What documents must you request from your supplier for GPSR?
When you purchase products from a supplier inside or outside the EU, you will sooner or later be asked which documents belong with them. In practice, this usually involves a combination of test and conformity documentation, information about materials or composition where relevant, instructions for use and warnings in the required languages, and data about the manufacturer or importer that must appear on the product or packaging. Which documents exactly apply depends on the type of product and the role you yourself play in the supply chain.
The detail many entrepreneurs struggle with is not the list itself but its specificity. A supplier often sends a certificate or test report that covers "the product" in general terms, whereas the regulation specifically requires documentation that matches the exact version, type or batch you actually sell. A test report from a comparable model from an earlier production run is not automatically proof for the batch now in your warehouse.
What typically appears on the list
As a starting point for a conversation with a supplier, the following items regularly come up: test reports or declarations of conformity that belong with the product, a description of materials or components used where that is relevant for safety, the instructions for use and warnings in the original language so you can have them translated yourself, photos or specifications of the label and packaging, and contact details of the party acting as responsible entity within the EU if you do not fulfil that role yourself. Which of these items are actually mandatory for your product varies from situation to situation. in a few questions see which role applies to you provides a first indication, even before you speak to a supplier.
Why "general" often is not sufficient
This is where most of the discussion arises. A supplier regularly provides one set of documents for an entire product line, whereas the regulation is tied to the concrete product that reaches the consumer. If something changes about a component, a supplier of a raw material, or the production location, an old report is not automatically still usable. For you as a buyer, this means it is not enough to ask "do you have documentation", but you want to know whether that documentation belongs to the specific batch you are now purchasing or have purchased.
What you cannot take over from the supplier
Requesting documents is one step; it is not about the supplier giving their own judgment on the safety of the product, and you cannot simply take that judgment over as your own conclusion. The risk analysis that belongs with your products is a separate step that builds on the supplied documents but does not automatically follow from them. How that analysis is structured and which documents serve as supporting evidence for it is something the knowledge base per topic covers.
Keeping and maintaining access
Documents you request from a supplier are not only meant to sit in a folder somewhere at some point. They must be retrievable over a longer period and linked to the correct product, so you can show them if a supervisory authority or customer asks for them. In practice, this works best if the documentation is organised per article, with the risk analysis and underlying documents together, rather than scattered across email exchanges with different suppliers. How such an arrangement works in practice, and what templates and records are involved, is described on the page with the overview of the paid system.
If the supplier does not deliver
It happens that a supplier simply has no documentation, or does not respond to a request for it. That says something about the supply chain you are buying into, not automatically something about the product's safety itself — gpsria.eu does not make any assessment about that. However, it is a signal to clarify which role you play in that chain, because anyone who cannot obtain documentation from a supplier is more likely to end up in the position of manufacturer or importer than expected. You can read more about how the information on this website is structured and what it is based on on the page explaining where the information comes from.
Do you first want to know which role applies to your situation before asking a supplier for documentation? The free role check gives you a first indication in a few questions, without needing an account.