPSR penalties: what actually happens if you are not compliant
The GPSR deadline passed on 13 December 2024, and there is no single EU-wide fine for missing it. Penalties are set by each member state under Article 44, so what you face depends on which country's authority picks you up. For most small sellers the first consequence is not a fine at all. It is a listing removed within two working days, and that can happen well before anyone works out where you are based.
The deadline has already gone
The General Product Safety Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/988, has applied since 13 December 2024. There is no transition period left to wait out and no grace window to apply for. Any consumer product you place on the EU market today is already in scope.
What did arrive late is the national machinery. GPSR is a regulation, so it applied everywhere at once, but the penalty schedules sit in national law and several member states only legislated during 2025 and 2026. That is why enforcement has been sharpening steadily rather than switching on in December 2024, and why the picture still looks uneven country to country.
Why there is no single GPSR fine
Article 44 tells member states to lay down rules on penalties that are effective, proportionate and dissuasive, and to notify the Commission of them. It does not name an amount. Every headline you have read promising a specific euro figure is describing one country's law, not an EU-wide number.
So the honest answer to what is the GPSR fine is: it depends where
The same breach can be a five-figure administrative offence in one member state and enforced through pre-existing product safety law in another. If a vendor quotes you one number for the whole EU, they are simplifying Germany's schedule into a sales pitch.
The five things that can actually happen
Fines are the consequence sellers ask about and the least likely one to arrive first. Ranked by how quickly they realistically reach a non-EU seller:
| Consequence | Who triggers it | How fast | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Listing removed or blocked | A market surveillance authority orders the marketplace | Within 2 working days | GPSR Article 22 |
| Safety Gate alert published | A national authority, through the EU rapid alert system | Days | GPSR Chapter V |
| Recall and consumer remedy | You, once a product is found to present a risk | Immediately | GPSR Articles 35 and 36 |
| Consignment refused at the border | Customs, on presentation for release | At import | Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 |
| Administrative fine | A national authority under national law | Months | GPSR Article 44 plus national law |
The one that arrives first: your listing disappears
Under Article 22, providers of online marketplaces must register on the Safety Gate Portal and designate two single points of contact for product safety, one for market surveillance authorities and one for consumers. When an authority orders them to remove an offer of a dangerous product, disable access to it or display an explicit warning, they must act without undue delay and in any event within two working days of receiving the order.
Two working days is faster than any cross-border enforcement action against a company outside the EU could ever move. This is why sellers describe the sequence backwards from what they expected: the revenue stops first, and the correspondence explaining why turns up later.
Selling only through your own store does not remove the exposure
There is no marketplace to delist you, which sounds safer. But the Article 19 duty to show the Responsible Person and the product safety information in your online offer applies to your own shop exactly as it does on a marketplace, and the Commission's own crawler does not care whose domain it is reading.
How authorities find a seller based outside the EU
Not by chance, and increasingly not by human hand. The Commission's eSurveillance web crawler inspected more than 1.6 million URLs in 2025 and identified over 20,800 offers of dangerous products. Listings are read at machine scale, and a product page missing the information Article 19 requires is trivially detectable.
Safety Gate alerts validated per year
2025 was the highest total since the system began in 2003, up 13% on 2024
Source: European Commission, Safety Gate annual reports 2022 to 2025.
| Year | Alerts |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 2,117 |
| 2023 | 3,412 |
| 2024 | 4,137 |
| 2025 | 4,671 |
The categories carrying the most alerts in 2025 were cosmetics at 36%, toys at 16% and electrical appliances at 11%. If you sell in one of those, you are in the part of the market being looked at hardest. The category-by-category picture matters here, because a toy or a cosmetic answers to its own sector law before GPSR even applies.
What a recall actually costs you
This is the consequence that dwarfs the fine, and almost nobody prices it in. Under Article 35, when you recall a product you must notify affected consumers directly and in writing, in plain language, wherever you can identify them. Where you cannot reach everyone that way, you must publish a recall notice through the widest-reaching channel available.
