Selling baby textiles in the EU: what has to be on the label
Fibre composition is the only labelling the EU actually mandates. Since December 2024 a name and address has to be there too. Care symbols are expected by retail rather than required by law — and knowing which is which saves a reprint.
Updated 2026-09-10
Fibre composition is the part that is genuinely compulsory
Regulation (EU) 1007/2011 requires the fibre content on every textile product sold in the EU, using the fibre names the regulation itself lists, in the language of the country you sell into. "100 % cotton" in Germany has to read "100 % Baumwolle". It has to be durable — sewn in or printed on a label that survives washing, not on a swing tag that goes in the bin.
Since December 2024, so is your name and address
The General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988 has applied since 13 December 2024. It requires a responsible person established in the EU, named with a postal address and a contact point, on the product or its packaging. If you are an EU company importing from us, that person is you. If you sell into the EU from outside it, you have to appoint someone inside it before the goods move.
Care symbols are expected, not required
No EU regulation makes washing symbols mandatory. Retail expects them, returns rise without them, and every buyer we have ever shipped to asks for them — but they are commercial practice, not law. We include a printed care label with fibre content, size and symbols in the price of every piece, so the distinction costs you nothing either way.
What we print, and what you print
Our label template carries the fibre composition, the size, the care symbols and a block for your responsible-person details. If you send your own artwork we check those four things before print rather than after, because a label reprint means unpicking a seam on every piece. Send it as PDF, CMYK, 3 mm bleed, fonts outlined.
The chemistry, briefly
REACH Annex XVII restricts azo dyes that can release the listed aromatic amines, which is the restriction that actually bites on dyed cotton. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 tests to Product Class I for articles for babies and small children up to three years — the strictest of its classes, and the one baby textiles should be certified to. We dye at a partner house and our certificate number goes out with the first written quote.
Orientation from a factory that ships into the EU every week, not legal advice. The rules below are named so you can look them up, and your own advisor should confirm anything you are about to print on a label.