EU compliance, informational

Etsy and the EU GPSR, a plain-English checklist for 2026.

What the EU General Product Safety Regulation means for Etsy sellers in 2026, what is commonly expected in the listing, and how to avoid the patterns Etsy and Amazon have been silently de-listing.

What changed on 13 December 2024

The EU General Product Safety Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/988, replaced the older General Product Safety Directive on 13 December 2024. It applies to virtually every non-food consumer product placed on the EU market. There is no de minimis exception for handmade or small-shop sellers, and no exception for sales through online marketplaces.

The practical effect for an Etsy seller outside the EU: if your listing ships to the EU, the listing is now subject to GPSR. Etsy and other marketplaces are removing listings that do not appear to meet the basic GPSR information requirements. The removals are commonly silent. The first signal a seller often gets is that an EU buyer cannot complete the checkout, or that a listing has been quietly hidden from EU search.

The Responsible Person, in plain English

GPSR Article 4 commonly expects a Responsible Person to be in place for any product placed on the EU market. The Responsible Person is the legal entity established in the EU that takes specific safety duties on the product's behalf. The Responsible Person is named on the product, its packaging, the parcel, or in an accompanying document, with their name, postal address, and electronic contact.

A handful of paths sellers commonly take to satisfy this:

• The manufacturer is itself established in the EU. The manufacturer's EU address satisfies the Responsible Person requirement.
• The seller appoints an authorised representative based in the EU. There are now several services priced for small sellers in the £20 to £100 per year range.
• An EU-based importer or fulfilment provider takes on the Responsible Person role for products that pass through them.
• The seller opts out of EU sales entirely, using Etsy's per-shop or per-listing toggle.

What the listing itself commonly needs

GPSR Article 19 commonly expects the buyer to see specific information before they confirm the purchase. For sellers writing the listing, the practical translation is to include, somewhere visible on the listing page, in the language of the destination country:

• The manufacturer's name and postal or email address.
• The Responsible Person's name, postal address, and electronic contact.
• A product identifier such as a model, type, batch, or SKU.
• Any warnings, safety information, or labels relevant to the product.
• Instructions for use if needed for safe use.

The "language of the destination" requirement is an unwelcome surprise for many small sellers. A listing written only in English, sold to a buyer in Spain, is technically expected to provide the warnings and instructions in Spanish. In practice, sellers commonly include both the English text and a translation block at the end of the description, and provide a printed Responsible Person card inside the parcel.

What Etsy is doing under Article 22

GPSR Article 22 puts duties on the marketplace itself. Etsy registered with the EU Safety Gate, designated a single point of contact, and added flows in Seller Central style screens for sellers to provide their Article 19 information. Etsy is also designed to take down dangerous-product notifications quickly, typically within two working days of being notified.

Etsy's April 2025 update tightened the controls. Listings without the expected fields are commonly removed from EU search, and shops that repeatedly miss the fields are at risk of being suspended from EU sales. Etsy's own seller handbook is the authoritative reference. We recommend reading Etsy's GPSR article in full once a quarter.

Penalties, in 2026

The GPSR sets the principles for penalties at the EU level, but the actual fines are set by each Member State's national law. Several countries finalised their national regimes in early 2026. Germany's revised ProdSG, in force from 19 February 2026, allows administrative fines and criminal penalties up to one year imprisonment for repeat intentional violations. Italy's draft decree caps administrative fines at €150,000 plus criminal exposure for severe cases. Bulgaria amended its Consumer Protection Act in February 2026 to align with GPSR.

For an individual Etsy seller outside the EU, the realistic exposure is somewhat lower than the headline numbers suggest. The most common practical consequences are listing removal and shop-level suspension by Etsy, which is faster, more frequent, and more disruptive than any regulator action.

Common patterns Stallscore looks for

The Stallscore pre-flight reads your public listing page and notes whether the description contains common GPSR markers. We do not give a yes or no verdict. We surface patterns that are commonly expected in EU-bound listings:

• Manufacturer name and contact, written somewhere readable.
• Responsible Person name and EU address, with an electronic contact.
• A product identifier such as a model, batch, or SKU.
• Any safety warnings, age guidance, or care instructions relevant to the product.

If the markers are absent, the pre-flight returns a high-severity finding asking you to verify. If they are present, the pre-flight notes that the markers are present without claiming the listing is legally compliant. Whether your specific listing meets GPSR for your specific products in your specific destination markets is a question only your counsel and your Responsible Person can answer.

Frequent seller questions