Strict liability for defective products, with software and AI brought within the definition of product.
How it allocates obligations
Product defect.
Regulated actor
Manufacturer
Protected party
End user
Territorial reach
Established in the EU
Implementation model
Requires national transposition
Enforcement mechanism
National courts.
Key dates
Entry into force, application and transposition are different events and are kept apart. A date at month precision is shown as a month rather than invented as a day.
9 December 2026Application dateThe revised Product Liability Directive applies to products placed on the market or put into service after this date. Software and AI fall within strict product liability.What it requires: Reassess liability exposure for software and AI-enabled products.
9 December 2026Transposition deadlineMember States must bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions needed to comply with the revised Product Liability Directive.
1 rule in the dataset turn on this instrument. They are conditions, not a test: the engine ranks them against what you actually answer, and downgrades rather than excludes where a question is left blank.
Potentially applicable
actor Manufacturer or AI provider or Connected-product provideractivity Placing connected products on the market or Deploying AI systems or Developing AI systems or Placing products with digital elements on the market
The revised Product Liability Directive brings software and AI within strict product liability for products placed on the market or put into service after 9 December 2026. This is civil liability before national courts, not an administrative penalty regime — and the proposed AI Liability Directive, which would have covered the fault-based route, was abandoned.
No article of this instrument has been entered into the dataset. The obligations it imposes are therefore described here only in general terms, and the applicability rules for it cannot point at articles.
Enforcement
No enforcement recorded
This dataset holds no enforcement action under this instrument. That is what the record says; it is not a finding that none has been taken.
Every statement this site makes about Revised PLD, graded by what actually carries it. The grade is derived from the claim type and its sources, never stored, so it cannot drift from what it describes.
The instrument record itself was last verified on 27 August 2026; every claim below carries its own date.
1 Primary law1 Interpretation
Primary lawlaw
The revised Product Liability Directive brings software and AI within strict product liability, applying to products placed on the market or put into service after 9 December 2026.
The AI Act is one instrument in a system that already regulated most of its subject matter: automated decision-making by GDPR Art. 22 since 2018, algorithmic recommender risk by DSA Arts. 34–35, product liability by the revised PLD — while the proposed AI Liability Directive was abandoned, leaving a gap in the fault-based route.
1 recorded interaction with other instruments — each with a direction, the provisions that carry it and its own sources. Direction is preserved as recorded: an instrument that amends another is not the same as one amended by it.
The AI Act is product-safety legislation; the revised Product Liability Directive brings software and AI within strict product liability. The proposed AI Liability Directive, which would have covered the fault-based route, was abandoned.
What the brief argues
Official sourceThe proposed AI Liability Directive was abandoned, leaving a gap in the fault-based liability route.
Primary lawThe revised Product Liability Directive brings software and AI within strict product liability, applying to products placed on the market or put into service after 9 December 2026.