The government has introduced legislation that indefinitely recognizes CE marking for UK market access. Applying the UKCA mark for electronics products is no longer required.
This extension comes into force on 1st October 2024, before the (most recently) proposed UKCA introduction date of 31 December 2024
What does it not apply to?
UKCA marking will still be required for the other equipment including Medical Devices and Marine Equipment. See the page on the UK government website for more details.
Essentially the government departments in charge of these regulations have not yet decided whether or not.
Amendment Wording
The amendments made to each of these pieces of legislation revoke provisions
What does the amendment do? The Explanatory Note at the bottom of the regulation makes it clearer. The amendments made to each of these pieces of legislation revoke provisions that set out the expiry of provisions which themselves allow obligations in the legislation as it applies in Great Britain to be met by complying with requirements of the corresponding EU law…Meaning: the expiry date of CE marking is withdrawn
…they replace this provision with a provision allowing relevant economic operators to meet any conformity assessment or testing requirements in the legislation as it applies in Great Britain by complying with the corresponding EU conformity assessment or testing requirements. Meaning: CE marking is acceptable for placing products on the market in the UK
Option for continuing to apply UKCA
If you want to keep applying the UKCA mark then you can do this. One reason the UK government website gives for continuing with UKCA marking is: "This is designed to provide longer-term certainty and flexibility for businesses in case the UK mandates UKCA for certain regulations in the future."
If you want to try and bet on the future, given how much of a success UKCA has been so far, then you are more than welcome to do so. There is a “fast track” available for equipment compliant with CE marking requirements whereby the manufacturer:
- Ensure conformity with CE marking Essential Requirements
- Affix the UKCA marking
- Draw up UK Declaration of Conformity and list compliance with EU regulations
There are plans for the UKCA mark to have the option to be applied separately to the main label or in the accompanying documentation (either by the manufacturer or the importer), or to use digital labeling. These are supposed to be coming later in 2024 but with a general election looming, let’s all pretend to be surprised when this gets delayed.
Effect on manufacturers?
The application of UKCA marking in parallel to CE marking has been regrettably rendered rather redundant
All the hard work users have spent updating documentation, labeling, technical documentation, and producing UK Declarations of Conformity to support the application of UKCA marking in parallel to CE marking has been regrettably rendered rather redundant (wasted).
On the plus side, paperwork burden is just significantly reduced for the future!
What is Unit 3 Compliance doing?
Unit 3 Compliance quotations for testing for the UK market will only refer to CE marking, EU Directives (the right-hand column above), and Harmonised Standards.
It is working on the assumption that most of our customers want to minimize their costs and minimize the amount of time spent creating paperwork and labeling. Instead, users would rather be designing the next product, managing the production, answering emails, etc.