What language must GPSR safety warnings be written in?

Article 9.7 of Regulation (EU) 2023/988 requires that safety warnings and instructions for use be provided in a language «easily understandable by consumers in the Member State where the product is made available». In practice, this means the official language or languages of the country of sale — not a single common language such as English. English satisfies this requirement only for Ireland and Malta, the two EU Member States where English is an official language. For every other EU country — Germany (German), France (French), Spain (Spanish), Italy (Italian), Poland (Polish), the Netherlands (Dutch), and so on — safety documentation must be provided in the local official language. Products carrying warnings only in English cannot be sold legally in those markets.

The language obligation operates at two levels. The first is physical labelling and product documentation: if you sell the same product in multiple EU countries, safety warnings and use instructions must be available in each country's official language. This can be managed by including multilingual documentation (a single leaflet covering multiple languages), or by producing country-specific versions. The second level is online listings: Article 19 requires safety information on product listings to be displayed in the language of the Member State where the consumer is located. Amazon implements this directly — it requires sellers to upload separate safety documents and safety images per marketplace, each in the correct language. A safety manual uploaded to Amazon.de must be in German; the same document cannot be used for Amazon.fr (French) or Amazon.es (Spanish).

Germany deserves particular attention. The revised German Product Safety Act (Produktsicherheitsgesetz, §6 ProdSG, in force since 19 February 2026) explicitly mandates that all safety information, warnings, and instructions required by the GPSR must be provided in German for products sold in Germany. German customs authorities actively check for the presence of German-language safety information on imports, and the absence of German documentation has been one of the most common grounds for hold or rejection at German ports of entry since December 2024. For sellers targeting the German market — the largest e-commerce market in the EU — German-language safety documentation is non-negotiable.

What the law says

Consequences of non-compliance