Chapter I, general provisions
Article 3: Definitions
Forty-four definitions fix the meaning of product, service, consumer, microenterprise, placing on the market and the named service groups.
- Citation
- Article 3, CELEX 32019L0882 (Directive)
- Binds
- Everyone who has to apply the instrument, because the definitions decide who is caught and what triggers a duty.
- In the instrument
- Chapter I, general provisions
- Applies from
- 28 June 2025 for products placed and services provided from that date (Article 31(2)). The Article 4(8) 112 duty may be deferred to 28 June 2027 where a member state uses Article 31(3).
- Source
- EUR-Lex, CELEX 32019L0882
What it requires
Article 3 supplies 44 definitions. The ones that decide most files are: product, a manufactured good other than food, feed, live plants and animals and similar; service, as defined in the services directive; service provider, anyone who offers or supplies a service in the Union or to consumers there; and consumer, a natural person acting outside trade, business, craft or profession.
Two definitions carry the date mechanics. Making available on the market is any supply for distribution, consumption or use in the course of commercial activity, with or without payment. Placing on the market is the first such making available in the Union. A product designed earlier but first supplied after the cut-off is caught.
The size definitions decide the exemption. A microenterprise employs fewer than ten people and has turnover at or below EUR 2 million or a balance sheet total at or below EUR 2 million. An SME employs fewer than 250 people and meets the turnover or balance sheet test, and the definition expressly excludes microenterprises.
In practice
The definition map is worth keeping to one page. For each legal entity, write the headcount, the turnover and the balance sheet total with the date and the source. For each product, write the first date it was made available in the Union and the evidence for that date, such as the first invoice or the first customs entry. Those two pages settle most scope arguments before they reach a lawyer.
What to do
- Record which definition each legal entity and each offer meets.
- Test microenterprise status on headcount and the financial limb together, with dated evidence.
- Record the first placing on the market for each model, not the first sale to a consumer.
- Keep the written mandate if an authorised representative acts for a manufacturer.
Evidence to keep
- Headcount and accounts extract for the microenterprise test, dated.
- A product launch record that fixes the first making available in the Union.
- The written mandate where an authorised representative is appointed.
- A definition map for each service group relied on.
Dates
- 2025-06-28The date used by the placing on the market and service definitions. (Article 2, Article 3(15), (16))
Cross-references
Where teams get this wrong
Teams read microenterprise as a turnover test alone. The text requires fewer than ten people and one of the two financial limbs. A company with nine staff and a EUR 3 million turnover is outside the exemption.
Read from the Official Journal text of Directive (EU) 2019/882, OJ L 151/70, 7 June 2019, Article 3. Check it yourself: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32019L0882. This page states the provision in our own words and is not legal advice; it does not certify any product or service.