A Major Overhaul of the UK Product Safety and Market Surveillance and Enforcement Regime
On 31 March 2026, the Department for Business and Trade and the Office for Product Safety and Standards (the "OPSS") published two major and interconnected consultations: "The UK's new product safety framework" and "The UK's new core product regulation market surveillance and enforcement framework." The consultations propose the most significant reform of UK product safety and market surveillance and enforcement in over two decades, building on the powers conferred by the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025.
The government acknowledges that the current framework rooted in the UK General Product Safety Regulations (the "UK GPSR") has been "stretched to its limit" by the rapid growth of e-commerce, cross-border supply chains, and emerging technologies such as AI-enabled products, with too many dangerous products reaching UK consumers and end-users.
Across the two consultations, the government puts forward 21 proposals and nearly 50 consultation questions, closing on 23 June 2026, with new secondary legislation and, where required, further primary legislation expected to follow. This White Paper focuses on the key points and highlights the most significant changes that businesses should be aware of.
THE NEW PRODUCT SAFETY FRAMEWORK
Expanding the Scope: Consumer and Business Products
Under the current UK GPSR, only consumer products are covered. The proposed new product safety framework would apply to all products, including what the consultation refers to as “business products”, covering products supplied to businesses, public bodies, and other organisations for use in the workplace, such as industrial machinery, commercial equipment, and professional tools, subject to defined exceptions including food, medicines, medical devices, most aircraft, military equipment, and certain agricultural products.
This broader coverage is intended to address a recognised gap affecting certain products that are not intended for consumer use and are not subject to sector-specific product safety legislation, which has left them within a regulatory grey area. By extending the framework to these “business products”, the government aims to introduce a consistent set of baseline safety requirements for all products placed on the UK market regardless of product type or end-user.
Retaining the Definition of a "Safe Product" with Updated Safety Considerations
The existing definition of a “safe product” under the UK GPSR is proposed to be retained and applied across the wider range of products in scope such as business products. A product will continue to be considered safe if, under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use, it presents no risk or only minimal risks compatible with its use.
While the current UK GPSR already requires certain factors to be taken into account when assessing product safety, such as a product’s characteristics, presentation, and the needs of vulnerable users, the consultation proposes expanding these considerations to reflect modern risks and technologies. New factors would include cybersecurity risks, artificial intelligence, and machine learning functionality.
Essential Safety Requirements
In addition to the general safety requirement that all products must be safe, the government recognises that the new product safety framework must be adaptable to cover a wide range of products, and that some products with greater hazards may require additional, proportionate regulation.
Although essential safety requirements (“ESRs”) already apply under certain sector-specific product safety regimes, these obligations are currently dispersed across individual regulations and do not form part of the UK GPSR. The consultation proposes to address this by enabling ESRs to be specified within the new product safety framework for certain categories of products that pose a higher risk, applying across all products in scope.
For such products, the consultation proposes that they must meet specified ESRs over and above the general safety requirement. Where the risk of harm is high if a hazardous product fails to meet these ESRs, the government proposes requiring that the product undergo testing or third‑party conformity assessment before it can be placed on the market. This could be applied flexibly. For example, as is currently the case for toys, self‑certification may be permitted where a designated standard is followed, with conformity assessment otherwise required.
Three Categories of Supply Chain Actor
The proposed product safety framework introduces three defined categories of supply-chain actor, each with distinct duties proportionate to their role.
- Producers (Including Overseas Distance-Selling Businesses)
The consultation retains the existing hierarchical approach of the UK GPSR to defining a producer. Where the manufacturer is established in the UK, including any person presenting themselves as the manufacturer by affixing their name, trade mark or other distinctive mark to the product, they will be the producer. Where the manufacturer is not UK-based, the role of producer will instead fall to the authorised representative or, failing that, the importer. In addition, any person in the supply chain whose activities affect the safety characteristics of a product may also be treated as a producer.
Notably, where a product is sold from outside the UK directly to a UK customer (for example, via an online marketplace or the seller’s own website, with the product shipped straight to the UK) and there is no UK‑established manufacturer, authorised representative or importer, the overseas seller would itself be treated as the producer. This is intended to address longstanding challenges under the existing framework, particularly the difficulty of enforcing product safety obligations against businesses based outside the UK that have no UK establishment or meaningful point of connection within the UK. The proposal aligns with the objectives of the new market surveillance and enforcement framework by ensuring there is always a directly accountable producer against whom enforcement action can be taken.
