The EU Releases New Right to Repair Requirements for Phones and Tablets: What You Need to Know

Key Takeaways

• New EU rules take effect June 20, 2025, requiring mobile phones and tablets to be easier and cheaper to repair, including mandatory access to spare parts for up to seven years.
• Devices must meet durability standards, such as resistance to drops, water, and dust, and batteries must retain 80% capacity after 800 cycles.
• Manufacturers must offer 5 years of software updates and grant repair professionals access to firmware and repair tools to ensure long-term device usability.
• Energy consumption is expected to drop, with households projected to save 98 over five years due to longer-lasting, more repairable devices.

In a win for the right to repair, the European Union (EU) has released its new energy labeling and ecodesign requirements for mobile phones, tablets, and even cordless phones.

Once implemented, this would help extend the product lifetime of these devices by making them cheaper and easier to repair.

Up Ahead: Long-Lasting and Easy-to-Repair Devices

The new ecodesign and energy labeling regulations will apply to devices sold in the EU effective June 20, 2025. One key area is the availability of spare parts.

Once the regulations take effect, critical spare parts for a device must remain available for seven years from the last day the producer stops selling it. These parts must also be available to repairers within 5-10 working days.

Mobile phones, cordless phones, and tablets under the ecodesign regulations must also be resistant to scratches and accidental drops, and be protected from dust and water.

The EU also specified that batteries must withstand at least 800 charge and discharge cycles while holding 80% of their initial capacity. These measures could help ensure devices last longer, thus reducing the need to replace them and lowering their cost of ownership.

The requirements go beyond just the hardware. On the software side, manufacturers must also provide at least 5 years of operating system upgrades and give professional repairers access to software or firmware.

These would allow devices to continue to run smoothly and protect them from security vulnerabilities.

On top of the ecodesign requirements, the EU also specified energy labeling requirements on the applicable devices.

The labels would provide information about the device's repairability score, energy efficiency, battery longevity, dust and water protection, and resistance to accidental drops.

Having clear and easy-to-understand labels can help consumers in the EU make better choices when buying phones and tablets. They'll know at a glance whether a device can withstand drops or if the batteries will remain reliable for as long as possible.

The Projected Impact of the Ecodesign and Energy Labeling Requirements

With the new requirements, the EU expects a significant reduction in the energy consumption of the applicable devices. Regarding charging time, this should go down from 2.5 to 1.75 hours per day.

Also, the annual electrical consumption of high-end smartphones is projected to decrease by 25%, while it's 23% for tablets by 2030. Making devices easier to repair is also seen to reduce the acquisition costs of devices by 98 per household in five years.

A Win for the Right to Repair, But Obstacles Lie Ahead

While the EU has already made significant progress in the area of the right to repair, many countries remain well behind.

In the US, for instance, only a handful of states like California and Colorado have already enacted right-to-repair laws, while most of the country has yet to catch up.

Without laws like these, most manufacturers won't have the incentive to make their devices easier to repair.

A quick look at iFixit's smartphone repairability scores shows that only Fairphone, which scored a perfect 10, HMD (9), and Nokia (8) had high scores among current phones. At the same time, Apple's iPhone 16 line received a respectable 7.

The Fairphone 5, launched in 2023, is especially notable for its repairability. According to iFixit, it's easy to disassemble with common tools, the battery can be replaced quickly, and manuals and replacement parts are available to DIYers.

As for the others, Ifixit gave Google's Pixel 9 series a 5 for making it difficult to remove the battery and the USB-C port and requiring a replacement adhesive to secure the screen or back glass instead of using clips or fasteners.

Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra received a 4 because the battery is attached with a strong adhesive, and repairing the screen needs a lot of disassembly.

All in all, we remain hopeful that with the EU's lead, manufacturers can finally be encouraged to make repairing their devices easier than ever before.

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