Label Translation for EU Markets: What Has to Be Translated on Labels and Packaging, and How to Get It Right
Which languages must product labels and packaging be in to sell in the EU? Usually the official language or languages of each member state where the product is sold, as that member state decides. The exact rule depends on the product’s legislation: GPSR, CLP, the Machinery Regulation, the MDR and others. Good label translation starts there.
Where do product, compliance and packaging teams meet on the label?
This guide is for the people who sign off what goes on the outside of a product. You might be a product manager preparing a launch in six new countries, a compliance specialist who has to confirm that every warning is in the right language, a technical writer who owns the safety texts, or the packaging and marketing team that holds the artwork files. In many companies these roles sit in different departments, and the label is the place where all of them meet, often for the first time, a few weeks before production.
The sectors vary: machinery builders with rating plates and warning stickers, HVAC and electrical manufacturers with ratings and short instructions on cartons, companies that also sell cleaning agents or lubricants for their machines, and anyone selling to consumers under the General Product Safety Regulation. Food labelling follows its own legislation and is not covered here.
What follows is a practical overview, not legal advice. The regulations below set the framework, but the exact obligations for a given product depend on its classification, the sector rules that apply to it and the decisions of each member state. Your regulatory team, or an external adviser, should confirm the final requirements before artwork is released.
What counts as labels and packaging
When manufacturers ask for a quote on packaging translation, the first job is usually to find out what the request actually includes. “The label” can mean very different things, and the items that get forgotten are the ones that later stop a shipment or trigger a complaint from a distributor. A complete inventory usually covers the following:
- rating plates and nameplates on the product itself, with the model designation, electrical or pressure ratings, manufacturer details and any short safety notes;
- warning labels and safety signs fixed to the machine or device, with or without pictograms and supplementary text;
- packaging text on cartons, blisters, bags and sleeves: product name, contents, handling and storage notes, assembly hints and marketing claims;
- inserts and leaflets packed with the product, from a one-page quick start sheet to safety instructions printed on a folded sheet;
- carton and transport marks, such as handling instructions, weight information and stacking limits on outer boxes and crates;
- hazard labels for chemical products, with hazard and precautionary statements, signal words and supplier details;
- QR codes and short URLs that point to online instructions, declarations or safety information, together with the line of text that tells the user what the code is for.
Two items are easy to miss. The first is text inside images, such as a wiring diagram with labelled terminals: in a flattened graphic, nobody translates it unless someone spots it. The second is the QR code. The code needs no translation, but the line beside it does, and so does the page it opens. A code that leads a German user to an English-only page has only moved the language problem.
Which rules require translation on labels and packaging
No single EU law says “translate every label into every official language”. Each piece of product legislation has its own language rule, and most leave the final decision to the member state where the product is made available. In practice, safety information must be in a language the user understands, which usually means the official language or languages of the country of sale.
Consumer products: the General Product Safety Regulation. Regulation (EU) 2023/988, known as the GPSR, has applied since 13 December 2024 and replaced the old General Product Safety Directive. It requires manufacturers to make sure their products are accompanied by clear instructions and safety information in a language that consumers can easily understand, as determined by the member state in which the product is made available. That obligation does not apply where the product can be used safely and as intended without such instructions. The GPSR also requires the manufacturer’s name, registered trade name or trade mark, and a postal and electronic address to be shown on the product or, where that is not possible, on the packaging or in an accompanying document. For online and other distance sales, the offer itself must show the manufacturer’s details and any warnings or safety information in a language consumers can easily understand. That last point links the physical pack to the product page: the warnings on the carton and the warnings in the online listing should say the same thing, a topic our guide to translating product catalogues and online shops covers from the product data side. Several countries add national language laws on top of the EU rules, from the Loi Toubon in France to the Polish Language Act; our EU language requirements table summarises them market by market.
Chemical products: the CLP Regulation. If you supply cleaning agents, lubricants, coolants, adhesives or other hazardous mixtures alongside your machines, their labels fall under Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on classification, labelling and packaging. The basic language rule is straightforward: the label must be written in the official language or languages of the member state where the substance or mixture is placed on the market, unless that member state provides otherwise. The label carries hazard statements, precautionary statements and a signal word, and these have standard wordings in every official EU language that are fixed in the regulation itself. Translators should not reword them; they should use the official phrase for each code.
CLP was revised by Regulation (EU) 2024/2865, which entered into force on 10 December 2024. The revision introduces formatting rules intended to make labels more legible, including minimum font sizes linked to package size, and it sets clearer rules for fold-out labels and allows some supplementary information to be given in digital form, while the essential hazard information stays on the physical label. Since then, the EU has moved to postpone and simplify several of the new labelling obligations, including the formatting rules, so the timetable has shifted. If you sell chemical products, ask your regulatory team which version of the formatting rules applies on your launch date before you redesign the label, because the answer affects how many languages fit on one pack.
