Who Is the EU Responsible Person for Cosmetics?

A proforma invoice from a Korean brand is open on your screen, the price per unit is roughly half what you pay a European wholesaler, and the sales manager has written that the products are fully compliant with EU regulation. You are one bank transfer away from your first direct import.

Ask that manager one question before you send it: which company will be printed on the box as the Responsible Person for these units. The reply is usually silence, a certificate for someone else's shipment, or a cheerful "you can use your own address". The last one is correct, and it is the expensive answer, because Article 4(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 makes each importer the Responsible Person for the specific products it places on the EU market. No signature is needed. The goods clear customs on your declaration and the role is yours.

The role attaches per importer, not per brand. If a German company already imports and notifies the same serum, that covers their units and does nothing for yours.

The short version

Article 4(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 makes the importer the Responsible Person for every unit it clears into the EU, with no signature or contract needed.
Article 11 of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 requires the product information file to be kept for 10 years after the last batch was placed on the market, at the address printed on the label.
Under Regulation (EU) 2023/1545, products not naming the new fragrance allergens could be placed on the EU market until 31 July 2026, and stock already on the market may be sold until 31 July 2028.

What the role actually obliges you to do

Article 5(1) points at sixteen other articles. Four of them cost money before a single bottle is sold.

Article 10 requires a cosmetic product safety report before the product goes on the market, and Article 10(2) requires the assessment to be signed off by someone holding a university qualification in pharmacy, toxicology, medicine or equivalent. You are buying that signature per product.

Article 11 requires a product information file holding the safety report, the manufacturing method with a good manufacturing practice statement, evidence for the claimed effects and the animal testing data, kept for ten years after the last batch was placed on the market and readily accessible at the address on the label. Ten years outlives most supplier relationships, which is why the paperwork you ask a Korean supplier for matters at the order stage rather than the audit stage.

Article 13(1) requires an electronic notification to the Commission per product before it goes on sale, including the country of origin for imports and the frame formulation for poison centres. The portal itself is free of charge, per the Commission's own CPNP page. Producing what the form asks for is not.

Article 19(1)(a) puts your company name and address on every container and carton, indelibly, with the country of origin stated for imported products. Korean packaging arrives satisfying none of this in your market's language, so relabelling is the condition of legal sale rather than a finishing touch.

Then the part that never ends. Article 5(2) obliges you to take corrective action immediately and to tell the authorities yourself once you have reason to believe a product you placed on the market does not conform. Article 23 obliges you to report serious undesirable effects without delay. Article 24 lets an authority demand a list of every product you are responsible for that contains a substance under suspicion, with concentrations. That is a permanent function inside a small retail business, and it is the line missing from the spreadsheet where a direct order looked cheaper than what importing from Korea really costs.

Our position, from watching how the first order goes

For a retailer under roughly a few hundred thousand euros of annual turnover with a broad assortment, buying inside the EU is the right call, and the reason is this role rather than the unit price. Compliance cost scales with the number of products, not with the volume you sell of each. A shop that wants two hundred references and sells modest quantities of most of them is the worst possible shape for per product compliance economics, and that shape does not improve with a better freight rate.

Buy from a wholesaler that has already placed the goods on the EU market and your obligations shrink to a checklist. Article 6(2) requires you, before making a product available, to verify that the Responsible Person's name and address, country of origin, batch number and ingredient list are on the pack, that the language requirements are met for the country where you sell, and that the durability date has not passed. Article 6(3) stops you selling stock you know does not conform. Article 7 requires you to name, on request from an authority, who supplied a batch and which businesses you supplied it to, for three years after it was made available to you. Keep supplier invoices with batch numbers, not just accounting records.

Those label checks belong before the purchase order, which is also why verifying a CPNP notification before you buy is worth the twenty minutes. A wholesaler saying the range is notified is not the same as a pack carrying an address you can read.

The sticker that makes you a notifier

Article 4(6) says translating information for a product already on the market is not a modification, so translation alone does not make you the Responsible Person. Article 13(3) then requires a distributor who translates any labelling element on its own initiative, in order to make the product available in a second member state, to notify the Commission with its own details and those of the Responsible Person.

Resell EU bought units untouched and you notify nothing. Print your own German or Italian sticker for the same stock and you have taken on a notification duty while someone else keeps the file and the liability.

The allergen date that splits the two roles

Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1545 expanded the fragrance allergens that must be named individually in the ingredient list under Article 19(1)(g), above 0,001 % in leave-on products and 0,01 % in rinse-off products. Its annex footnotes give non compliant products two different deadlines: they could be placed on the Union market until 31 July 2026, and may be made available on the Union market until 31 July 2028.

Which date applies to you depends only on your role. As an importer you are placing goods on the market, so the first date is yours and it passed in July 2026. As a distributor selling through stock someone else placed on the market before then, you have until 31 July 2028. Same product, same regulation, two deadlines.

Are you the Responsible Person? A one minute check

Work down the list and stop at the first line that is true for the units on one specific invoice.

The goods crossed the EU border on your import declaration. You are the Responsible Person under Article 4(5). Nothing written on the supplier's invoice or certificate changes that.
You bought inside the EU but the pack carries no EU Responsible Person name, address and country of origin. Those units were never lawfully placed on the market, and Article 6(2) stops you selling them. Send them back.
The address on the pack is your own company, or a compliance firm you pay under a written mandate accepted in writing. You carry the role, whatever the supply route looked like.
You sell the product under your own brand name, or you repack or alter it. Article 4(6) makes you the Responsible Person.
You translate any part of the labelling yourself to sell into a second member state. You stay a distributor, but Article 13(3) makes you notify the Commission.
None of the above. You are a distributor: check the pack under Article 6(2) before selling, and keep supplier and customer records for three years under Article 7.

If line 1 is not settled in one sentence, send this to the supplier before the purchase order: "Which legal entity is the EU Responsible Person for the units on this invoice, and what name and address appears on the label?" A supplier who cannot answer that in writing is selling you the compliance work along with the goods.

Questions buyers ask

Can a Korean brand be the Responsible Person for the EU?

Not from Korea. Article 4(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 only allows a legal or natural person established in the EU to hold the role, so a brand that says it has an EU Responsible Person has arranged for a firm based in a member state to hold it. Ask for that firm's name and check it against the name and address printed on the pack. If you import the units yourself, Article 4(5) still makes you the Responsible Person unless you sign a written mandate with an EU based firm and that firm accepts in writing.

Does the Responsible Person have to be in the country where I sell?

No. Article 4 only requires the Responsible Person to be established somewhere in the EU, so a firm in the Netherlands can hold the role for stock you sell in Austria. What changes by country is the label language: Article 19(5) leaves the language of the nominal content, durability date, precautions and product function to the law of the member state where the product reaches the end user. The address on the pack can be foreign; the text of those four elements has to be in a language your national rules accept.

How much does a Responsible Person service cost per product?

No regulator publishes a tariff, and providers quote per product because Article 10 requires a signed safety assessment for each product and Article 13 a notification for each product. Ask for a quote per reference that separates the safety assessment, the product information file and the ongoing Responsible Person fee. Ask as well what happens to the file if you stop paying, because Article 11 keeps it due for ten years after the last batch.

Sources

Articles, dates and the Commission's CPNP statement above were read on EUR-Lex and the Commission's cosmetics pages on 1 September 2026. This is general information about how Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 allocates roles, not legal advice; a specific product or supply chain should be checked with a qualified adviser or your national competent authority.

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