CE Marking & UKCA Marking Compliance for Electrical Cables

CE Marking denotes that a product has been proven to meet European legislation on health, safety and environmental compliance, and facilitates free trade across the European market. Regardless of manufacturing origin, manufacturers are required to attest to compliance if the goods are sold within the EU.

Whilst CE marking is mandatory for cables, it has become normal practice to place these markings on the paperwork accompanying the products rather than on the cables themselves. The CE mark is stipulated to be 5mm in height - a dimension not always possible on smaller cross-sectional cables.

The Construction Products Regulation (CPR) has further endorsed this in mandated standard EN 50575, specifying in the legal Annex that the CE marking shall be on the product labels and not the product itself. Importantly, this also avoids it being mistaken for a third-party quality approval mark.

For the avoidance of doubt, Article 17 of the Low Voltage Directive (LVD) 2006 states:
"The CE marking shall be affixed visibly, legibly and indelibly to the electrical equipment or to its data plate. Where this is not possible or not warranted on account of the nature of the electrical equipment, it shall be affixed to the packaging and to the accompanying documents."

Under RoHS 3 (EU 2015/863) compliance with the RoHS Directive is now part of the requirements of CE Marking.

UKCA Compliance

It was previously intended that UKCA marking would be mandatory as of 1st January 2025, as applied to cables being imported into and installed in the UK. UKCA Marking was to be the UK equivalent of CE Marking recognising products that are deemed to meet the standards and safety requirements for sale in the country.

The implementation of this requirement has been put on hold by the UK Government and as of January 2024, the current status is that "The government intends to legislate to continue recognition of EU requirements, including the CE marking, indefinitely for a range of product regulations this spring. This will mean businesses have the flexibility to use either the UKCA or CE marking to sell products in Great Britain (GB)”

As such, UKCA marking is not mandatory. In the event UKCA marking is required by a customer we will work to ensure this is delivered in a compliant manner.

All applicable cables remain compliant with relevant legislation and regulatory frameworks, be they CE marked or UKCA marked.

CE Marking and UKCA Marking Compliance

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