Regulatory Focus
Drinking Water
Drinking Water
195
Countries Covered
28
Languages
458
Regulatory Sources
Our drinking water coverage addresses safety and quality where water intended for human consumption comes into contact with core products, covering contamination prevention, material safety, and measures ensuring water remains clean, wholesome, and protective of human health.
This topic covers rules governing materials and products in contact with drinking water, shaping company obligations on product safety, market access, and compliance to avoid health and regulatory risks.
Companies placing products on the market that come into contact with drinking water must ensure that these materials do not adversely affect water quality or human health. This typically involves meeting composition and migration limits, supporting compliance with testing and documentation obligations, and ensuring products are suitable for use across their intended lifecycle and markets.
- Requirements ensuring that materials and products in contact with drinking water do not endanger human health or adversely affect the quality, composition, odour, taste or appearance of water intended for human consumption.
- Requirements governing the composition of materials in contact with drinking water, including substance restrictions and positive lists of approved substances.
- Requirements for marking, labelling or identifying products that meet drinking water hygiene standards.
- Requirements for demonstrating compliance (e.g. conformity assessment, certification or approval) of products and materials in contact with drinking water.
- Requirements setting limits for substances in drinking water where these may originate from materials in contact with the water
- Requirements establishing harmonised testing and assessment methods to evaluate the migration or release of substances from materials and products into drinking water.
We track national and regional laws, regulations, and technical standards governing the quality and safety of water intended for human consumption where it comes into contact with products. Our coverage focuses on frameworks addressing chemical, physical, and radiological parameters, material suitability, and compliance obligations for articles in contact with drinking water across key jurisdictions.
- EU: Radioactive Substances in Water Intended for Human Consumption, Directive 2013/51/EURATOM
- EU: Methodologies for Testing and Accepting Starting Substances, Compositions and Constituents to Be Included in the European Positive Lists, Decision (EU) 2024/365
- EU: Positive Lists of Starting Substances, Compositions and Constituents Authorised for Use in the Manufacture of Materials or Products that Come into Contact with Water Intended for Human Consumption, Decision (EU) 2024/367
- EU: Procedures and Methods for Testing and Accepting Final Materials as Used in Products that Come into Contact with Water Intended for Human Consumption, Decision (EU) 2024/368
- EU: Procedure on Inclusion In or Removal from the European Positive Lists of Starting Substances, Compositions and Constituents, Regulation (EU) 2024/369
- EU: Conformity Assessment Procedures for Products that Come into Contact with Water Intended for Human Consumption and the Rules for the Designation of Conformity Assessment Bodies Involved in those Procedures, Regulation (EU) 2024/370
- EU: Harmonised Specifications for the Marking of Products that Come into Contact with Water Intended for Human Consumption, Regulation (EU) 2024/371
- Germany: Evaluation of Plastics and Other Organic Materials In Contact With Drinking Water, Evaluation Criteria, August 2024
- USA: Lead Free Pipes and Plumbing Products for Drinking Water, Rule, 40 CFR 141 and 143, September 2020, Use of Lead Free Pipes, Fittings, Fixtures, Solder, and Flux for Drinking Water, 85 FR 54235
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Products that come into contact with water intended for human consumption are in scope. This includes materials and articles used in drinking, cooking, food preparation or food production. It covers manufacturers of materials and components such as pipes, fittings, fixtures, appliances and other relevant articles placed on the market in regulated jurisdictions.
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Companies must ensure that materials in contact with drinking water do not adversely affect water quality or human health. This typically includes complying with substance restrictions, meeting material safety and performance criteria, and demonstrating conformity with applicable national or regional drinking water regulations, such as the Drinking Water Directive (EU) 2020/2184 or equivalent frameworks in other jurisdictions.
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EU harmonised requirements for materials and products in contact with drinking water are expected to apply from 31 December 2026, after which the EU framework will govern product compliance across Member States.
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Under the EU framework, materials that come into contact with drinking water from the water source to the tap are regulated under drinking water legislation. Once the water flows from the tap, materials that come into contact with drinking water are regulated under food safety and food contact materials legislation.
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