The Radio Equipment Directive (2014/53/EU)

What it covers

RED sets three core essential requirements plus a set that can be activated by delegated act. Everything the EMC and Low Voltage Directives would have required is folded in, so a radio product declares against RED alone.

• Article 3.1(a): health and safety, including electrical safety and RF exposure
• Article 3.1(b): electromagnetic compatibility
• Article 3.2: efficient use of the radio spectrum
• Article 3.3(d)(e)(f): network protection, personal data and fraud, cybersecurity, applicable since August 2025

Does it apply to you?

Any product with an intentional radio, BLE, Wi-Fi, sub-GHz, LoRa, NFC above the exclusion threshold, cellular, is radio equipment, including when the radio is a pre-certified module inside your housing.

• A pre-certified module does not exempt the host: you still place a radio product on the market and sign its Declaration of Conformity
• Receive-only equipment such as GNSS receivers is in scope
• Where harmonised standards are not applied in full, a notified body opinion is required

What testing looks like

The radio part is tested against the relevant EN 300 series standard, EMC against EN 301 489, and safety against EN 62368-1 with RF exposure assessed under EN 62311 or EN 50665.

• EN 300 328 for 2.4 GHz wideband, EN 300 220 for sub-GHz, EN 301 908 for cellular
• EN 301 489-1 plus the relevant part -3, -17 or -52 for EMC
• EN 18031 series for the cybersecurity requirements under Article 3.3
• Test order matters: settle the radio, then EMC, then safety, so a radio change does not invalidate everything

Common failures

• Antenna gain higher than the module's certified reference antenna, invalidating inherited coverage
• Adaptivity and duty-cycle behaviour in firmware that does not match what was declared
• Occupied bandwidth drifting over temperature at band edges
• Cybersecurity evidence missing entirely because it was treated as a software task
• A Declaration of Conformity that lists the module's standards instead of the finished product's

Next step

If you are still choosing between a pre-certified module and your own radio design, run the Radio Path Chooser first, it lays out what each path has to certify and the changes that trigger a retest.