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Step-by-Step Compliance Guides

Machinery Makers: The 2027 Rules to Budget For

Take a workshop that buys a second-hand CNC router and fits a better spindle motor itself. Good engineering, sensible money. Under the rules that apply until January 2027, that modification is the workshop's business. Under the Machinery Regulation that replaces them, a modification like that can legally turn the workshop into the machine's manufacturer — with a conformity assessment, a declaration and a CE mark to match.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 applies from 20 January 2027, replacing the Machinery Directive that has governed the sector since 2006. Here's what changes and who it catches.

eBay and Etsy Sellers: Compliance Applies to You Too

When the EU's GPSR enforcement wave hit marketplace sellers, the pattern repeated itself across the platforms: sellers who'd never thought of themselves as "real businesses" — a woodworker selling children's toys on Etsy, a vintage dealer on eBay — found their listings blocked for missing a responsible person in the EU. Same message, same requirement, same surprise.

The underlying rule of marketplaces: the platform takes the payment and the traffic, but you are the economic operator. The law has applied to individual sellers for years; the platforms started enforcing it recently. Here's what actually applies and what to do about it.

US Packaging EPR: Five States, Five Rulebooks

You ship a box of candles to Denver, Portland, Sacramento, Minneapolis and Portland again — the other one, in Maine. Five packages, five states, and now five different extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs that consider you, the brand owner, responsible for what happens to that packaging when the customer is done with it.

US packaging EPR is rolling out state by state, and small brands keep assuming it doesn't apply to them. Sometimes it doesn't — each state has exemptions. But the direction is clear, and California's deadline is the one to put in your calendar right now.

BRCGS vs IFS: The Food Safety Cert Buyers Want

Say you make excellent preserved sauces. For years you've sold through delis and your own website. Then a supermarket chain comes calling — big volume, big excitement — and one line in the contract: "Supplier shall hold a GFSI-recognised certification, such as BRCGS or IFS."

For most food businesses, that's the moment certification stops being optional. Here's what the two standards actually are, what they cost a small producer, and how to pick.

NOM Certification Mexico: Standards, Mark & Labels

Say you sell furniture into Mexico City through a distributor and it goes fine for a year. Then you add a lamp with a USB port to the range, and the next shipment is held at customs. The furniture sails through. The lamp needed a NOM certificate.

Mexico's Normas Oficiales Mexicanas, the NOM standards, apply selectively: some categories sail through, others can't cross the border without a certificate. These are the ones that matter, and what to do about them.

Brazil's INMETRO: Why Goods Sit at the Port

It usually goes like this: a distributor in São Paulo is selling your product well, and then a second container gets held at Santos for three weeks while customs keep asking for something called INMETRO.

Brazil has one of the strictest product certification regimes in the Americas, and it catches first-time exporters who assumed a CE mark or an FCC ID would be enough. It isn't. Here's how the system works and what to do about it before you ship.

The Gulf G-Mark: Selling Electronics to the GCC

Six countries, one customs union, and one mark for your power adapters. The Gulf region gets treated as a single market in trade agreements, but most small exporters learn the details one rejected shipment at a time. Here is the version we wish every electronics brand got before their first Dubai order.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — requires the G-Mark for low-voltage electrical equipment sold in the region. If you sell chargers, appliances, lighting or AV gear there, this is your entry ticket.

Selling into China? The CCC Mark Is the Gate

Look at the label of any iPhone sold in mainland China and you'll see the CCC mark stamped next to the model number. It's a condition of sale, and Apple complies because there is no alternative: China has its own compulsory certification system, and it doesn't care about your CE mark or your FCC ID. Goods without the right certificate don't clear customs.

If you sell physical products into mainland China, the China Compulsory Certification (CCC) system decides whether your goods cross the border. This post covers how it works, what it costs, and what a small company can realistically do.

Your Compliance Calendar: The Deadlines That Matter

The biggest packaging law in EU history already applies. If you missed that one, you're not alone — it arrived on 12 August 2026 and most small businesses didn't notice. The next eighteen months bring a cluster of deadlines that will do more to change what you can sell than anything in the last five years. Here they are, in one place, with what each one actually means for a small company.