EU Regulatory Requirements for Jewellery
2026-09-07REACH stands for Regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals. It consists of four parts: registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction. Since 1 June 2009, the former EU Dangerous Substances Directive 76/769/EEC has been replaced by REACH Annex XVII. At present, REACH Annex XVII contains more than 60 substances. For jewellery, the substances controlled under REACH Annex XVII mainly include lead, cadmium, nickel release and phthalates. In addition, Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) defined under Article 57 of REACH have been expanded to 173 substances so far.
|
Regulation Clause |
Controlled Item |
Limit Value |
|
REACH ANNEX XVII 23 |
Cadmium and its compounds |
Plastics and metal: 100 mg/kg; Coatings: 1000 mg/kg |
|
REACH ANNEX XVII 27 |
Nickel release |
Piercing articles: 0.2 μg/cm²/week Articles with prolonged skin contact: 0.5 μg/cm²/week |
|
REACH ANNEX XVII 43 |
Azo dyes |
30mg/kg |
|
REACH ANNEX XVII 50 |
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) |
Applicable to plastic components in direct, prolonged or short-term repeated contact with skin or mouth. PAHs (8P: BaP, BeP, BaA, CHR, BbFA, BjFA, BkFA, DBAhA): each ≤ 1 mg/kg |
|
REACH ANNEX XVII 51 |
Phthalates |
BBP+DBP+DIBP+DEHP ≤1000 mg/kg |
|
REACH ANNEX XVII 63 |
Lead |
500mg/kg |
|
REACH SVHC |
SVHC |
1. 1000 mg/kg (notification required if exceeding the limit). 2. Two conditions must be met simultaneously for SVHC notification in articles: (1) Concentration of a certain SVHC in the article exceeds 0.1%; (2) The total quantity of this SVHC across all products manufactured by the manufacturer placed on the EU market exceeds 1 tonne per year. 3. In accordance with EU Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC (WFD), if the concentration of an SVHC substance in an article exceeds 0.1% (mass fraction), SCIP notification to ECHA is mandatory, and information must be submitted to the SCIP database. |