Appliance and phone guarantees after the GARAN label: what changes and what stays the same

Since 27 September 2026 a new label has appeared on websites and in shops: the word GARAN, a tick, a calendar, a number of years and a QR code. The Romanian outlet G4Media explained on 6 October what it means for people buying appliances and phones. The summary below follows that article and the official rules, which are the same in every EU country.

What stays the same

The legal guarantee of conformity does not change. Across the EU it lasts at least two years from purchase, and some countries give longer. It is provided by the seller, applies automatically, is free and cannot be withdrawn. A product without a GARAN label still has this guarantee. The label takes nothing away from existing rights.

What changes

The GARAN label shows, in years, the length of the commercial guarantee of durability offered by the producer. It is an additional guarantee on top of the legal minimum. A producer that uses the label commits to a free guarantee covering the whole product for more than two years.

In the example given by G4Media, a label with 4 years means total cover of four years, two more than the legal period. The producer undertakes to repair or replace the product free of charge under the conditions of the guarantee. The duration on the label can only be whole years or half years, for example 2.5 or 4.5 years. A value such as 4.1 years is not allowed.

The QR code on the label leads to the European Commission's Your Europe portal, where consumer rights are explained in each language. The label is defined by Regulation (EU) 2025/1960, adopted on 25 September 2025, and is part of the EU package against planned obsolescence, alongside the right to repair.

When it is mandatory and when it is not

A producer is not obliged to offer a guarantee longer than two years. If it does offer one, free of charge and covering the whole product, it must use the GARAN label rather than its own graphic. The label cannot be used when the extended guarantee covers only one component, such as the motor of a washing machine.

The seller must display the label received from the producer next to the product, in the shop and online, without changing it. Separately, every seller must display the harmonised notice about the two-year legal guarantee.

How to check a guarantee promise before you buy

Adverts promising "5-year guarantee" existed before, but without a common format, and the conditions were not always easy to find. The GARAN label presents the promise in a standard format. Before buying, still check what the guarantee covers and in which country it applies.

On garandb.eu we keep a public database of GARAN labels. Anyone can consult it without an account:

• Search the brand and model, for example Bosch, to see the guarantee length, the country it applies in and the offer period.
• Each entry includes a link to the producer's guarantee statement, so you can read the conditions at the source.
• You can vote on whether the information is correct or wrong. Entries disputed by the community are removed from the list.

If you own a product with a producer guarantee longer than two years and cannot find it in the list, you can publish it together with the link to the official terms. If you are a producer or a seller, the same script can show the correct label automatically on product pages.

The official notice about the legal guarantee, in all 24 EU languages, is available on the notice page. We are not lawyers. For an actual dispute with a seller, your national consumer authority and the law remain the references.