Europe's New Right to Repair Law Bans the Tricks — But Leaves the Price Tag Untouched

refurbed: the EU Right to Repair Directive stops manufacturers blocking repair, but an undefined "reasonable" price and an open-ended IP loophole mean repair still doesn't have to be cheap - or even possible

Vienna, 27.07.2026. The EU's Right to Repair Directive is now landing in national laws and refurbed, the leading European platform for refurbished electronics, says the law does real good but stops one clause short of making repair actually affordable.

"The Directive earns its credit: it bans the contractual, hardware and software tricks manufacturers have used for years to block repair," says Kilian Kaminski, co-founder of refurbed and board member of EUREFAS, the European Refurbishment Association. "But it never says what a fair repair price actually is and that's the one number that decides whether repair beats replacement."

The core rule requires spare parts prices to be "reasonable" and not "deter repair." No benchmark exists in any national transposition reviewed so far. Left to courts to interpret, case by case, member state by member state, refurbed argues the wording keeps prices exactly where they are today.

There's a second gap, and it's the one that matters most for the second-hand and refurbishment sector: the Directive bars manufacturers from using contracts, hardware or software to impede repair, then immediately exempts anything "justified by legitimate and objective factors, including intellectual property rights." No test defines "legitimate." In practice, that leaves the door open for manufacturers to invoke patents or trademarks to block exactly what the law claims to protect: compatible, second-hand and 3D-printed spare parts. Parts pairing and "genuine parts only" messaging can walk straight through it.

An early look at how two member states, Germany and Austria, are transposing the Directive suggests the pattern holds: both largely copy the EU floor, without defining "reasonable" and without adding the extra consumer protections the Directive allows states to introduce. Austria has also discontinued its own repair-bonus scheme and will now need to reintroduce one before 2029.

refurbed is calling for three fixes: a published, transparent formula or cap for spare parts pricing (for example, capping the most expensive spare part at 20% of the product's price, so repair stays meaningfully cheaper than replacement); a narrow, enumerated list of justifications, not a blanket IP exemption, before a manufacturer can block a repair, with the burden of proof on the manufacturer; and anti-part-pairing, anti-repair-blocking rules written explicitly into national law, not left to indirect environmental legislation.

The marketplace is also clear about what the Directive is not for: crediting it with making products more repairable in the first place. That's the job of the separate EU Ecodesign Regulation. "A right to repair only matters if the product is actually repairable," Kaminski continues.

refurbed has engaged on this file at EU level as a member of EUREFAS and the Right to Repair Campaign Europe, including through the public consultation, meetings with the responsible Commission unit, engagement with MEPs working on the file, and participation in public fora.