Article 36 then sets the remedy. It must be effective, free and timely, and you must offer the consumer at least two of the three: repair, replacement or refund. The consumer bears no shipping or return cost. If a repair or replacement is not completed within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience, they become entitled to a full refund.
- You pay outbound and return shipping on every recalled unit.
- You cannot force a single remedy on the consumer unless the alternatives are genuinely impossible or disproportionate.
- Self-repair is allowed only if it is easy and safe, described clearly in the notice, and you supply the parts or software free.
- A recall notice is a public document, and it stays findable long after the recall closes.
Where fines have actually been set
Germany is the clearest case and the source of most of the numbers circulating. The amended Product Safety Act (ProdSG) has been in force since 19 February 2026 and sets out 32 administrative offences. Most carry fines up to around €10,000. Two of the GPSR breaches reach €100,000, including identifying a product as dangerous and then failing to take corrective action.
Italy's penalty decree proposes fines up to €150,000 for the most serious breaches. Beyond those two, many member states have not published a distinct GPSR penalty schedule at all and enforce through existing product safety and consumer law, which is why a clean answer to what is the fine in country X often does not exist yet.
Fines are not the reason to fix this
For a small seller outside the EU, the realistic cost of non-compliance is lost sales while a listing is down, a consignment sitting at a border, and the cost of a remedy you have to fund at your own expense. The fine is the tail risk. The delisting is the business risk.
If you are not compliant yet
The order matters. Appointing the contact is what makes everything else possible, and it is the step with the longest lead time.
- Appoint an EU Responsible Person and get the mandate in writing, naming GPSR specifically
- Put their name, postal address and electronic address in every EU-facing product listing, as Article 19 requires
- Check the same details appear on the product, its packaging or an accompanying document under Article 16(3)
- Confirm warnings and safety information are in the language of each country you ship to, which German law now names explicitly
- Hold the technical documentation and internal risk analysis for each product, and know who can produce them on request
- Work out separately whether your packaging triggers EPR registration, because that is a different rulebook entirely
That last point catches people out constantly. GPSR and EPR are unrelated obligations that happen to hit the same seller at the same time, and being clean on one says nothing about the other. The difference is worked through in EPR vs GPSR.
How Assuro helps
Assuro connects to your Shopify store and shows you exactly which products are missing the Responsible Person, manufacturer identification and safety information that Article 19 requires, so you can see the size of the gap before an authority does. We organize and flag. We are not a Responsible Person, we do not certify products, and we do not file anything on your behalf.
Frequently asked questions
What is the fine for GPSR non-compliance?
There is no EU-wide figure. Article 44 leaves penalties to each member state, so the amount depends on which country's authority acts. Germany's amended Product Safety Act, in force since 19 February 2026, sets 32 administrative offences with fines from roughly €10,000 to €100,000, and Italy's penalty decree proposes up to €150,000 for the most serious breaches. Several member states have no distinct GPSR schedule and enforce through existing law.
Is there still a grace period for GPSR?
No. GPSR has applied since 13 December 2024 and no transition period remains. What arrived later was national penalty legislation, not any extension of the obligation itself.
Can my listing be removed without warning?
Yes. Under Article 22 an online marketplace that receives a removal order from a market surveillance authority must act within two working days. That is considerably faster than any enforcement action against a company established outside the EU, so the listing usually comes down before you hear anything directly.
I only sell through my own Shopify store. Am I lower risk?
Lower risk of sudden delisting, because there is no marketplace to act on an order. Not lower risk of the underlying obligation. The Article 19 duty to display the Responsible Person and safety information applies to your own store, and the Commission's eSurveillance crawler read more than 1.6 million URLs in 2025.
What happens if a product I sold turns out to be dangerous?
You must notify affected consumers directly and in writing where you can identify them, and offer a remedy that is free, effective and timely. Article 36 requires at least two of repair, replacement or refund, with no shipping or return cost to the consumer. In practice this costs far more than a typical administrative fine.
Does being compliant with GPSR mean I am compliant in the EU?
No. GPSR covers product safety and the EU contact in your listing. Packaging, electricals and batteries are governed separately by EPR, which is registered and paid per country. They are different obligations with different authorities, and neither satisfies the other.
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