The Supply of Machinery (Safety) (Amendment etc.) and the EU Machinery Regulation (Enforcement etc. in Northern Ireland) Regulations 2026 were made on 22 July 2026 and come into force on 20 January 2027. Signed by Jonathan Reynolds for the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, the instrument does not create a single UK-wide machinery code. It instead draws a sharper legal line between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, while keeping a route for goods to move across that divide. The preamble is significant. The instrument is made under both the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025, and it records that the Secretary of State had regard to the social, environmental and economic impact of the key GB market-access provisions, consulted appropriate persons, and secured approval of the draft from both Houses of Parliament. For policy and compliance teams, this is a planned regulatory redesign rather than a minor textual amendment.
According to the Explanatory Note on legislation.gov.uk, the 2008 Regulations originally implemented Directive 2006/42/EC on machinery across the United Kingdom. After EU withdrawal, those rules were amended to correct deficiencies for Great Britain and to preserve certain routes for EU-compliant machinery to enter the GB market. The next change is driven by EU law rather than a fresh domestic product code. The EU has replaced the old directive with Regulation (EU) 2023/1230, and under Article 5(4) of the Windsor Framework that regulation will apply directly in Northern Ireland from 20 January 2027. This statutory instrument supplies the domestic legal provisions needed to make that split work in practice.
In Great Britain, Part 2 does three main things. It states expressly that the 2008 Regulations extend only to England and Wales and Scotland, removes Northern Ireland references that no longer fit that territorial scope, and rewrites regulations 12A, 12B and 12C so that compliance with the EU Machinery Regulation can satisfy key GB market-access requirements. That matters because the instrument keeps an EU-based route open for machinery entering the GB market. Where the responsible person meets the relevant Annex III safety requirements, completes the required conformity assessment, keeps technical documentation and declarations available for 10 years, provides instructions in English, and affixes the CE marking in line with the EU Regulation, the GB rules treat several domestic obligations as met. In practical terms, Great Britain is not copying the EU Machinery Regulation wholesale, but it is recognising that framework for defined access purposes.
The same logic is applied to partly completed machinery. The rewritten text requires the applicable Annex III requirements to be met, the Annex IV Part B file to be drawn up and retained for 10 years, an EU declaration of incorporation to accompany the product or remain accessible digitally for 10 years, and assembly instructions to meet Annex XI and be available in English. A separate provision deals with qualifying Northern Ireland goods. If machinery or partly completed machinery complies with the Northern Ireland-applied rules in Articles 10 or 11 of the EU Machinery Regulation, is a qualifying Northern Ireland good, and travels with the responsible person's or authorised representative's name and address, the remaining Part 3 requirements of the 2008 Regulations are treated as met for access to the GB market. That preserves a workable internal-market route after the Northern Ireland regime moves fully to the EU Regulation.
The instrument also contains saving provisions designed to avoid a cliff edge on 20 January 2027. Machinery or partly completed machinery already placed on the market in Great Britain, Northern Ireland or the EU before commencement, and compliant with the old version of regulations 12A, 12B or 12C at that point, may continue to be made available on the GB market. The same continuity applies to legal obligations attached to those products. If a person was already subject to duties under the 2008 Regulations in respect of goods placed on the market before commencement, those duties continue after 20 January 2027. For importers and distributors dealing with legacy stock, that continuity is one of the more important operational points in the instrument.
Northern Ireland is treated differently because the EU Machinery Regulation will apply there directly under the Windsor Framework. Part 3 of the instrument builds the supporting enforcement and conformity assessment framework around that reality, and regulation 15 revokes the 2008 Regulations as they apply in Northern Ireland while preserving continuity for goods already lawfully placed on that market before commencement. It defines UK notified bodies for the purposes of the EU Regulation, requires the Secretary of State to assign them identification numbers and keep a public register, and allows the UK national accreditation body to maintain that register on the Secretary of State's behalf. Where a UK notified body carries out a conformity assessment procedure under Article 25 of the EU Machinery Regulation for machinery placed on the Northern Ireland market, the product must carry the UK(NI) indication alongside the CE marking. The Regulations also make clear that objections under Article 34(5) cannot be based simply on the fact that the conformity assessment body is established in the United Kingdom or accredited by the UK national accreditation body.
The enforcement architecture is set out with unusual precision. The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland is responsible for products for use at work. District councils enforce the rules for products not for use at work within their areas, while the Secretary of State or an appointed person may also enforce in that non-work sphere. The 2021 Market Surveillance (Northern Ireland) Regulations are amended so that this machinery regime sits within the wider Northern Ireland surveillance structure. The offence provisions are also substantial. An economic operator commits an offence by breaching specified obligations in Articles 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 23 or 24 of the EU Machinery Regulation. Breach of the UK(NI) indication rule follows a staged approach: the enforcer must first require the operator to remedy the marking failure within a reasonable period, and only if that failure continues must the enforcer move to withdrawal or recall, with criminal proceedings available after continued non-compliance. The maximum penalties are three months' imprisonment or a statutory maximum fine on summary conviction, or up to two years' imprisonment or a fine on indictment.
There is also a specific information-sharing route for Northern Ireland. Where the EU Machinery Regulation requires information to be disclosed to the European Commission or member States, an enforcer may pass that information to the Secretary of State, who can then make the onward disclosure. The text preserves data protection limits and does not displace any other disclosure powers. The Explanatory Note states that no full impact assessment has been produced because no, or no significant, effect on the private, public or voluntary sector is foreseen. Even so, the compliance task is not minor. Before 20 January 2027, manufacturers, importers, distributors and conformity assessment bodies will need to decide which market each product is intended for, review marking and documentation, confirm when CE and UK(NI) identifiers are required, and separate legacy stock from products first placed on the market under the new regime. For firms operating across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the legal change is less about headline politics and more about disciplined product-by-product classification.