Safety Gate 2025 in Numbers: A Record Year for Dangerous Product Alerts

The headline numbers

In March 2026 the European Commission published its annual report on Safety Gate, the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products. The figures for 2025 are the highest since the system started:

• 4,671 alerts were notified in 2025, 13 % more than in 2024 and more than double the number reported in 2022.
• 5,794 follow-up actions were notified by national authorities, an increase of 35 % on the year before.
• More than 1,200 online marketplaces had registered in the Safety Gate Portal by the end of 2025.

An alert is the first notification of a dangerous product by a national authority. A follow-up action is what other authorities do when they find the same product on their own market, such as a withdrawal, a recall or an order to remove a listing. The Commission links the growth in follow-up actions to the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), which has made the sharing of information between market surveillance authorities more systematic.

Which products were notified

According to the Commission, the most frequently notified product categories in 2025 were:

Together, cosmetics and toys made up more than half of all cases. The Commission reports that almost eight in ten cosmetics alerts concerned a synthetic fragrance ingredient that is banned in cosmetics in the EU. In 2025 authorities also notified, for the first time, nail polish containing TPO, a substance banned in cosmetics that year.

For importers of cosmetics and toys, the message is plain: a large share of alerts is triggered by ingredient lists and chemical tests, not by complex product failures. See our guides to the Cosmetics Regulation and the Toy Safety Directive.

Which risks: chemicals first

The Commission’s breakdown of risk types shows the same pattern:

• Chemical risks: 53 % of alerts
• Injuries: 14 %
• Choking: 9 %

Chemical risk covers banned or restricted substances in cosmetics, toys, jewellery, textiles and other consumer products. These are cases where a laboratory test against a known limit decides the outcome, which makes them predictable and preventable with the right supplier data and testing.

Where the products came from

The Commission’s announcement does not give a breakdown by country of origin. For that, we used the public weekly Safety Gate reports, which we aggregate in our recall statistics.

Based on the weekly reports, the alerts first published in 2025 break down as follows:

• China was named as the country of origin in 42.9 % of alerts.
• The origin was unknown in 11.2 %.
• Serious risk was the risk level in 96.2 % of alerts.
• The authorities of Italy notified the most alerts (26.1 %), followed by Germany and France.

The weekly reports list 4,704 alerts first published in 2025, slightly more than the Commission’s annual figure of 4,671. The two counts are compiled differently, which is why we use the Commission’s totals for the headline numbers and the weekly reports only for shares.

What the authorities did

Every alert records the measures taken. Based on the weekly reports for 2025, the most frequent measures were:

One alert can carry several measures, so the shares add up to more than 100 %.

Marketplace removals and border rejections are worth noting. Under Article 22 of the GPSR, providers of online marketplaces must register in the Safety Gate Portal and designate a single point of contact for authorities. The Commission also reports that its eSurveillance webcrawler, which looks for products already listed in Safety Gate, scanned over 1.6 million websites in 2025 and found more than 20,800 such products. A product listed in Safety Gate is therefore increasingly likely to be found again online, even when it is sold by a different seller.

What it means for importers

Four practical conclusions follow from the 2025 figures:

1. Chemicals are the main risk. If you import cosmetics, toys, jewellery or textiles, test reports against the current restrictions are your best protection.
2. A Safety Gate alert travels. With follow-up actions up 35 %, an alert in one Member State is more likely to lead to measures in others.
3. Marketplaces act on alerts. Listings of products similar to an alerted product can be removed quickly. Know the product identifiers that tell your product apart.
4. Check Safety Gate before you buy. Searching for similar products and suppliers before you place an order is cheaper than a recall afterwards.

If one of your products, or one like it, appears in an alert, start with our problem page Our product, or one like it, is on Safety Gate, and read the glossary entries for Safety Gate and serious risk.

In its March announcement, the Commission said it was preparing a 2026 product safety sweep with national authorities to check compliance with the GPSR. Our GPSR guide explains the obligations such checks look at.

How Conphora helps

Safety Gate data is most useful before a problem, not after. With Conphora you can:

• Keep test reports and supplier declarations per product, so you can answer an authority within days.
• Record product identifiers, batch numbers and pictures that distinguish your product from a similar alerted one.
• Follow recalls and withdrawals with a documented record of what was done and when.
• Use our public Safety Gate statistics to see which categories and risks are most frequently notified.

See how Conphora works and how it helps you stay off the alert list.

Want your product records ready before an authority asks? See plans and pricing →

Sources

• European Commission press release: Commission’s 2025 Safety Gate Report shows increased action against dangerous products
• European Commission news: Increased action against dangerous products in the EU in 2025
• Safety Gate: the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products, weekly reports
• Regulation (EU) 2023/988 (General Product Safety Regulation), EUR-Lex