- Onward Suppliers
Onward suppliers is a new umbrella term that expands the existing concept of distributors under the UK GPSR. It covers a broader range of intermediaries whose activities do not affect the safety of a product, including retailers and wholesalers. It also, for the first time, includes fulfilment service providers, defined as persons who do not own the products but who provide at least two of warehousing, packaging, addressing, or dispatch services, excluding postal and parcel delivery services. This reflects a similar approach under EU product safety law and recognises the increasingly important role these intermediaries play in modern supply chains.
- Online Marketplaces
As expected, online marketplaces are proposed to be brought into the product safety framework as a distinct category of supply-chain actor in their own right. They will, for the first time, be subject to tailored statutory obligations that reflect their specific role in facilitating product sales, rather than directly supplying products themselves.
Local Presence Requirements: The "Responsible Person"
A further significant proposal concerns a potential requirement for a “responsible person” (“RP”) to be established in the UK. Under the EU General Product Safety Regulation (“EU GPSR”), the RP must be an EU‑based supply‑chain actor (such as the manufacturer, importer, authorised representative, or fulfilment service provider) who is responsible for product compliance, maintaining technical documentation, and acting as a point of contact for market surveillance authorities. The core policy objective is to ensure there is always an identifiable and accountable operator within the EU, particularly where the manufacturer is established outside the EU and would otherwise be beyond the effective reach of enforcement authorities.
By contrast, the government does not consider a blanket UK RP requirement proportionate for all products placed on the Great Britain market, particularly those posing minimal or low risk. It therefore proposes that a UK-based RP may be required for certain higher-risk products, especially where non-compliant goods are frequently supplied from overseas.
The RP is proposed to be a UK‑based producer, namely the manufacturer, the manufacturer’s authorised representative, or the importer. Unlike under the EU GPSR, a fulfilment service provider is not proposed to be included within the scope of the RP role. In practice, this would require overseas sellers to appoint an authorised representative or reach an agreement with an importer to take on this role, creating a domestic point of accountability for enforcement purposes. At this stage, however, the consultation does not specify how high-risk products would be defined or categorised for these purposes, nor how the requirement would be applied in practice. Further detail is expected to be developed through secondary legislation and guidance.
Digital by Default (Digital Product Labelling and Information)
The consultation proposes a gradual move towards a ‘digital by default’ approach to product information. Certain product information, including identifiers such as serial or batch numbers, would still need to appear physically on the product or its packaging. Other information, such as safety instructions, warnings and producer contact details, could instead be provided digitally, for example via QR codes or NFC tags, where no sector-specific rules require information to be provided physically.
Where information is provided digitally, the digital label must appear on the product or its packaging and make clear what information is available, with safety information clearly flagged as needing to be read before use. Consumers would retain the right to receive a physical copy of safety information on request at no additional cost.
The government notes that digital labelling is not currently permitted under the EU GPSR, meaning that products placed on the Northern Ireland market would continue to require physical labelling. If, however, the EU introduces digital product record requirements, the government intends to ensure that the same data carriers, such as QR codes or NFC and RFID tags, can also be used for digital labelling in the UK.
Online Marketplace Duties
The consultation proposes a new and comprehensive set of statutory duties for online marketplaces, reflecting their central role in modern supply chains and their increasing influence over which products reach UK consumers and end-users. As part of this shift, online marketplaces would be required to take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent, identify and remove dangerous or noncompliant products from their platforms, and to carry out due diligence on sellers, including verifying and maintaining accurate seller contact details.
For certain higher-risk products, marketplaces may also be required to take additional steps to assure themselves of compliance before listings go live. They would also be required to design their interfaces to enable clear and accessible product safety information to be provided to consumers prior to purchase, and to make clear whether products are sold by the marketplace itself or by third-party sellers. In addition, online marketplaces would be subject to statutory cooperation duties, including maintaining a single point of contact for regulators and supporting monitoring, investigations and corrective action, such as product recalls, where unsafe products are identified.
THE NEW MARKET SURVEILLANCE AND ENFORCEMENT FRAMEWORK
A Consolidated Enforcement Framework
The consultation proposes a fundamental overhaul of a market surveillance and enforcement landscape fragmented across more than 70 pieces of product-specific legislation, which often lacks clarity as to which authority is responsible at different points in the product lifecycle. The government intends to consolidate market surveillance and enforcement powers into a single framework applicable across all product regulation, with the aim of simplifying terminology, clarifying obligations, and confirming which authorities can and must act.
Tackling Overseas Businesses and Online Supply Chains
A key enforcement challenge is acting against overseas businesses selling unsafe or non-compliant products into the UK, particularly through online channels. While the consultation proposes retaining the existing UK GPSR definition of a producer, it also proposes that overseas businesses distance selling directly to UK customers should themselves be treated as producers where no UK-based manufacturer, authorised representative or importer exists. Those overseas businesses would then be subject to the full set of producer obligations and create a clear enforcement target.
