2025. évi XCII. törvény, Product Liability Chapter of the Civil Code as Replaced from 9 December 2026 (Directive (EU) 2024/2853)

Act XCII of 2025 on the amendment of private-law statutes was adopted by the National Assembly on 10 December 2025. The Act was promulgated on 16 December 2025. Section 59 of the Act replaces sections 6:550 to 6:559 of the Civil Code with new provisions. Section 60 of the Act adds sections 6:559/A and 6:559/B to chapter LXXII of the Civil Code. Section 95(6) of the Act brings sections 59 and 60, section 61(2)(e) and subtitle 15 into force on 9 December 2026.

Section 97(5) of the Act states that those provisions serve compliance with Directive (EU) 2024/2853. Section 62 of the Act adds section 55/A to Act CLXXVII of 2013, which applies the amended provisions of the Civil Code to products placed on the market or put into service after 9 December 2026. Section 6:552 as replaced counts software, electricity, digital manufacturing files and raw materials as products.

Section 6:552 also counts as a product a movable thing built into or connected with another movable thing or an immovable. Section 6:554(2) defines the manufacturer as a person that develops, makes or produces a product, has a product designed or made, presents itself as the manufacturer by putting its name, trade mark or another distinguishing sign on the product, or develops, makes or produces a product for its own use.

Section 6:550(1) makes the manufacturer of a defective product, and the producer of a defective component that was built into or connected with a product under the manufacturer's control and caused the product to fail, liable for product damage. Section 6:550(1)(c) makes the importer, the authorized representative and, failing them, the fulfilment service provider liable where the manufacturer or the component producer is established outside the European Union.

Section 6:550(4) treats as manufacturer a business that substantially modifies a product outside the manufacturer's control and then distributes it or puts it into service. Section 6:550(5) makes a distributor liable where the liable business cannot be identified and the distributor, asked by the injured person, does not within one month identify the liable business established in the European Union or its own supplier.

Section 6:550(6) applies the same rule to an online platform provider that is not itself a liable business and that meets the conditions of Article 6(3) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. Section 6:551 denies a manufacturer that built software into a product as a component recourse against the maker of the defective software, where that maker was a micro or small enterprise when the component was put into circulation and the manufacturer waived recourse in the contract.

Section 6:553(a) covers damage from a person's death, bodily injury, damage to health or medically recognized injury to mental health. Section 6:553(b) covers damage a defective product causes to other things, except damage to things used exclusively for professional purposes and damage to a product caused by a defective component that the manufacturer built into or connected with it or that is under the manufacturer's control.

Section 6:553(c) covers damage a defective product causes to data not used for professional purposes. Section 6:555(1) makes a product defective if it does not provide the safety that can generally be expected or the safety required by Union law or by legislation. Section 6:555(2) requires the examination of a defect to take into account the effect on the product of any ability to keep learning or to acquire new features after it is put into circulation or into service.

Section 6:555(2) also requires that examination to take into account the relevant product safety requirements, including safety-relevant cybersecurity requirements. Section 6:555(3) provides that a product is not defective only because a better product, including an update or upgrade of the product, has been or is later placed on the market. Section 6:555(4) puts on the injured person the burden of proving the defect, the damage, its extent and the causal link between defect and damage.

Section 6:556(1)(a) presumes the product defective until the contrary is proved where the liable business does not make relevant evidence available to the injured person at the court's request. Section 6:556(1)(b) also presumes the defect where the injured person proves that the product does not meet product safety requirements.

Section 6:556(2) presumes the causal link between defect and damage, until the contrary is proved, where the product is found defective and the damage is of a kind typically linked to the defect found. Section 6:557(2)(c) releases a liable business that proves the defect could not be recognized, according to the objective state of scientific and technical knowledge, when the product was put into circulation or while it was under the manufacturer's control.

Section 6:557(5) denies the release in paragraph (2)(a) where the defect relates to a related service, to software including updates or upgrades, to the lack of software updates or upgrades needed to maintain safety, or to a substantial modification, in each case under the manufacturer's control. Section 6:558 denies release on the ground that a third party's conduct also contributed to the damage.

Section 6:559 makes void any limitation or exclusion of the liable business's liability towards the injured person. Section 6:559/A(1) gives the injured person three years to assert a claim for damages. Section 6:559/A(3) ends the liability of a liable business under the chapter after ten years, unless the injured person has meanwhile started proceedings against another liable business that can be held responsible.

Section 6:559/A(5) ends the injured person's entitlement to compensation after twenty-five years where a latent personal injury prevented the injured person from starting proceedings within ten years. Section 6:559/B(2)(b) disapplies the chapter to free and open-source software developed or made available in the course of a non-commercial activity. Section 6:559/B(3) defines making available on the market to include supply free of charge.