What is RoHS Directive 2011/65/EU — Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electronics, and does it apply to your product?

If you're importing or reselling electronics into the European Union, RoHS Directive 2011/65/EU is one of the first things you need to check — not after you've placed a purchase order, but before.

RoHS stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances. It limits the amount of certain toxic materials that can be present in electrical and electronic equipment sold in the EU. This covers a wide range of products: phone accessories, chargers, cables, small appliances, LED lighting, toys with electronic components, and more. If it has a circuit board, a battery, or plugs into a wall, assume RoHS applies until you've confirmed otherwise.

The directive restricts ten substances, each with its own limit measured in parts per million (ppm) by weight:

- Lead (Pb): 1,000 ppm

- Mercury (Hg): 1,000 ppm

- Cadmium (Cd): 100 ppm

- Hexavalent Chromium: 1,000 ppm

- PBB: 1,000 ppm

- PBDE: 1,000 ppm

- DEHP: 1,000 ppm

- BBP: 1,000 ppm

- DBP: 1,000 ppm

- DIBP: 1,000 ppm

Cadmium has a notably stricter limit than the rest — 100 ppm versus 1,000 ppm for everything else — so it's worth double-checking components like plastics, solder, and pigments where cadmium sometimes shows up.

To demonstrate compliance, you'll typically need:

- A RoHS Declaration of Conformity

- A Material Composition Report (MCR)

- XRF (X-ray fluorescence) test results

- Supply chain RoHS certificates from your manufacturer

- ICP-