Machinery: Regulation (EU) 2023/1230. The new Machinery Regulation applies from 20 January 2027 and replaces the Machinery Directive. It keeps the principle that the instructions for use, the safety information and the information set out in its annexes must be in a language easily understood by users, as determined by the member state concerned, and it applies the same principle to written or verbal information and warnings on the machinery itself. The regulation also expresses a preference for information and warnings in the form of readily understandable symbols or pictograms. Where instructions are supplied in digital form, the manufacturer must indicate on the machinery or, where that is not possible, on the packaging or in an accompanying document, how to access them. That marking is one more piece of label text that needs a translation. Our article on the Machinery Regulation and translated documentation from January 2027 looks at the documentation side in more detail, and the guide to user manual translation and EU rules covers the instructions themselves.
Medical devices. Labels for medical devices follow the Medical Device Regulation, which has its own detailed list of label particulars, symbols and language rules set by each member state. If any of your products are medical devices, our guide to EU MDR labeling requirements and languages sets out what the regulation asks for.
Other sector legislation, for electrical and radio equipment, toys, pressure equipment and more, adds its own rules, and some member states have national language laws for consumer information. That is why the honest answer to “which languages?” is “it depends on the product and the country”, and why the list of target markets is the first thing a translation team needs.
Space is the real constraint
Label space is fixed, while translated text often runs longer than the source. Everything else in this section follows from that sentence.
A rating plate is sized to the machine, a warning sticker to the flat area next to the hazard, a carton panel to a design that already balances image, logos and legal text. When the text must appear in five or fifteen languages, there are only a few ways to make room, and each has a cost.
The first choice is between a multilingual label and per-country labels. One label for a whole region means one SKU and no risk of the wrong box reaching the wrong country, but also small type, long text blocks and a redesign whenever a market is added. Per-country or per-cluster labels give each language enough space and keep the pack readable, but they multiply the number of artwork versions, part numbers and warehouse variants. Many manufacturers end up with a mix: a multilingual rating plate on the product, which rarely changes, and language-specific packaging or inserts, which can be swapped for each market.
Pictograms reduce the amount of text, and every regulation above encourages them where they are clear. A standard symbol for a hot surface, an electrical hazard or the need to read the instructions works across borders. But a pictogram is not a substitute for text where the rules require text, and an unfamiliar symbol without explanation can confuse rather than help. The FAQ below comes back to this point.
Abbreviations need care. An abbreviation invented to save space in one language can be meaningless in another, so shortening a term to fit a panel should be decided with the translator, not fixed in the layout file afterwards.
The practical answer is to plan the space for translation at the artwork stage. If the source label is designed with its text area filled to the edge, every translation will overflow. If the designer reserves room for the longest expected language, or builds a placeholder text area into the template, the translated text can be placed without shrinking the type below a readable size. Our article on multilingual desktop publishing explains how layout rules such as language order, minimum type size and fixed fields are written into a layout specification, so this guide will not repeat them.
What to send and how artwork files are handled
Packaging and label artwork is usually built in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. For translation, the most useful files are those source files with live, editable text, together with the fonts used and, for packaging, the dieline that shows where the folds, cuts and glue areas are. A print-ready PDF is useful as a visual reference, but it is a poor starting point: text has to be extracted, often loses its structure and then has to be placed back by hand. Outlined text, where the letters have been turned into shapes for printing, cannot be extracted at all.
Alongside the artwork, a translation team needs the list of target countries and languages, any existing translations of the same text, and a note of which elements must never change, such as part numbers, barcodes, certification marks or regulatory phrases that you have already validated. If the label is generated from a database or a labelling system rather than from a design file, an export of the text fields with their maximum lengths does the same job.
Preparing these files well saves time and money at every later revision. The article on DTP file preparation before translation explains why clean source files keep the translation memory clean, and our guide to translating InDesign and Illustrator files without rebuilding the layout covers the technical round trip.
Consistency with the manual, the machine and the online listing
A warning on a label usually also appears in the manual, on the HMI, in the quick start leaflet and in the online listing. Translated at different times by different people, the same hazard ends up described in three slightly different ways, which confuses users and raises the question of which version is the real instruction.
The way to avoid this is to treat label text as part of your technical content rather than as a separate marketing job. A glossary, or termbase, fixes the approved name of each component, function and hazard in every language, and our page on terminology management and glossaries describes how one is built and kept up to date. The translation memory then stores every approved sentence, so when a warning that already exists in the manual appears on a new label, it is reused word for word instead of being translated again. The same applies to screen texts: if your machine shows “Emergency stop activated” in Italian, the sticker next to the button should use the same words, a point explored in our article on HMI and machine software translation.
Product names and units need the same discipline. Decide early whether model names are translated or kept, record it in the glossary, and make sure the units on the label match the manual: a pressure in bar on the carton and in another unit in the manual generates support calls.
Common mistakes in product label translation
Most problems with product label translation come from the process around the text, not from the translation itself.
Translating from a PDF is the first. Sending the printer’s PDF seems faster, but someone then has to rebuild the label in each language and check that nothing was lost, and forced line breaks end up inside the translation, reducing reuse next time.
