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Over 80% of the smartphones and tablets reaching the European market still don’t publish the information required by the smartphone repairability law, in effect for exactly one year now. Right to Repair Europe confirmed this on September 7, 2026, after reviewing the official registry where each manufacturer declares its own score.
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The finding matters because the rule relies on the manufacturer’s word: no one else audits the data before the phone reaches store shelves.
TL;DR
- Over 80% of smartphones and tablets in the EU don’t publish their mandatory repair information.
- The rule has required a self-declared repairability score and a spare parts link since June 2025.
- Of 2,334 phone records in EPREL, only 18% link to an actual page with spare parts or manuals.
- About 50% of the records leave the repair URL field blank.
- Another 19% point to a generic support page, with no spare parts or instructions.
- Some records send buyers to look for spare parts on Temu or AliExpress.
- Noncompliant manufacturers still give themselves the top rating, class A, for repairability.
- Starting in February 2027, new phones will need to have a user-replaceable battery.
What Happened
Right to Repair Europe, the coalition that includes organizations like iFixit’s European branch, reviewed the European Product Registry for Energy Labelling (EPREL), the public database where the European Commission requires every phone and tablet model sold in the bloc to be registered. It found 2,334 smartphone records registered over the past year and checked, one by one, whether each complied with publishing where to find spare parts and the repair manual.
The result: only 18% of those records link to a page that’s actually useful, with spare parts prices or instructions. About half leave the field empty, with no link at all. Another 19% point to a generic product or support page, with no spare parts or manual. In some cases, the manufacturer sends buyers directly to Temu or AliExpress to find replacement parts.
Even when the spare part price does appear, the data can be useless: some records list a replacement battery priced between 14 and 128 euros, a range so wide it doesn’t help anyone decide whether repairing the device is worth it.
The most striking part is that several clearly noncompliant manufacturers still award themselves the highest possible grade, class A, in the repairability score they self-report. And when the link does exist and is valid, it isn’t always easy to use: for major brands like Apple and Samsung, it takes several clicks to reach the actual price of a spare part, according to the report.
⚠️ Heads up: the system has no automatic verifier. A manufacturer can leave the repair field empty and still declare itself class A in repairability, because the score is self-assessed.
Background and History
The obligation originated within the EU’s ecodesign and energy labeling package, which since June 2025 extended to smartphones and tablets the same scheme that already existed for refrigerators or washing machines: a label with a grade from A to G and verifiable technical data. The difference with energy is that, for appliances, there are labs that measure consumption. For repairability, the manufacturer itself sets the score, with no prior audit.
France had tried something similar before, with its mandatory repairability index for consumer electronics, which served as a reference for the European scheme. Brussels’ bet was to scale that idea to all 27 countries in the bloc, backed by the EPREL registry as a single transparency window.
How the EPREL Registry Works
Every manufacturer selling a smartphone or tablet in the EU has to create a record in EPREL before putting the product up for sale. That record includes the model’s technical spec sheet, the automatically generated energy label, and, since June 2025, a mandatory field with the URL where buyers can find spare parts prices and the repair manual.
The problem is structural: EPREL validates that the URL field exists and has a link format, but it doesn’t validate that the link leads to real information. Right to Repair Europe had to manually open each of the 2,334 links to classify them. Here’s the distribution they found:
| Record category | What it means | % of the 2,334 records |
|---|---|---|
| Valid link with repair data | The URL leads to actual spare parts prices or instructions | 18% |
| Blank URL field | The manufacturer didn’t fill in the mandatory link | ~50% |
| Generic or irrelevant link | Points to a product or support page with no spare parts or manual | 19% |
| Other cases, including Temu and AliExpress | The link exists but doesn’t fulfill the purpose of the rule | remaining records |
The following diagram summarizes the journey of a typical record, from the manufacturer declaring its score to a buyer trying to use that information:
flowchart TD
A["Manufacturer launches a model"] --> B["Declares its own repairability score"]
B --> C["Registers the model in EPREL"]
C --> D{"Does it publish a URL with spare parts and manual?"}
D -- "Yes, 18%" --> E["The consumer finds the information"]
D -- "Empty field, ~50%" --> F["The consumer finds nothing"]
D -- "Generic link, 19%" --> G["The consumer reaches a page with no data"]How to Check Smartphone Repairability Yourself
The EPREL registry is public, so there’s no need to wait for the next NGO report to check a specific model. The web search tool is at eprel.ec.europa.eu, filtering by the smartphones and tablets category. There you’ll find each model’s spec sheet with its energy label and, if the manufacturer uploaded it, the repair URL.
