The New EU GARAN Label
What is the legislation and background
Starting on 27 September 2026, two new requirements apply to goods sold to consumers in the EU. Sellers must display a standardized Harmonized Notice about consumer guarantee rights. Where a producer offers a qualifying commercial guarantee of durability of more than two years, sellers must display a separate label called GARAN for the relevant product. Both requirements trace back to the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (ECGT) Directive, which amended the existing Consumer Rights Directive. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1960 sets out the exact design and wording for both the notice and the label.
A minimum two-year legal guarantee has applied across the EU for years, although individual Member States may provide longer periods or additional rights. By way of general illustration, and subject to applicable national rules:
- Spain: the legal guarantee period for new goods is generally three years (since 2022).
- Portugal: the legal guarantee period for movable goods is generally three years (since 2022), specific rules apply to used goods.
- France: the legal guarantee period is generally two years, with the seller responsible for lack of conformity under the applicable statutory conditions.
- Germany: the standard limitation period for conformity claims is generally two-year, specific rules may apply to second-hand goods.
- Netherlands: there is no single fixed statutory guarantee period for all goods; how long a product must remain in conformity depends on what the consumer may reasonably expect, taking into account factors such as the product’s nature, price and expected lifespan.
The Harmonized Notice and the GARAN label give the Commission a single, fixed way to communicate guarantee rights to shoppers across the EU, while any longer or additional rights under national law continue to apply.
Why is it legislated
The push sits inside the EU’s wider green transition agenda, which treats longer product lifespans as a way to cut waste and repeat purchases. The GARAN label serves that goal directly. It gives producers a visible market benefit for offering qualifying guarantees beyond two-year, and it lets shoppers compare those commitments across brands at a glance, rather than hunting through product pages or terms and conditions to work out which qualifying guarantee actually runs longer.
A second driver centers on awareness. The underlying minimum two-year legal guarantee has existed for years, but regulators cite low consumer awareness as a persistent problem, and that same awareness gap extends to commercial durability guarantees, which have historically varied in how clearly these are communicated from one producer to the next. The Harmonized Notice covers the baseline legal right while the GARAN label covers a separate qualifying commercial guarantee of durability offered by the producer, using a fixed, standardized design. The commercial guarantee does not affect consumers’ statutory rights against the seller.
Harmonised Notice
What is the GARAN label
GARAN, a name built from the word “guarantee” across EU languages, applies only where a producer offers at no additional cost, a whole-product commercial guarantee of durability running longer than two years and makes that information available to the seller. It works differently from the Harmonized Notice, attaching to a specific qualifying product rather than a whole store or website.
The label carries a fixed content together with the duration of the guarantee in years, which must be inserted in the designated field. The GARAN title, QR code to the Your Europe portal, calendar icon, and translated text across all EU languages and other design elements stay fixed and must not be altered. In physical retail, the official colour and black-and-white versions are both permitted. Online, colour is required, with an official compact nested format built for tighter product listing layouts.
The example below is for illustrative purposes only and should not be understood as indicating that all MMD products qualify for the GARAN label. Eligibility depends on the guarantee offered for the specific product.
What is the scope of the requirement, and who is covered
The requirements in relation to the GARAN label apply to businesses selling goods directly to consumers in the EU, including non-EU and UK businesses where they direct such sales to EU consumers through websites, distributors, or marketplaces. The precise scope depends on the relevant consumer contract and sales channel. A short list of exceptions covers food, healthcare contracts, and vending machine sales.
A product qualifies for the GARAN label only when all of the following apply:
- The guarantee is free, with no additional cost to the consumer.
- It covers the entire product, rather than a single part or component.
- Its duration runs longer than two-years.
- The producer makes the guarantee details available to the seller.
Businesses engaged exclusively in B2B or OEM arrangements, with no consumer-facing sales in the EU, fall outside these consumer-information requirements. However, a producer may still need to provide qualifying guarantee information to sellers where its goods are subsequently offered to EU consumers.
What it means on the ground for the display market
The GARAN label carries particular weight for display manufacturers, given how common three-year or longer warranties already are. However, a warranty lasting more than two years qualifies only if it is offered by the producer at no additional cost, covers the entire product and constitutes a commercial guarantee of durability. Compliance work therefore starts with a product by product and market-by -market warranty audit to identify which models qualify. Producers carry the responsibility for supplying accurate GARAN information to retailers and distributors, while sellers are responsible for displaying the label prominently for each qualifying product.
Timeline
The Harmonised Notice and, where the relevant conditions are met, the GARAN label requirements both apply from 27 September 2026. Official templates for the notice, covering all EU official languages, and for the label, in colour, black-and-white, and nested formats, are already available through the European Commission. Businesses should use only the official templates and follow the applicable display requirements.