What has changed this year for mattresses in the field of product safety
Since December 2024, the General Product Safety Regulation applies, often referred to by its English acronym GPSR (General Product Safety Regulation). This regulation replaces the older European Product Safety Directive and applies to virtually all consumer products sold in the EU, including mattresses. It is separate from the mattress regulation and the digital product passport that matrapas.eu focuses on; that process is expected to follow later this decade. The GPSR is already in place, now.
Who this affects: manufacturers, importers and distributors of mattresses, but also web shops and online marketplaces that sell mattresses to consumers. The regulation primarily affects the process around safety and traceability, not the environmental and circularity data that the future digital passport covers. Both regulations can apply to the same mattress, but they govern different matters and have different timelines.
Why this is separate from the digital product passport
It is confusing for many companies that multiple European rules apply to the same product at the same time. The mattress regulation and the associated digital product passport fall under the ecodesign framework (ESPR) and concern sustainability: materials, repairability, recyclability. The General Product Safety Regulation concerns something older and broader: whether the product is safe in use, and whether a problem can be quickly identified and recalled if necessary. A company placing mattresses on the market can thus be subject to both regulations, each with its own timeline and its own obligations. Companies that keep this distinction clear avoid confusing one obligation with the other. the overview of all topics per situation places the two regulations side by side.
What is substantially different from before
The GPSR tightens a number of matters that were more loosely regulated under the old directive. For example, for products coming from outside the EU, or sold through an online marketplace, a responsible party within the EU must be identifiable who can be held accountable for safety. There are also stricter requirements for being able to trace a product back to the manufacturer or importer, and for reporting accidents or defects that could pose a risk. For buyers, there is a clearer right to repair, replacement or refund for an unsafe product. The precise scope and exceptions are set out in the official text of the regulation; this can be consulted via EUR-Lex.
What this means in practice for a mattress company
The regulation essentially requires two things to be in order: knowing who is responsible for what in your supply chain, and being able to demonstrate that a mattress is traceable back to the manufacturer. For a manufacturer, this often means reviewing existing documentation and contact details. For an importer or distributor, it primarily means checking whether the supplier you are buying from has already arranged the required information and points of contact. Anyone selling mattresses under their own brand may have their own position here; that depends on the role the company plays in the supply chain, and that is precisely the kind of question for which the competent supervisory authority or a lawyer is the right party.
How you can approach this without getting lost in two regulations
It helps to treat product safety and the future digital passport as two separate files, even though they both concern the same mattress. For the GPSR, the emphasis is already on documentation and points of contact; for the digital passport, the emphasis is on collecting material and sustainability data towards the expected date of application. A good time to sort this out is before a delegated act or new guideline makes obligations concrete, not after. With a brief scan that shows where your company stands at the moment you get a first picture of which topics are relevant for your situation, without any obligations.
Where you can explore this further
This text describes the main points of the General Product Safety Regulation and how it relates to the digital product passport for mattresses; it is not legal advice about your own situation. For the exact obligations applicable to your company, the official regulation text is the starting point, supplemented with the explanation from the competent supervisory authority in the Netherlands. Curious how we obtain our information and which sources we use? That is explained on the page about how matrapas.eu compiles its information.
Would you like to know which of these topics apply to your company, without having to spend an afternoon looking into it yourself? Take the free quick-scan or browse through the topics in the knowledge base; both give a first, free picture of where you stand.