Machinery Safety Testing

The GB Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 are the UK law that sets out the requirements that machinery must meet before it can be placed on the market or put into service in Great Britain.

Demonstrating compliance is part of the UKCA marking process for machinery sold on, or supplied to, the GB market.

Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 is the EU's new machinery safety law, and fully replaces the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC as of the 20th of January 2027.

Demonstrating compliance with the Machinery Regulation is part of the CE marking process for equipment and machinery sold on or supplied to EU markets. It will also apply to Northern Ireland under the Windsor framework.

Find out more about the new Regulation, what’s changing, and how to prepare here.

The GB Supply of Machinery Regulations are UK legislation that applies in Great Britain and forms part of UKCA marking.

The EU Machinery Regulation is a separate law. It applies directly across the EU, and in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework, and forms part of CE marking in the European Union.

The EU Regulation also adds requirements the GB rules don’t currently include, covering AI, cybersecurity and digital documentation. The UK Government has said it will update the GB Regulations to introduce similar measures.

The EU Machinery Regulation fully replaces the Machinery Directive from 20th January 2027.

The biggest difference between the two is legal form. The Directive had to be transposed into each EU Member State’s national law, which could introduce small inconsistencies between countries. The Regulation applies directly and identically across the whole EU.

It also adds requirements the Directive never covered:

• AI and self-evolving machinery: safety components and machinery using machine learning sit in the highest-risk tier, which always requires a notified body
• Cybersecurity: machinery must be protected against corruption, identify its own safety-critical software, and log evidence of tampering
• Autonomous machinery: control systems must keep machinery within a defined task and movement space, and record safety-related decisions for at least a year
• Digital documentation: instructions and declarations can be digital by default, but must stay accessible online for at least 10 years
• Software traceability: updates to safety software must be logged and traceable for five years
• Substantial modification: now formally defined, with whoever makes one treated as the manufacturer
• Importers and distributors: now have their own explicit obligations

See our blog: Machinery Directive vs Machinery Regulation: What's the Difference?

Great Britain continues to recognise CE marking, so machinery CE-marked to the new EU Machinery Regulation can be placed on the GB market without separate UKCA certification.  

The purpose of the GB Supply of Machinery Regulations and the EU Machinery Regulation is to set the health and safety bar that machinery, related products and partly completed machinery must clear before they can be sold or used anywhere in GB and the EU.

It aims to eliminate or minimise the potential for equipment to cause hazardous circumstances, and sets out procedures for conformity assessments.

The GB Supply of Machinery Regulations apply to machinery placed on the market or put into service in Great Britain, including existing machinery that has been changed so substantially that it counts as new. That includes any assembly of linked, moving parts, joined together for a specific job, and powered by something other than a person or animal pushing, pulling or lifting it directly.

Alongside machinery itself, the Regulations cover five categories of “related products”:

1. Interchangeable equipment
2. Safety components
3. Lifting accessories
4. Chains, ropes and webbing
5. Removable mechanical transmission devices

Partly completed machinery is also covered.

It does not include:

• Safety components supplied as identical spare parts by the original manufacturer
• Equipment for fairgrounds and amusement parks
• Machinery for nuclear purposes, where a failure could result in the release of radioactivity
• Weapons, including firearms
• Certain means of transport: tractors and road vehicles covered by their own approval rules, motor vehicles built exclusively for competition, and transport by air, water or rail
• Seagoing vessels, mobile offshore units, and machinery installed on board them
• Machinery specially designed for military or police purposes
• Machinery for temporary use in research laboratories
• Mine winding gear
• Machinery intended to move performers during artistic performances
• Certain electrical products covered by the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016, including household appliances, audio and video equipment, IT equipment, ordinary office machinery, low-voltage switchgear and control gear, and electric motors
• Certain high-voltage electrical equipment, specifically switchgear and control gear, and transformers
  
  

The EU Machinery Regulation applies to new machinery, and to existing machinery that has been substantially modified. That includes any assembly of linked, moving parts, joined together for a specific job, and powered by something other than a person or animal pushing, pulling or lifting it directly.

Alongside machinery itself, the Regulation covers five categories of "related products":

1. Interchangeable equipment
2. Safety components
3. Lifting accessories
4. Chains, ropes and webbing
5. Removable mechanical transmission devices

Partly completed machinery is also covered.

It does not include:

• Safety components supplied as identical spare parts by the original manufacturer
• Equipment for fairgrounds and amusement parks
• Machinery for nuclear installations, where compliance could undermine nuclear safety
• Weapons, including firearms
• Means of transport by air, water or rail, except machinery mounted on them
• Motor vehicles and trailers, two/three-wheel vehicles, quadricycles, and agricultural or forestry tractors already covered by their own EU type-approval Regulations, except machinery mounted on them
• Motor vehicles built exclusively for competition
• Seagoing vessels, mobile offshore units, and machinery installed on board them
• Machinery specially designed for military or police purposes
• Machinery for temporary use in research laboratories
• Mine winding gear
• Machinery intended to move performers during artistic performances
• Certain electrical and electronic products already covered by the Low Voltage Directive (2014/35/EU) or the Radio Equipment Directive (2014/53/EU), for example household appliances, audio/video equipment, IT equipment, and low-voltage switchgear and control gear
  
  

The following parties are responsible for compliance with the GB Supply of Machinery Regulations:

• Manufacturers, including those building machinery for their own use in the UK
• Authorised representatives, appointed in writing by the manufacturer and, for the GB market, based in the UK
• Where there is no manufacturer, the person who places the machinery on the GB market or puts it into service
• Anyone placing machinery on the market that has been changed so substantially it counts as “new”, which must meet the requirements as if newly placed on the market

The following parties are responsible for compliance with the EU Machinery Regulation:

• Manufacturers, including those making machinery or related products for their own use
• Authorised representatives, appointed in writing by the manufacturer to act on their behalf
• Importers, who place machinery from outside the EU on the market and must check that it meets the requirements, including that it carries the CE marking
• Distributors, anyone else in the supply chain who makes machinery available on the market
• Anyone carrying out a substantial modification to existing machinery, who is treated as the manufacturer for that machinery (the exception is a non-professional user modifying their own machinery for their own use)