If you make or import physical products for sale in England, Scotland or Wales, the marking on the box is not paperwork you can skip. The Department for Business and Trade has updated its guidance on UKCA or CE marking, and it directly affects whether your product can legally be sold.
The Department for Business and Trade confirmed on 21 August that businesses can continue using either the UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) mark or the EU’s Conformité Européenne (CE) mark to sell into Great Britain. The guidance covers more than 20 product types, from electrical goods and toys to aerosols and rail equipment, and sits under the Product Safety and Metrology (Amendment) Regulations 2024, which lets the UK keep recognising CE marking alongside UKCA rather than forcing a hard switch.
Why this matters for small manufacturers
Many small manufacturers had budgeted for the cost and delay of moving every product line to UKCA-only marking. This update removes that pressure for now: firms can keep using CE marking on goods sold in Great Britain, provided the underlying rules for that product type are met. That flexibility matters most to businesses already stretched by rising import costs, similar to the pressures covered in our look at the new EU customs rules small importers must check in 2026.
It is not a blanket exemption, though. The guidance sets out different responsibilities depending on whether your business is the manufacturer, an authorised representative, an importer or a distributor. Import your own branded product from overseas, or modify someone else’s, and you legally become the “manufacturer” for compliance purposes, taking on the full duty to hold technical documentation and a Declaration of Conformity, a similar certification burden to the SERMI approval garages need to keep servicing secure cars.
What to check before you sell
Not every product needs a conformity marking at all. The same compliance pressure is playing out elsewhere, such as garages needing SERMI approval to keep servicing secure cars and retailers facing the government’s crackdown on non-compliant shops. The rules only apply where sector-specific regulation requires it, so the first job is confirming whether your product type is covered. Compliance requirements like this echo the specialist approval process described in our report on a garage securing SERMI approval to keep servicing secure cars, and then whether it needs to meet standards set by bodies such as the British Standards Institution (BSI). Designated standards give a “presumption of conformity” but using them is voluntary in most sectors, except construction products, where it is mandatory.
This kind of sector-by-sector approval process will feel familiar to owners who have been through a formal accreditation themselves, such as the Accrington workshop that recently secured SERMI approval to keep servicing secure cars. The lesson is the same: check the specific requirement for your product before you assume general compliance is enough.
Retailers stocking third-party goods carry responsibility too. Distributors must confirm the manufacturer’s identification details and marking are correct before goods reach the shelf, a duty that sits alongside the wider push on legitimate trading covered in our piece on the government’s crackdown on dodgy shops.
What to do next
Identify which regulations apply to your specific product, confirm whether CE or UKCA marking (or both) is required, and check whether a designated standard applies. If you import or rebrand goods, work out now whether that makes you the legal manufacturer, because the paperwork obligations that come with it are not optional.