The consultation also explores whether additional enforcement tools are needed for online and international supply chains. These include new powers to require online platforms to take action where other measures have failed, and for those with significant UK sales or poor compliance records to maintain a UK presence, enabling enforcement action to be taken domestically.
Categorising Offences by Regulatory Obligation
The consultation proposes categorising offences by reference to the type of regulatory obligation breached, in order to support more consistent and proportionate enforcement across product regulation. At the highest level, this would distinguish between core prohibitions, such as breaches of the general safety requirement, ESRs, and due care obligations, which sit at the heart of the product safety regime.
Separate categories would apply to pre-market requirements that must be completed before a product is placed on the market, and on-market requirements, which relate to ongoing monitoring, reporting, and corrective action once products are in circulation. Breaches of investigation obligations and compliance with regulatory notices would form a further category, reflecting duties to cooperate with authorities and comply with enforcement measures.
This structured approach is intended to align penalty levels with the nature and seriousness of the obligation breached, improve consistency across sectors and support transparent and proportionate enforcement outcomes.
Civil Monetary Penalties
Perhaps the most significant enforcement proposal is the introduction of civil monetary penalties across all areas of product regulation. While some sector-specific regimes already provide for civil monetary penalties (e.g., under the Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021), breaches of core product safety obligations are in many cases still treated almost exclusively as criminal offences. The government considers that this heavy reliance on criminal prosecution limits the ability of authorities to take proportionate, flexible and timely enforcement action.
Three types of civil monetary penalty are proposed: (i) fixed penalties for straightforward breaches; (ii) variable penalties reflecting the seriousness, scale, or impact of a breach; and (iii) escalating penalties that increase where non-compliance persists or continues over time.
Enforcement Undertakings
The consultation also proposes enabling businesses to offer enforcement undertakings where they acknowledge a compliance issue. If accepted by the relevant authority, an undertaking would commit the business to specified corrective actions within agreed timescales, and, if complied with satisfactorily, would prevent further enforcement action or prosecution. This mechanism is intended to support improvements without the need for formal notices or legal proceedings, and has already been used effectively under sector-specific regimes.
Undertakings are expected to be most appropriate for less serious breaches, such as labelling or production process issues, particularly where they are offered at an early stage and regulators are confident that the commitments will be met.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR BUSINESSES
Broader Scope Including Business Products. Businesses supplying products in a business-to-business context, and not only consumer products, will need to ensure compliance with the new framework. Businesses that have not previously been subject to general product safety obligations should begin assessing their potential exposure.
Supply Chain Actors Must Understand Their New Category. The introduction of the producer, onward supplier, and online marketplace categories, each with tailored duties, means that businesses must determine where they sit in the supply chain and what proactive obligations attach to them. Online marketplaces face particularly significant new responsibilities, including due diligence against noncompliant sellers and proactive monitoring of product listings.
Prepare for Digital Labelling but Physical Requirements Remain. The progressive move towards ‘digital by default’ product information will require investment in digital labelling infrastructure such as QR codes and NFC tags. Businesses should note that certain product information will still need to be provided physically, and consumers must still be able to obtain physical copies of safety information on request.
Civil Penalties Are Coming Across All Product Regulations. While civil monetary penalties already exist in certain sector-specific areas, their proposed extension across all product regulation including fixed, variable, and escalating penalties represents a step change in the enforcement landscape.
Accountability of Overseas Businesses. The government’s intention to treat overseas businesses selling directly into the UK as producers, where no UK-established manufacturer, authorised representative, or importer exists, combined with proposals for UK presence requirements for certain online marketplaces, signals a clear determination to close the enforcement gap for international supply chains. In addition, there are proposals to require the appointment of a RP for certain high‑risk products. Overseas businesses should therefore expect increased pressure to appoint a UK-based authorised representative or work with an importer to create a domestic point of accountability.
Consultation Timeline and Next Steps. The consultation closes on 23 June 2026, after which the government will publish a single response covering both sets of proposals within 12 weeks. Subject to the outcome, secondary legislation will be brought forward under the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025, with primary legislation where required. Implementation guidance for businesses and regulators will follow, and the government will consider appropriate transitional arrangements to allow products already compliant to remain on the market and to preserve the status of standards currently referenced under the UK GPSR. The government also has committed to reviewing and updating sector‑specific product safety regulations over the next three years, using the new core framework as the basis for simplification and consolidation.
