EN 71 Toy Safety Standards: Parts, Scope and Selection

EN 71 is a family of toy safety standards. Selecting the relevant parts starts with the toy's design, materials, intended users and hazards. A standards collection can make documents easier to obtain, but buying it does not establish that a toy complies with the law.

Which parts should you consider?

  • EN 71-1: mechanical and physical properties.
  • EN 71-2: flammability.
  • EN 71-3: migration of specified elements. This is not a blanket test for every possible chemical hazard.

Other parts address particular toy types, activities or substances. Electrical safety is addressed separately by EN IEC 62115. A test plan should identify relevant requirements across the product, including features that fall outside these three familiar EN 71 parts.

Check the collection against your test plan

The Genorma EN 71 collection lists selected national publications. Review its itemised contents, amendments and publication status before ordering. The collection's name is not evidence that every document needed for your toy is included.

A newer publication and an edition cited in the EU Official Journal can differ. Check the applicable legal requirements, the citation and any restrictions or transition dates. Harmonised standards provide a voluntary technical route; the product's legal obligations still apply.

Prepare an evidence checklist

  1. Describe the toy, age group, foreseeable use and destination market.
  2. Identify hazards and map each to the assessment or test needed.
  3. Record the exact editions, amendments, samples and results.
  4. Check the remaining technical documentation, warnings, declaration and marking obligations.

The European Commission explains toy conformity assessment and placing toys on the EU market. For a focused introduction, read our EN 71-2 flammability guide.

Reviewed 26 September 2026.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IEC 62321: Substance Testing, Screening and RoHS Evidence

Image
The IEC 62321 series provides methods for determining specified substances in electrotechnical products. Its European adoptions can support a materials assessment, but a test method is not itself a legal substance limit or a complete compliance assessment. Choose the method for the substance and material The Genorma collection's inventory includes sample preparation, screening and substance-specific analytical methods. Check each document's designation: some are EN adoptions, while the listing also includes an IEC publication. Part 2: disassembly and mechanical preparation of samples. Part 3-1: XRF screening for lead, mercury, cadmium, total chromium and total bromine. Parts 6 and 7: methods addressing specified brominated flame retardants and hexavalent chromium respectively. Part 8: methods for specified phthalates in polymers. A screening result needs interpretation Total chromium is not the same measurement as hexavalent chromium. Likewise, total bromine does not ident...
Read more

What Does prEN Mean? Draft Standards and Placeholder References

prEN means draft European Standard. It identifies a document under development, rather than a published EN. CEN and CENELEC distinguish draft standards (prENs) from European Standards (ENs) . Does “prEN 50XXX” identify a particular standard? Not on its own. “50XXX” is a placeholder-style reference, so it cannot establish a document's technical subject or requirements without its project context. Such references can appear in genuine work programmes; they should not be mistaken for a uniquely identified published standard. The specific catalogue example The Genorma record linked by this article describes a project to revise DIN 47624:1980-04 concerning plastic clamping closures for telecommunication cables with metallic conductors and optical fibres. The indexed catalogue record identifies the project as abandoned, with deletion dated 7 July 2000. It should not be presented as an upcoming standard or a new binding requirement. How to verify a draft reference Find the full title a...
Read more

Eurocode Package 10: Towers, Masts, Piling and Cranes

Image
Genorma's Eurocode standards package 10 covers towers, masts, chimneys, piling and crane-supporting structures. The seller's package number is a catalogue label, not the official Eurocode 10 designation. Its listed documents come from Eurocode 3 and Eurocode 8. Documents listed by the seller EN 1993-3-1: steel towers and masts. EN 1993-3-2: steel chimneys. EN 1993-5: steel piling. EN 1993-6: structures supporting cranes. EN 1998-6: earthquake-related provisions for towers, masts and chimneys. The listing identifies BDS national editions of these documents. Their presence in a bundle does not establish that every document, edition or design method applies to the same project. Build a project-specific document list Begin with the structure and its intended use. Record which references the specification requires, then confirm their editions, amendments, national adoption and any relevant National Annex. Check whether newer documents affect the intended design basis. Loading...
Read more