Second public consultation on REACH PFAS Proposal – ECHA guidance for respondents

October 30, 2025

Read the full article by Jon Hurdle (The National Law Review)

"Today, ECHA held a webinar to help industry prepare for the second public consultation on the Universal PFAS REACH restriction proposal. The recording is available here, and the slides are accessible here. A document with questions and answers will be published shortly on the same page.

By way of background, the first public consultation was held in 2023, and it related to the original proposal published in March 2023. This original proposal was vitiated by data gaps such as missing uses, so it is not surprising that the first public consultation brought more than 5,000 substantial comments. These comments were recently addressed in the amended PFAS proposal (so-called ‘Background Document’) that was published on August 20, 2025. This amended proposal includes several new use sectors (eight in total) and several new proposed exemptions for essential uses, including industrial machinery. Importantly, ECHA announced that the eight new use sectors will not be assessed by ECHA. The evaluation will be left for the European Commission. This also means that these sectors (including relevant new exemptions) will not be subject to the second public consultation (see, however, below)."