EU Warranty Label Do's & Don'ts: The Official Design Rules (2026 Guidelines)

Note: This article is for information only and does not constitute legal advice. For a legally binding assessment, please consult a qualified lawyer.

TL;DR

• The EU warranty label (harmonised notice under Regulation (EU) 2025/1960) must not be altered in any element - nothing in the notice is editable.
• On the GARAN label, exactly three fields are editable: guarantee duration (XX), brand/trademark and model identifier. Everything else is fixed.
• The European Commission's practical guidelines (April 2026) list the do's & don'ts explicitly: no colour changes, no filters, no typography changes, no touching the QR code, no cropping, no additions.
• For digital use, apply RGB in colour; for print, CMYK; use only the official Commission files.
• If you embed the label with an app like the EU warranty label for Shopify, the unaltered official file is served automatically.

Why the design is off-limits

The harmonised notice on the legal guarantee and the GARAN label are official, EU-wide uniform graphics. That uniformity is the whole point: consumers should recognise the labels instantly in every shop in the EU - regardless of country, language or sector.

That is why Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1960 prescribes format, colours, text and QR code, and the practical guidelines of the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (April 2026) translate this into concrete design rules. The guidelines' core statement: none of the elements or text of the harmonised notice should be edited; both text and visual elements must keep their proportions and be used in their entirety.

The do's: what is explicitly right

The guidelines name three simple ground rules:

1. Use the official files. The templates come from EUR-Lex or from the Commission's vector-file page (available as SVG, PNG and JPG, among others) - not from your own recreations or screenshots.
2. Use the file version that matches the use case: RGB for digital, CMYK for print. The colour version is the preferred choice and should be used in an online environment; the black-and-white version is intended for physical shops.
3. Test on the target medium. Before going live, check that the label renders without pixelation, missing elements, or layout and colour issues.

The don'ts: seven prohibited changes

For the harmonised notice, the guidelines list these prohibitions - each illustrated with visual examples:

1. Altering or deleting the border line or inner line separator. Even "just" removing the frame is an edit.
2. Changing colours or applying filters or effects. No recolouring to match your shop's brand, no sepia or dark-mode filters.
3. Changing the spacing or alignment of elements. The layout is part of the specification.
4. Changing the typography - neither typeface nor weight, style or size.
5. Moving, resizing or editing the QR code. The code must remain scannable under normal lighting with a standard smartphone.
6. Cropping or stretching. No cropping, squeezing or stretching - the proportions are fixed.
7. Adding new elements, icons or text. Even well-meant additions ("More info here!") are not permitted.

In practice this means: the notice is embedded as a whole - in the original colours, original proportions and with a working QR code. If it is displayed at a larger size, the entire notice must be scaled without distortion, without modifying or separating any of its components.

GARAN is special: exactly three editable fields

The GARAN label (Annex II) works differently from the notice: it refers to a specific product and therefore needs editable fields. The guidelines draw a strict line:

Fixed elements (not editable):

• the title "GARAN" with the tick-mark symbol,
• the shield logo with the "G" and the EU stars (the visual reminder of the legal guarantee - the same logo used in the harmonised notice),
• the QR code leading to the "Your Europe" portal for durability guarantees,
• the calendar symbol representing the duration,
• the line "producer guarantee in years" in all EU official languages at the bottom - it is an integral part of the label and must not be cut off.

Editable fields (to be filled in by the producer):

1. "XX" - the guarantee duration in years. Permitted are full years (3, 5, 8, including two-digit numbers like 11 or 12) and half years with a comma (2,5 or 4,5). Not permitted are other decimals such as 4,1 or 4,2 - the figure must remain instantly understandable for consumers.
2. Brand/trademark of the producer offering the durability guarantee.
3. Model identifier of the product the guarantee applies to.

Two technical requirements come on top: the typeface is Inter (Regular, SemiBold, ExtraBold) - including in the editable fields - and the QR code must never be smaller than 2 × 2 cm.

One extra don't applies to GARAN only: the label must not be used for other types of guarantees. It stands exclusively for the producer's free commercial guarantee of durability of more than two years covering the entire good. When exactly that is fulfilled is explained in GARAN label explained.

Formats and minimum sizes at a glance

For the printed GARAN label at minimum size, the guidelines even prescribe the font sizes: 7 pt for the language line, 9 pt for brand and model identifier, 80 pt for the number of years. Details on in-store display are covered in EU warranty label in physical stores.

Where do the official files come from?

Two sources are authoritative:

• EUR-Lex: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1960 with Annexes I and II.
• The Commission's vector-file page: high-resolution files of the notice and the GARAN label in all 24 EU official languages (JPG, SVG, PNG), including the print versions.

Worth putting in context: the practical guidelines themselves are preliminary views of the Commission services - only the Court of Justice of the European Union can interpret EU law authoritatively. The design prohibitions, however, mirror the Regulation directly, which prescribes format and content.

What does this mean for Shopify stores?

If you embed the labels manually, every one of these detail rules is your own risk: wrong colour profile, a squeezed image in the theme, a cut-off language line on the GARAN label, a blurry QR code on mobile. This is exactly where the EU warranty label for Shopify comes in: the app serves the official, unaltered notice automatically in the customer's language, keeps proportions and QR code intact, and adds the GARAN label with only the three permitted fields - brand, model, duration. The step-by-step guide shows the setup.

FAQ

May I adapt the label to my shop's colours? No. Colour changes, filters and effects are explicitly prohibited - the label is meant to look identical across the EU.

May I use only the QR code and drop the rest? No. The notice must be used in full and unaltered; cropping or separating elements is not permitted.

Which guarantee durations may I state on the GARAN label? Full years (more than two, e.g. 3, 5, 10) and half years with a comma (2,5 or 4,5). Values like 4,1 or 4,2 are not permitted.

Do I have to use the black-and-white version online? No, the other way round: online, the RGB colour version should be used; black and white is intended for physical retail.

Where do I get the files in all languages? From the Commission's official vector-file page or from the Regulation on EUR-Lex - or automatically via an app that serves the official files.

Further reading:

• EU warranty label for Shopify
• EU warranty label: mandatory from 27 Sept 2026 (Regulation (EU) 2025/1960)
• GARAN label explained: the EU label for manufacturer guarantees
• GARAN nested label: the compact EU guarantee label for online stores
• EU warranty label checklist: 12 points by 27 September 2026

Primary legal sources: Regulation (EU) 2025/1960 · Directive (EU) 2024/825 · EU Commission vector files · Your Europe - Guarantees