To quickly confirm whether that URL is useful, checking the HTTP status code is enough:
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" "https://soporte.ejemplo-fabricante.com/repuestos/modelo-x1"A 200 doesn’t guarantee the page has spare parts prices, only that the link responds. The step Right to Repair Europe takes is to download the content and search for keywords associated with actual repair, not just generic technical support:
import csv
import requests
PALABRAS_CLAVE = ["repuesto", "spare part", "battery", "bateria", "manual de reparacion", "repair manual"]
def clasificar(url):
if not url or not url.strip():
return "vacio"
try:
resp = requests.get(url, timeout=10, allow_redirects=True)
except requests.RequestException:
return "inalcanzable"
if resp.status_code != 200:
return f"http_{resp.status_code}"
texto = resp.text.lower()
if any(palabra in texto for palabra in PALABRAS_CLAVE):
return "cumple"
return "irrelevante"
with open("eprel_smartphones.csv", newline="", encoding="utf-8") as archivo:
filas = csv.DictReader(archivo)
resultados = {}
for fila in filas:
estado = clasificar(fila["url_reparacion"])
resultados[estado] = resultados.get(estado, 0) + 1
print(resultados)The script takes a CSV with the models and the repair URL each one declared in EPREL (exported manually from the search tool, since EPREL doesn’t offer a documented public API for third parties), and returns a count per category. If you run this on a large sample, the proportions should come close to what Right to Repair Europe reported: a minority in “cumple”, close to half in “vacio”.
💡 Tip: before buying a phone, look up the model in EPREL and test the repair link with the curl command above. If it returns a 404 or redirects to the manufacturer’s homepage, the repairability score shown on the box has no real backing.
Impact and Analysis
Right to Repair Europe questions the entire design of the system. If thousands of records have an empty field and no one noticed for a year, no authority is reviewing the data manufacturers upload.
Thomas Opsomer, EU policy spokesperson for iFixit and the Right to Repair Europe coalition, summed it up: “The obligation for publicly available spare parts prices and repair manuals is a great step forward, but it needs to be enforced better.” Opsomer also argued that, since the score is self-assigned, manufacturers should be required to publish all the documentation behind it so anyone can audit it, and that it should be easier for consumers and repair shops to report noncompliance.
The Register asked the European Commission about these findings and, at the time the report was published, there was still no response. That silence is part of the problem the NGO points to: there’s no public evidence that any authority is actively auditing EPREL records.
For those working in software or regulatory compliance, this case is a classic example of self-assessment without audit: any system where the regulated party uploads its own data, with no automatic quality check or clear penalty for leaving fields blank, tends to fill up with blank fields. The underlying problem is that smartphone repairability ended up in the hands of the party least interested in seeing it audited: the manufacturer itself.
What’s Next
In February 2027, another phase of the same family of rules takes effect: new phones sold in the EU will need to have a user-replaceable battery, with exceptions for categories like wearables. That requirement is easier to audit than a broken link, because it’s verified through the product’s physical design, not a text field a manufacturer can leave blank.
Right to Repair Europe will keep pushing for two concrete changes: that the Commission require publishing the technical documentation behind each self-declared score, and that a simple channel exist for consumers and repair shops to report noncompliant records in EPREL. Neither change requires a new law, better regulation of the existing one would be enough.
For a reader outside the EU, this case serves as an early warning: any repairability law that relies on manufacturer self-assessment, without audit or automatic penalty, risks ending up with the same gap between what the label says and what’s actually behind the link.
📖 Summary on Telegram: View summary
Try it yourself: look up your next phone’s model at eprel.ec.europa.eu and run the curl command above against the repair link before trusting the repairability grade shown on the box.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the EU repairability label?
It’s a grade, from class A down to the lowest, that every smartphone and tablet manufacturer has had to self-assign since June 2025, along with a link where buyers can see spare parts prices and the repair manual.
What is EPREL?
The European Product Registry for Energy Labelling is the European Commission’s public database where manufacturers register every model before selling it in the bloc, including its energy and repairability label.
Why isn’t the repairability score fully reliable?
Because it’s calculated and declared by the manufacturer itself, with no external lab verifying it before publication. Right to Repair Europe found manufacturers giving themselves class A despite leaving the mandatory repair information field blank.
What happens if a manufacturer doesn’t comply with the rule?
According to the report, there’s no evidence of active penalties: thousands of records have had an empty repair field for a year without any authority correcting them.
Does the rule also apply to brands selling through platforms like Temu or AliExpress?
Yes, any manufacturer selling smartphones or tablets in the European market must register in EPREL, regardless of its country of origin or sales channel.
What changes in 2027?
Starting in February 2027, new phones will need to have a user-replaceable battery, with exceptions for devices like wearables.
References
- The Register: original report on noncompliance with EU repairability rules.
- EPREL: public European Commission registry where energy and repairability labels are uploaded.
- iFixit: repair organization cited as spokesperson for the Right to Repair Europe coalition.
- European Commission: authority responsible for the ecodesign and energy labeling regulation that includes repairability.
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Imagen destacada: Foto de Anton Maksimov 5642.su en Unsplash
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