Radio equipment Declaration check — check your declaration free

A 2024-era declaration of conformity for a Wi-Fi smart plug returned 13 findings - 8 errors and 5 warnings - the moment its owner, a radio-equipment compliance engineer shipping into the EU, opened it in the editor. The file had been signed, filed and shipped with every unit.

Here is why that file is now a problem. Directive 2014/53/EU, the Radio Equipment Directive, has always carried three sleeping essential requirements: Article 3(3)(d) on network protection, 3(3)(e) on personal data and privacy, and 3(3)(f) on protection from fraud. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/30 woke them up for internet-connected radio equipment. The original application date was 1 August 2024, and then Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2444 moved it to 1 August 2025. Both dates are in circulation. Templates, generated declarations and helpful answers all still print the first one.

The harmonised standards landed late and they landed with strings. EN 18031-1:2024, EN 18031-2:2024 and EN 18031-3:2024 are cited in the Official Journal with restrictions. A declaration that lists EN 18031-1 as though it were a clean citation is claiming a presumption of conformity that the citation does not fully give. Where the restricted parts bite, the manufacturer cannot self-declare on the standard alone; a notified body has to be in the picture, and its name and four-digit number belong on the page.

None of this is visible to a spell checker, and none of it is a field in a generic CE template.

So the declaration gets linted where it already lives: as a Markdown file in the repository, next to the firmware it describes. The extension carries 18 rules - 12 error-level and 6 advisory - drawn from Annex VI of Directive 2014/53/EU and from (EU) 2022/30. Each finding names the line, the article behind it, and what the line has to say instead.

Two sample declarations ship with it. The clean one returns 0 findings. The 2024-era one returns 13, and 6 of those are the findings that stop a CE mark:

• Directive 1999/5/EC (R&TTE) - R&TTE is repealed; the object conforms to 2014/53/EU.
• apply from 1 August 2024 - the withdrawn date, replaced by (EU) 2023/2444.
• EN 18031-1 - undated, where Annex VI point 6 wants EN 18031-1:2024.
• No note of the Official Journal restrictions on that citation.
• tested by our internal laboratory - no notified body, no four-digit number.
• Place and date of issue: 2024-11-05 - 269 days before the requirements applied, and 681 days old on 2026-09-17.

The last one is the rule that needs today's date, so the answer moves: the same file linted on a different day returns a different age, and a declaration that is fine this quarter goes advisory when it passes 365 days and its cited standards need re-confirming against the Official Journal.

Free is the whole job for one file: all 18 rules, line numbers, in VS Code or in the browser, no key. The licence key changes the axis rather than the depth - it sweeps every declaration in the workspace in one pass and writes one dated audit report file to keep with the technical documentation. $29 once, one key per person or CI seat. For scale: EU RED compliance consultancy is typically billed at $150 to $250 per hour, and a notified body assessment costs far more again.

It is an engineering aid, not legal advice. Annex VI point 3 is explicit that the declaration is issued under the sole responsibility of the manufacturer - which is the argument for reading it with 18 rules before someone else reads it with theirs.