Turkish Furniture Index
Rule
General Product Safety Regulation
Instrument
Regulation (EU) 2023/988
Applies from
13 December 2024
Key article
Article 16
Binds
Manufacturer, importer, distributor, marketplace
Exporting to the EU
4,781 firms

GPSR: the rule that reaches furniture because nothing else does

The EU writes safety law product by product — toys, machinery, electrical goods. It has written none for a wooden chair. The General Product Safety Regulation is the rule that covers what the specific rules do not reach, and it has covered furniture since 13 December 2024.

Why furniture is inside it

Article 2 sets the scope by subtraction.

This Regulation applies to products that are placed or made available on the market insofar as there are no specific provisions with the same objective under Union law which regulate the safety of the products concerned.

Regulation (EU) 2023/988, Article 2(1)

The same article then lists what is carved out: medicines, food, feed, living plants and animals, animal by-products, plant protection products, ridden equipment operated by a service provider, certain aircraft, and antiques. Furniture is not on that list, and no specific EU safety law regulates a chair. So it is in, and it is in whole.

The date is not coming. It has passed.

Article 52 of the regulation is one line long.

It shall apply from 13 December 2024.

Regulation (EU) 2023/988, Article 52

It replaced the old General Product Safety Directive, which was repealed with effect from the same day. Goods lawfully placed on the market before that date under the old directive could stay there. Everything shipped since is under the new rule.

Article 16, and why it is the one that bites

A product covered by this Regulation shall not be placed on the market unless there is an economic operator established in the Union who is responsible for the tasks set out in Article 4(3) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 in respect to that product.

Regulation (EU) 2023/988, Article 16(1)

Shall not be placed on the market. Not shall be labelled, not should be documented. A product from a maker outside the EU without someone inside the EU answering for it is not allowed on the market at all.

That someone can be the importer, an authorised representative, or a fulfilment service. It cannot be the factory in Bursa, because the factory is not established in the Union. So on any Türkiye-to-EU order, the question is not whether a responsible person exists — it is which of the two parties agreed to be it, and whether that was written down.

Their name goes on the product

The regulation puts the contact details on the goods, not only in a file. Where the manufacturer is not established in the Union, the product or its packaging must carry the name and the postal and electronic address of the responsible person under Article 16(1). The same applies to a product listing sold online.

That is a printing instruction with a commercial edge. If the importer is the responsible person and the label carries their address, the label says who the importer is. Some buyers care about that a great deal.

What a buyer can ask for

Who this reaches4,781

4,781 of the 8,923 Turkish exporters in this index sell into at least one EU market — the population GPSR reaches.

Counted across 26 EU member states. Northern Cyprus (1,090 firms) is not counted: it is outside the EU customs territory.

Can you reach them?

Article 16 is arranged between two parties. So the first practical question is whether a buyer can get hold of the factory at all.

Exporting to the EU
4,781
List a website
1,396
Website online
698
With a company page here
673

29% of these firms list a website, and 698 of those sites are online — about 15% of the firms this regulation reaches.

That is not a comment on whether those firms make good furniture. Plenty of serious factories in İnegöl sell through agents and have never needed a website. Arranging a responsible person needs a counterparty who replies, and for most of these firms the first step is a phone call in Turkish.

EU exporters with a website online698

The shortest list on this page, and the one where a buyer can start with an email.

The other rules on the same firms

Sources3

Each link goes to the text the fact above was read from. Opened and read on 7 September 2026.

  1. Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety — full text Article 16(1), Article 19 and Article 52. Every sentence quoted on this page is from this text.
  2. Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 on market surveillance Article 4(3), where the responsible person’s tasks are actually written down. Article 16 points at it.
  3. European Commission — CE marking Why furniture is a non-harmonised product, and why GPSR is the rule that reaches it.

Nothing on this page is legal advice.

The other rules5