Annex I: high-risk machinery and related products
Part A is six categories where a notified body is always required. Part B is a longer list where self-assessment survives if you apply harmonised standards in full. Everything not in Annex I at all can be self-assessed with internal checks. For several categories this is a loosening compared with the old Annex IV of the Directive.
Part A — notified body mandatory
For these, applying harmonised standards does not remove the requirement for third-party conformity assessment.
- Removable mechanical transmission devices, including their guards
- Guards for removable mechanical transmission devices
- Vehicle servicing lifts
- Portable cartridge-operated fixing and other impact machinery
- Safety components with fully or partially self-evolving behaviour using machine learning approaches ensuring safety functions
- Machinery with embedded systems with fully or partially self-evolving behaviour using machine learning approaches ensuring safety functions, that have not been placed independently on the market, in respect only of those systems
Part B — self-assessment available with harmonised standards
For these categories, conformity assessment with internal checks is permitted provided the manufacturer has applied the relevant harmonised standards in full and those standards cover all the applicable essential health and safety requirements. Where they do not, a notified body route applies. Part B includes, among others:
- Circular saws for working with wood and materials with similar physical characteristics
- Hand-fed surface planing machinery for woodworking
- Thicknessers for one-side dressing
- Band saws with a fixed or mobile bed
- Combined machinery of the woodworking types listed
- Hand-fed tenoning machinery with several tool holders
- Hand-fed vertical spindle moulding machinery
- Portable chainsaws for woodworking
- Presses for the cold working of metal, with manual loading or unloading, with a movable working part travel exceeding 6mm and speed exceeding 30mm/s
- Injection or compression plastics-moulding machinery with manual loading or unloading
- Injection or compression rubber-moulding machinery with manual loading or unloading
- Machinery for underground work
- Manually loaded trucks for the collection of household refuse incorporating a compression mechanism
- Machinery for lifting persons, or persons and goods, involving a hazard of falling from a vertical height of more than three metres
- Protective devices designed to detect the presence of persons
- Power-operated interlocking movable guards designed to be used as safeguards in machinery in this Annex
- Logic units to ensure safety functions
- Roll-over protective structures (ROPS)
- Falling-object protective structures (FOPS)
This is a summary of the categories. Always check the current text of Annex I for the exact wording and thresholds that apply to your product.
Everything else
Machinery and related products not listed in Annex I at all are assessed by internal checks — you carry out the conformity assessment yourself, produce the Annex IV technical file, and sign the declaration. No notified body, no certificate. This is the great majority of machinery.
Choosing a route
| Your product | Route |
|---|---|
| Not in Annex I | Internal checks. Self-assessment. |
| Annex I Part B, harmonised standards applied in full | Internal checks. Self-assessment. |
| Annex I Part B, standards not applied in full or not covering all requirements | EU type-examination plus conformity to type, or full quality assurance. |
| Annex I Part A | EU type-examination plus conformity to type, or full quality assurance. Notified body required regardless of standards. |
Work out which route applies to your product →
Get told when the requirements change
None of the 35 CRA harmonised standards is published yet. When they land — and when deadlines move — we email you. No more than twice a month.