In Europe, Calling a Gadget 'Repairable' When It Isn't Is Now Illegal

For years, "repairable" was a word that marketing departments could use however they liked. A phone with a glued-shut battery and no spare parts program could still ship in a box that talked about sustainability. As of 27 September 2026, that trick is illegal across the European Union.

The change comes from the Empowering Consumers Directive, known as EmpCo (Directive 2024/825), which started applying in all 27 EU member states last month. Among its targets: companies that present a product as repairable when it is not. That practice is now blacklisted, which in EU consumer law means it is prohibited in all circumstances. Regulators do not need to prove that a shopper was actually misled. The claim alone is the violation.

What the blacklist actually bans

The blacklist is the sharp end of the directive. Europe's older unfair commercial practices rules already let authorities go after misleading claims, but those cases required proving that a claim materially distorted a consumer's decision. The blacklist skips that step: if the practice fits the description, it is unfair, full stop.

Repairability gets explicit treatment. Prohibited practices now include presenting a good as repairable when it is not, and falsely claiming a certain durability in terms of usage time or intensity. Building a feature into a product specifically to limit its durability is also blacklisted, where information about the feature is available to the trader. That is the legal term for planned obsolescence, and it is now banned by name.

Software gets the same treatment. Presenting a software update as "necessary" when it only adds functionality is prohibited. Withholding information that an update will negatively affect how a product works is prohibited too. And manufacturers cannot push consumers to replace consumables, such as printer ink, earlier than technically necessary.

One more provision will matter to anyone who has ever seen a scary warning pop up after a repair. Withholding information about impaired functionality when non-original consumables, spare parts or accessories are used, or falsely claiming that such impairment will occur, is now blacklisted. The scare screen that says your phone is broken because a shop used an aftermarket battery is exactly the kind of message regulators can now treat as illegal.

The claim alone is the violation. Regulators no longer have to prove anyone was actually fooled.

What sellers must disclose before you buy

EmpCo does not stop at banning bad claims. It also creates new duties to say true things before the sale. Online and in-store, traders must now provide the repairability score where one applies, or, where it does not, information on spare parts, repair instructions and repair restrictions. For goods with digital elements, sellers must state the minimum period during which software updates will be provided.

Shoppers must also see a harmonized EU notice reminding them of their statutory legal guarantee rights, and where a producer offers a free commercial guarantee of durability covering the whole product for more than two years, an EU harmonized label (the GARAN durability label) must be shown. Environmentally friendly delivery options must be flagged where available.

There is a catch: several of these duties apply only where the producer has made the information available to the trader. But the explanatory material behind the directive warns that this does not release traders from their own responsibility to inform consumers, and producers are generally expected to be aware of features in their products that limit durability.

Why regulators finally moved

The Commission did not write this law on a hunch. In a study of 150 environmental claims, it found that 53.3 percent were vague, misleading or unfounded. In a separate sweep of 344 claims by the Commission and national consumer authorities, there was reason to believe 42 percent could be false or misleading. When more than half of the green claims on the market cannot stand up to scrutiny, regulators stop asking nicely.

The timeline was not sudden either. EmpCo was adopted in early 2024, member states had to transpose it into national law by 27 March 2026, and the rules started applying on 27 September 2026, exactly 26 weeks later. Germany transposed in February 2026, Hungary in December 2025, and most other countries met the March deadline.

Enforcement has teeth, and old stock gets no free pass

Harmonized rules do not mean identical enforcement. Each country's authorities handle their own cases, but the tools are serious. The Dutch authority, the ACM, can issue public warnings, impose binding instructions, order periodic penalty payments and levy substantial turnover-dependent fines. In Hungary, the competition authority does not even need to prove a consumer was influenced, because the 12 new prohibited sustainability practices are automatically unfair once established.

One of the most debated questions was what happens to products already sitting on shelves. The directive provides no transition period: from 27 September, the rules cover products already manufactured, ordered, distributed or sitting in warehouses. The practical answer from the EU's Consumer Protection Cooperation Network is remediation rather than relief, such as covering non-compliant claims with stickers or adding correct information at the point of sale. National authorities may take a phased approach where businesses face genuine transitional difficulties, but reasonable efforts to comply are expected immediately.

What this means for repair

For repair advocates, EmpCo is a different kind of weapon than the right-to-repair directives that get most of the headlines. Those laws, like the EU's right-to-repair directive and its seven-year spare parts obligations, force manufacturers to make repair possible. EmpCo forces them to stop lying about whether it already is. A company that sells a sealed device while its advertising whispers "designed to last" now faces a claim that needs no proof of deception, only proof of the claim.

The practical effect will build slowly. The first enforcement cases will likely target the easy wins: repairability claims on products with no spare parts program, durability badges invented by the marketing team, software updates labeled "required" that only add features. But the deeper change is in the product pages and packaging being rewritten right now across the EU. Every seller that once let "repairable" mean "you can try, good luck" now has to reckon with a regulator that reads the word literally. That is exactly what it should mean.