You import Bluetooth speakers from Shenzhen. A market surveillance officer asks for the technical documentation for one model. You forward the folder your supplier sent: eleven PDFs headed “RoHS Certificate”, each with a lab logo, each saying the product passed. The officer replies that none of this is a technical file and repeats the request. The deadline is days, and your supplier is on holiday.
The other version: a lab pulls a sample apart and lead turns up above the limit in the solder of one internal board nobody ever tested. Everything else is clean, the product is still non-compliant, and you placed it on the market. Both cases share a root cause. Importers treat RoHS and WEEE as paperwork the factory handles, when in law both land on the importer. If you are importing electronics from China to the EU, these are the two obligations most often mixed up, and they work nothing alike.
What is RoHS in the EU?
RoHS is Directive 2011/65/EU, which restricts ten hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment sold in the EU. The scope is open: if your product has an electrical function and is not on the exclusion list, it is in. You demonstrate compliance with documentation, kept for ten years after the last unit went on the market.
It is also part of your CE marking claim. Signing an EU Declaration of Conformity asserts RoHS conformity alongside EMC, radio and low voltage. If the RoHS side collapses, the CE mark is wrong too: a second breach on top of the substance.
Which substances are restricted, and at what limits?
RoHS restricts ten substances, nine at 0.1% by weight and cadmium at 0.01%. The original six were lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE). Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2015/863 added four phthalates at 0.1%: DEHP, BBP, DBP and DIBP.
The unit of measurement catches people out. Limits apply per homogeneous material, not per product and not per component. A homogeneous material is one you cannot mechanically separate: the tin in a solder joint, the plating on a pin, the plasticiser in one wire sleeve. A cable can pass as an assembly and still fail because one sheath is over the DEHP limit. Phthalates are harder than the metals, because plasticisers hide in jackets, grommets, seals and adhesives nobody tests. RoHS is also not REACH, which has a wider list and its own triggers.
What is a RoHS exemption, and why is an expired one a live risk?
An exemption is a time-limited permission to exceed a RoHS limit in a specific application, listed in Annex III or Annex IV: lead in certain high-melting-temperature solders, lead in some copper and aluminium alloys, mercury in particular lamp types. Each has an expiry date and precise wording, so quoting an exemption number without checking that your application matches the text is a common way to be wrong on paper.
The dates move. Three delegated directives published in November 2025 broke the main lead exemptions into narrower sub-entries with new dates around 2027, and 6(a) for lead in machining steel was not renewed for categories 8, 9 and 11, running out on 11 December 2026. Where a renewal is filed in time, the old exemption stays valid until the Commission decides, and from 2027 the scientific handling moves to ECHA under Directive (EU) 2025/2456. So an exemption you relied on two years ago may not cover the same part today, and nobody in China reads the Official Journal for you.
RoHS is something you have to prove; WEEE is something you have to register and pay for.
What does a compliant RoHS technical file look like?
A compliant RoHS file is an internal production control dossier built to EN IEC 63000:2018, the harmonised standard for RoHS technical documentation. It is not a certificate. It is evidence you assemble and hold yourself, covering every material in the product:
- a bill of materials down to material level, matched to the tested product version
- supplier declarations for each part, naming the part number you actually buy
- full material declarations, ideally in IEC 62474 format, not a one-line “RoHS compliant” statement
- analytical test reports where the risk justifies them
- any exemption claimed, with its number and the application it covers
- your own risk assessment for the parts you did not test
- the EU Declaration of Conformity you signed
A test report proves one sample met the limits on one day. A file explains how you control every unit you sell. That gap is where most importers lose, and it runs through CE and test reports generally.
What is WEEE, and why is it not a product test?
WEEE is Directive 2012/19/EU on waste electrical and electronic equipment, and it is a registration and financing obligation, not a test. Nothing goes to a laboratory. Whoever puts equipment on a national market pays to collect and treat it as waste, and reports what they placed there.
On the product you get one visible duty: the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol, marked to EN 50419. Everything else happens in national registers. In practice you:
- Register as a producer in each member state before your first sale there
- Join a compliance scheme and pay fees based on category and weight
- Report tonnages placed on the market, per category, quarterly or annually
- Appoint an authorised representative in any member state where you sell but have no establishment
- Give users disposal information and recyclers treatment information
There is no single EU WEEE number. The same LED panel sold into Germany, France and Poland means three registrations, three schemes, three reporting calendars, all inside the wider extended producer responsibility framework in the EU.
Who has to register for WEEE when importing from China?
