Governing-act context · first bounded lifecycle view
Low Voltage Directive
Directive 2014/35/EU · recast · EEA relevance
A consolidated text is a documentary aid. The authentic Official Journal acts remain the legal sources. This is not live legal monitoring.
At a glance
What this act is and where it sits
Directive 2014/35/EU sets EU safety and market rules for electrical equipment within specified voltage ranges. Article 1 combines a high level of protection for people, domestic animals and property with the functioning of the internal market. It recast Directive 2006/95/EC, which had codified the earlier Council Directive 73/23/EEC.
The Directive entered into force on 18 April 2014. Member States were to apply the required national measures from 20 April 2016, the same date on which Directive 2006/95/EC was repealed. The current consolidated text also incorporates Directive (EU) 2024/2749, which added internal-market-emergency procedures applying from .
- Legal status
- In force; EUR-Lex lists no end date in the checked document metadata.
- Legal basis
- Article 114 TFEU
- Scope in Article 1
- Electrical equipment for 50–1,000 V AC and 75–1,500 V DC, subject to the exclusions in Annex II.
Applicability
Who / what does this concern?
“Who this applies to” is not one legal question. This view separates the Directive's formal addressee from the products, market activities and economic-operator roles that the harmonised national rules concern.
- Formal addressee
- EU Member States. Article 29 addresses the Directive to the Member States; as a directive, it operates through national implementation rather than by treating this label as a personalised conclusion for an individual business.
- Object / material scope
- Electrical equipment designed for 50–1,000 V AC or 75–1,500 V DC, subject to Annex II exclusions.
- Market activity
- Article 2 defines making available on the market around supply for distribution, consumption or use on the Union market in the course of a commercial activity, whether paid or free of charge.
- Economic operators
- Manufacturer, authorised representative, importer and distributor are distinct roles. The Directive assigns different responsibilities to those roles.
- Territory / market context
- The operative market concepts are framed around the Union market; the act is also marked as text with EEA relevance. This page does not determine a reader's national implementation position.
- Time represented here
- This view describes the EU-level legal picture as of , including the 2024 amendment that applies from .
Major Annex II exclusions
Article 1 excludes the equipment and phenomena listed in Annex II. The represented list includes:
- electrical equipment for use in an explosive atmosphere;
- electrical equipment for radiology and medical purposes;
- electrical parts for goods and passenger lifts;
- electricity meters;
- plugs and socket outlets for domestic use;
- electric fence controllers;
- radio-electrical interference;
- certain specialised electrical equipment for ships, aircraft or railways that complies with relevant international safety provisions;
- custom-built evaluation kits for professionals used solely at research and development facilities.
Important: being outside LVD scope does not by itself tell you which other EU or national legal regime applies.
Open the full official Directive and Annex IIEconomic-operator orientation
Manufacturer
Primary responsibility for compliant design/manufacture, technical documentation, conformity assessment, EU declaration of conformity and CE marking where the Directive's conditions are met.
Article 6 — full sourceAuthorised representative
Acts under a written mandate for specified manufacturer tasks; the mandate does not transfer the manufacturer's design/manufacturing responsibility.
Article 7 — full sourceImporter
Must place only compliant electrical equipment on the market and performs specified pre-market checks and traceability/information duties.
Article 8 — full sourceDistributor
Must act with due care and perform specified checks before making electrical equipment available, with additional corrective/cooperation duties where relevant.
Article 9 — full sourceThis is role orientation, not a determination of which role you occupy or a complete list of obligations.
Lineage
Where it came from
Earlier regime
Council Directive 73/23/EEC Original low-voltage harmonisation act in this displayed lineage. Official textCodification
Directive 2006/95/EC The 2006 act expressly identifies itself as a codified version and says 73/23/EEC had been substantially amended. Official text · recital 1Current focal act
Directive 2014/35/EU The 2014 act is expressly a recast. Article 27 repealed Directive 2006/95/EC from 20 April 2016. Official text · recital 1 and Article 27Successor: no successor is represented in this evidence view. That is not a claim that no successor can exist or be proposed.
Lifecycle
Life of this act
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AdoptedDate of the Directive.
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PublishedOfficial Journal L 96, pp. 357–374.
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Entered into forceArticle 28: twentieth day following publication.
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Transposition deadlineArticle 26 required Member States to adopt and publish the specified national measures by this date.
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Application / repeal transitionRequired national measures applied from this date; Directive 2006/95/EC was repealed from the same date.
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Amending Directive adoptedDirective (EU) 2024/2749 amended the LVD for internal-market-emergency procedures.
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Emergency amendments applyThe current EUR-Lex consolidated text reflects the 2024/2749 amendment from this date.
Legal position
What shapes this act
These are different kinds of legal relationship. They are grouped for navigation, not collapsed into one generic “influence” edge.
Article 114 TFEU
The Directive was adopted on the internal-market harmonisation legal basis in Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Regulation (EC) No 765/2008
Recital 2 identifies this Regulation as the framework for accreditation, market surveillance, controls on products from third countries and general CE-marking principles.
Decision No 768/2008/EC
Recital 3 says the Decision provides common principles and reference provisions for product legislation and that Directive 2006/95/EC should be adapted to it.
Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012
Recitals 16–17 link the LVD's harmonised-standard mechanism and formal-objection procedure to the European Standardisation Regulation.
Directive (EU) 2024/2749
Article 8 adds LVD emergency procedures concerning conformity assessment, presumption of conformity, common specifications and market surveillance during an internal-market emergency.
Operative legal dependencies
External provisions this act relies on
These are not merely “related laws”. Each displayed provision supplies a definition or procedure needed to understand how the LVD mechanism works.
Relevant rule: the LVD defines “harmonised standard” by importing the definition from the European Standardisation Regulation.
Why this matters here: Article 12's presumption operates on “harmonised standards”; the external definition determines what that term means in this mechanism.
Open full official source · Article 2Relevant rule: Article 10(6) provides for publication of qualifying harmonised-standard references; Article 11 provides the formal-objection route and decisions to publish, not publish, restrict, maintain or withdraw references.
Why this matters here: this machinery helps determine whether the OJ-reference state behind the LVD presumption exists, is restricted or is withdrawn.
Open full official source · Articles 10–11Boundary: importing one definition or using one procedure does not mean the whole external Regulation is automatically imported into every LVD question.
Operative dependency
What flows from Article 12
Article 12 provides that electrical equipment conforming to harmonised standards, or parts of standards, whose references have been published in the Official Journal is presumed to conform to the safety objectives covered by those standards or parts. That presumption is limited to the objectives actually covered; it is not a general certificate of full product compliance.
Other represented routes: where Article 12 harmonised standards have not been drawn up and published, Article 13 provides a route involving published IEC safety provisions. Where neither Article 12 harmonised standards nor Article 13 international standards are available in the stated way, Article 14 provides a further national-standard route subject to its conditions.
- Directive 2014/35/EU · Article 12 Creates the presumption-of-conformity mechanism.
- Harmonised-standard reference in the OJ The reference state matters: cited, restricted or not cited.
- Standard-specific legal effect The presumption applies only within the scope actually covered by the published reference.
Frozen LVD examples already available in this prototype:
Verification
Official evidence
Major claims above link directly to EUR-Lex. Machine identifiers and detailed locators are secondary to the human-readable explanation.