For two decades the European battery market was governed by Directive 2006/66/EC, a member-state-transposed rule focused almost entirely on heavy-metal limits and collection. Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, which entered into force on 17 August 2023 and applies from 18 February 2024, replaces it with a directly applicable, full-lifecycle regulation covering sustainability, safety, information, supply-chain due diligence and end-of-life. This first paper in our EU Compliance Series maps what actually changed for a nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) exporter and why the old test-report-only dossier no longer clears customs or a buyer audit.
A directive must be transposed into national law, which produced 27 slightly different implementations of 2006/66/EC; a regulation is binding in its entirety and applies directly in every member state on the same day. Directive 2006/66/EC was repealed with effect from 18 August 2025, subject to limited transitional continuities, and Regulation 2023/1542 also amends the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC and the market-survival Regulation 2019/1020. For an exporter this means one rulebook but a far wider one: where the old directive restricted cadmium and mercury and set collection rules, the new instrument adds conformity assessment and CE marking, staged labeling, performance and durability parameters, removability, carbon and recycled-content regimes for selected categories, supply-chain due diligence, digital battery passports and detailed economic-operator duties.
Article 3 divides batteries into portable batteries, light means of transport (LMT) batteries, starting-lighting-ignition (SLI) batteries, electric-vehicle batteries and industrial batteries, each with its own obligation set and deadlines. Most NiMH AA/AAA cells and small custom packs fall under portable batteries; large NiMH strings above 5 kg that are neither EV, LMT nor SLI fall under industrial batteries. Classification is the first compliance decision because it decides which articles — from Annex III versus Annex IV durability parameters to the 2 kWh passport threshold — ever apply. Misclassification under the old directive was a paperwork error; under the regulation it cascades into wrong labels, wrong declarations and marketplace deactivation.
Article 6 and Annex I preserve and tighten substance limits — 5 ppm mercury, 20 ppm cadmium and 100 ppm lead for portable batteries — but Articles 15–20 and Annex VIII now require a conformity-assessment procedure, a technical documentation file, an EU Declaration of Conformity and the CE mark before placement on the market. REACH (EC) 1907/2006 continues to apply in parallel, so a compliant NiMH cell needs both the battery-regulation dossier and the REACH material-risk evidence. The animated comparison below illustrates how the proportion of obligations a reactive, report-on-demand supplier can satisfy declines as the staged regime matures, while a documented exporter keeps full coverage.
Obligations phase in rather than arriving at once: substance rules and CE conformity from 2024; the crossed-out wheeled-bin separate-collection mark from 18 August 2025; general battery information and capacity labeling from 18 August 2026 (or 18 months after the relevant implementing act, whichever is later); QR codes from 18 February 2027; and the digital battery passport for LMT, EV and industrial batteries above 2 kWh on the same 2027 date. Due-diligence obligations under Articles 47–53 have applied since 18 August 2025, and per-country producer (EPR) registration is already enforced by online marketplaces. European procurement teams now build these dates into vendor qualification, which is why quotation conversations increasingly open with a document request rather than a price request.
A defensible 2026 file contains: the correct category classification; IEC 62133-1 safety evidence and UN 38.3 transport data; Annex I substance test reports plus a REACH Annex XVII material-risk assessment; the Annex VIII technical file and an EU Declaration of Conformity; Article 13 label artwork on the correct schedule; performance and durability parameters for rechargeable portable cells; a cobalt/nickel due-diligence policy with verification; and packaging evidence aligned to the PPWR (EU) 2025/40 regime that applies from 12 August 2026. Each later paper in this series dissects one of these layers.
Weijiang Power manufactures cadmium-free NiMH cells and custom packs with the EU 2023/1542 dossier built in: IEC 62133-1 and UN 38.3 reports, Annex I and REACH material declarations, an EU Declaration of Conformity, Article 13-ready label artwork and a published cobalt/nickel due-diligence policy. Send your target application and member states of sale and our compliance team will return a category classification and the exact document set your European importer needs — before the first PO.
