Anyone selling consumer goods in the EU must display two new labels as of 27 September 2026. Their purpose is to make a buyer's rights visible at a glance – for example when a washing machine or smartphone breaks down after only a few weeks.
## The legal-guarantee label The first label states the statutory guarantee: at least two years during which consumers who receive a faulty product are entitled to a free repair or replacement. It has a standardised form and must be placed clearly visibly by the retailer – in a physical shop on a poster on a visible wall or next to the till, and in an online shop as a general notice on the website.
Several features are fixed and cannot be altered, including a scannable QR code that leads to further information about guarantees in the consumer's own language. In printed form the label may not be smaller than A4. In stores it may be colour or black and white; online it must be in colour.
## The GARAN label The second label concerns voluntary manufacturer warranties. If a manufacturer offers an additional guarantee of a product's durability, it must mark the product with the GARAN label, so buyers can quickly see how many years the product is supposed to work without problems – and otherwise be repaired or replaced free of charge by the manufacturer.
The obligation applies to voluntary commercial guarantees that are valid for more than two years, cover the whole product and cost consumers nothing extra.
## Where the rules come from Both labels look the same across the EU so that consumers recognise them easily. They are based on the EmpCo Directive (EU) 2024/825, “Empowering Consumers for a Green Transition”, implemented in Germany in Article 246(1), numbers 5 and 5a of the EGBGB, and the mandatory legal-guarantee notice also stems from Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1960.
For shoppers, what changes is less the law itself than its visibility: rights that previously lived in statute books and terms and conditions now sit at the checkout.