It’s the importer who registers for WEEE. Your Chinese factory has no obligation under either directive, because both apply to whoever places goods on the EU market. Buy from a manufacturer outside the EU and import, and you become the producer, whatever the invoice calls you.
Plenty of Chinese suppliers offer “WEEE certificates”. There is no such thing. What exists is a producer registration number issued by a member state to a named legal entity, and a factory in China cannot hold one for you. The same goes for LED lighting from China, where lamp categories carry some of the highest per-tonne fees.
What should you demand from a Chinese supplier?
Ask for a full material declaration for every part, not a certificate for the finished product. It should list substance content by homogeneous material, be signed, and quote the part numbers on your purchase order. Where the supplier uses adhesives, potting compounds or cleaning agents, a safety data sheet shows what is really in the process.
XRF screening versus full laboratory testing
XRF is a screening tool. A handheld analyser reads elemental content fast without destroying the part, good for flagging lead, cadmium, mercury and total bromine. It cannot separate hexavalent chromium from other chromium, identify PBB or PBDE congeners, or see phthalates at all. Those need wet chemistry: GC-MS for phthalates, colorimetric methods for Cr(VI). XRF also reads the surface, so a plated part screens clean while the substrate underneath is not.
The “RoHS certificate” trap
Read the sample description, the issue date and the number of homogeneous materials tested on every report a supplier sends. Three failures repeat:
- it covers a different model or an earlier revision, and a component changed after it was issued
- it covers one component, usually the PCB or the enclosure, but is presented as covering the product
- it tests the product as one mixed sample, which dilutes any hotspot and says nothing about compliance per homogeneous material
What happens on enforcement?
A market surveillance authority can demand your technical documentation, and failing to produce it is a breach in itself, separate from any substance failure. Authorities can order corrective action, withdrawal or recall, ban sale and publish the decision, and customs can stop goods before they clear. On the WEEE side, selling unregistered means paying fees for the whole unregistered period plus a penalty, and marketplaces ask for a registration number before they let you list.
How do UK RoHS and UK WEEE work after Brexit?
Great Britain runs its own RoHS and WEEE regimes, which began as copies of the EU rules and are drifting apart. UK RoHS restricts the same ten substances at the same limits, but conformity is claimed with UKCA marking under the 2012 Regulations, and Britain runs its own exemption process, so an EU exemption is not automatically valid there. UK WEEE is a separate registration, and since August 2025 online marketplaces count as producers for non-UK sellers on their platforms. Northern Ireland still follows the EU rules.
China RoHS is a different scheme again: Chinese domestic law with its own marking, hazardous substance table and environmental protection use period logo. It says nothing about your EU obligations.
Most of this is settled long before the goods ship, at the factory, by collecting material declarations part by part and checking that the samples tested are the ones going into production. If you want that verified on site rather than by email, our factory inspection in China covers that check.
Frequently asked questions about RoHS and WEEE
What is RoHS?
RoHS is EU Directive 2011/65/EU, which restricts ten hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment placed on the EU market. Nine substances are limited to 0.1% by weight and cadmium to 0.01%, measured in each homogeneous material rather than in the whole product. Compliance is demonstrated through a technical file, and it forms part of your CE marking claim.
What is the difference between RoHS and WEEE?
RoHS controls what is inside the product, while WEEE controls what happens to it as waste. RoHS requires substance compliance and a technical file you keep for ten years. WEEE requires you to register as a producer in each member state, join a compliance scheme, pay recycling fees, report tonnages and mark the product with the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol. No laboratory test satisfies WEEE.
Which substances are restricted under RoHS?
Ten substances are restricted: lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), and four phthalates added by Delegated Directive (EU) 2015/863, namely DEHP, BBP, DBP and DIBP. Cadmium is capped at 0.01% by weight in homogeneous material. All nine others are capped at 0.1%. Annex III and IV exemptions allow specific, time-limited uses above those limits.
Is a RoHS certificate from a Chinese supplier enough?
No, a supplier certificate alone does not make you compliant. RoHS requires you to hold a technical file built to EN IEC 63000:2018, covering every homogeneous material in the product, with supplier declarations, material data, any exemptions claimed and your own assessment. A single test report proves one sample passed on one day. Check that the model, revision and part numbers on any report match what you are actually importing.
Who has to register for WEEE when importing from China?
The importer registers, not the Chinese factory. Buying from a manufacturer outside the EU and bringing goods in makes you the producer under Directive 2012/19/EU, so you register in every member state where you place equipment on the market, join a compliance scheme there, pay fees by category and weight, and report tonnages. If you sell into a country where you have no establishment, you appoint an authorised representative.