EdLaw
RoHS Directive (Directive 2011/65/EU, "RoHS 2")
The CE-marking directive restricting hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), published in the Official Journal on 1 July 2011 (OJ L 174, 1.7.2011, p. 88), in force since 21 July 2011, transposition due by 2 January 2013 (Art. 25, not extracted; see Sources). This folder reproduces the consolidated text 02011L0065-20260701 — RoHS is amended constantly by delegated directives adjusting the exemption annexes, which is why the consolidation id must be re-pinned on rebuild.
EEE is any equipment "dependent on electric currents or electromagnetic fields in order to work properly" up to 1 000 V AC / 1 500 V DC (Art. 3(1)); the scope is effectively open — the Directive applies to EEE in the Annex I categories (Art. 2(1)), and category 11 is the catch-all "Other EEE not covered by any of the categories above".
Applicability to EdTech
- Headsets, chargers, docks and accessories are all EEE — every homogeneous material in them must stay under the Annex II maxima: lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, PBB, PBDE, DEHP, BBP, DBP, DIBP at 0,1 %; cadmium at 0,01 % (Art. 4(1)). "Homogeneous material" — the denominator — is defined at Art. 3(20).
- Cables and spare parts are expressly included (Art. 4(1)).
- Exemptions are application-specific and time-limited (Annexes III/IV, granted and reviewed under Arts. 5–6); supplier declarations citing an exemption must name the entry — the lists themselves are consulted on EUR-Lex, not reproduced here.
- RoHS conformity is part of the CE marking: EU declaration of conformity (Art. 13), CE marking (Arts. 14–15), and the EN IEC 63000 documentation route gives the presumption via harmonised standards (Art. 16).
Contents
| Document | Covers |
|---|---|
| SCOPE-AND-DEFINITIONS.md | Arts. 1–3; Annex I — scope, exclusions, definitions, EEE categories |
| SUBSTANCE-RESTRICTIONS.md | Arts. 4–6; Annex II — the prevention duty, the ten restricted substances, exemption machinery |
| OPERATOR-OBLIGATIONS-AND-CE.md | Arts. 7, 13–16, 23 — manufacturer obligations, EU declaration, CE marking, presumption, penalties |
Scope note: authorised representatives/importers/distributors (Arts. 8–12), market surveillance (Art. 18), committee/delegation machinery (Arts. 19–22) and the exemption Annexes III–VIII can be added with the same tooling when needed.
Key obligations at a glance
- No placing on the market of EEE containing the Annex II substances above the maxima, per homogeneous material (Art. 4(1)).
- Manufacturers: internal production control per Module A of Decision 768/2008/EC, technical documentation, EU declaration, CE marking, 10-year record-keeping (Art. 7, Art. 13).
Enforcement
National market surveillance (Art. 18 — not extracted); national penalties must be "effective, proportionate and dissuasive" (Art. 23).
Licence
The corpus reproduces the EUR-Lex consolidated text of Directive 2011/65/EU (CELEX 02011L0065-20260701).
The EUR-Lex legal notice (eur-lex.europa.eu/content/legal-notice/legal-notice.html, read 2026-10-01 in the Internet Archive copy captured that day, because EUR-Lex refuses non-browser clients) says: "© European Union, 1998-2026 The Commission’s document reuse policy is based on Decision 2011/833/EU. Unless otherwise specified, you can re-use the legal documents published in EUR-Lex for commercial or non-commercial purposes." For consolidated texts it adds: "The copyright for the editorial content of this website, the summaries of EU legislation and the consolidated texts, which is owned by the EU, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. This means that you can re-use the content provided you acknowledge the source and indicate any changes you have made."
Commission Decision 2011/833/EU on the reuse of Commission documents (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39, read in the Publications Office Cellar copy on 2026-10-01) provides in Article 4 that "All documents shall be available for reuse: (a) for commercial or non-commercial purposes under the conditions laid down in Article 6", and Article 6(2) lists the conditions that may be attached: "(a) the obligation for the reuser to acknowledge the source of the documents; (b) the obligation not to distort the original meaning or message of the documents; (c) the non-liability of the Commission for any consequence stemming from the reuse."
Conditions, and how this corpus meets them:
- Acknowledge the source: each extracted provision carries a
{.meta}provenance line naming EUR-Lex and the CELEX number, and Sources links the EUR-Lex text. - Indicate changes (CC BY 4.0, for the consolidated text): the provision text is unchanged; the changes are the selection of provisions, the Markdown layout and the added anchors, all described in Meta.
- Do not distort the meaning: the text is reproduced verbatim and checked mechanically against the source (see Meta).
- No endorsement or liability: the corpus does not claim that the EU or the Publications Office endorses it, and only the Official Journal text is authentic.
Related
- Product-safety cluster index
- WEEE Directive — the end-of-life companion: RoHS restricts what goes in, WEEE governs what comes out