Last-minute changes to the source are the second. A claim is reworded or a warning extended after translation, only in the source artwork. Unless the change goes back for translation, the language versions fall out of step, often unnoticed until after printing.
Decimal separators and units are the third. English uses a decimal point and most continental European languages use a comma, so “1.5 kg” and “1,5 kg” are both correct in their own context and wrong in the other. Thousands separators, date formats and temperature units follow the same logic. On a rating plate or a dosage instruction, a misplaced separator is not a style issue.
Untranslated text inside pictograms or graphics is the fourth. A symbol with an English word inside it, a diagram with English callouts or a “Made in” line embedded in a logo will survive every translation round unless someone has listed it as text to translate.
A warning shortened to fit is the fifth, and the most serious. When the translated warning is longer than the space, the tempting fix is to cut a few words. But removing a condition, a time limit or a negation can change what the user is told to do. If a warning does not fit, the solution is a layout decision or a reworded source agreed with the people responsible for safety, not a shorter translation made in the artwork file.
Language codes and the order of languages are the sixth. Multilingual labels often mark each block with a code such as DE, FR or IT, and it is easy to use country codes where language codes are meant, or to mix the two. Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg each use more than one language, so a country code does not tell the reader which language follows. Agree a consistent convention and order with your distributors and apply it on every label.
Planning and cost drivers for packaging translation services
The cost and lead time of packaging translation services depend less on the number of words than on how the label set is organised.
The number of SKUs and variants matters most. A product range with dozens of models, each with its own carton and rating plate, produces many files with a large amount of shared text. That shared text is good news, because the translation memory reuses it across labels: a warning used on forty cartons is translated once and then placed forty times. Teams that send label files one by one, from different departments, lose part of that benefit because nobody sees the repetition across the set.
The number of languages multiplies the translation and, more noticeably, the artwork work: every language version of every file has to be built, checked and exported for print. Proof rounds are the other variable. Internal approval, a check by a local subsidiary and a printer’s proof each take time in each language, and late changes repeat the artwork work. Naming one person per language to collect comments shortens the schedule more than any other step.
How DEMA Solutions handles label and packaging translation
Labels are product information like any other, and DEMA Solutions provides language technology solutions for the manuals, catalogues, interface texts and packaging that manufacturers ship. Every client has its own translation memory and termbase, delivered in TMX and TBX on request, so the warning printed on the carton can use the same words as the warning in the manual and on the machine. Label texts are translated under our ISO 17100 certified process, which includes revision by a second qualified linguist.
Artwork stays in house. The desktop publishing services team works directly in your Illustrator and InDesign files, sets each language into the artwork, adjusts the layout where a longer language needs room and returns print-ready files for each market. This work is done by Foliage Solutions, DEMA’s brand for multilingual DTP. When a range launches in several countries at once, our teams in Italy, Serbia and Spain split the languages between them. You can read more on our page on language solutions for the manufacturing industry.
Where TUBE fits
Labels change whenever a product is updated, and much of their text repeats across a range: the same warnings and handling notes on carton after carton. TUBE ties each new version to wording you have already approved, because your glossary and translation memory guide machine translation, and a leverage report shows how much of the new label set was reused. There is nothing to install or integrate on your side.
Frequently asked questions
Usually the official language or languages of each member state where the product is sold, as that member state decides. The exact rule depends on the legislation that covers the product, such as the GPSR for consumer products, CLP for hazardous chemicals, the Machinery Regulation or the MDR, and some countries add national rules. Your regulatory team should confirm the list for each market.
Yes, as long as it contains every language required in each of those countries and remains legible. The limit is space: the more languages on one label, the smaller the text and the harder it is to read. Many manufacturers combine a multilingual label on the product with language-specific packaging or inserts.
They reduce the amount of text, and regulations encourage clear symbols. But warnings and instructions still need text in the required language wherever the rules ask for it, and a symbol the user does not recognise needs an explanation. Pictograms support the text; they do not remove the need for it.
The source artwork with live text, usually Illustrator or InDesign files, with the fonts and, for packaging, the dieline. Add a PDF for reference, the list of target markets and any existing translations or approved regulatory phrases.
They need to appear in the required language, but they should not be freely translated. The CLP Regulation provides standard wording for hazard and precautionary statements in each official EU language, and those official phrases should be used.
Translate labels with the same glossary and translation memory as the manual and the machine interface. Approved warnings are then reused word for word wherever they appear, and a change made in one place can be traced to every other place it affects.
The number of SKUs and artwork files, how much text they share, the number of languages, the artwork work in each language and the number of proof rounds. Shared text across a range is reused from memory, which lowers the translation effort for each additional label.
Send us one label set
The quickest way to see how your labels would translate is to try it on a real one. Send us one label set or packaging artwork file with the list of your target markets, and we will show you what can be reused from your existing translations, where the space will be tight and how the artwork can be handled for each language.
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Tell us what you need and we’ll get back to you with the solutions.