EC 1881/2006 — EU framework on contaminants in foodstuffs (superseded)
Commission Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 of 19 December 2006 set enforceable EU-wide maximum levels for heavy metal and other contaminants in foodstuffs. It was the operative EU contaminants framework from 2007 until being recast by 915 on 25 May 2023. Most EU literature published before late 2023 cites this regulation as the regulatory benchmark for Pb, Cd, Hg, iAs, and Sn limits in food.
This page exists so pre-recast literature has a citable regulatory anchor in the wiki. For current EU enforceable maximum levels, use 915 and its per-metal companion pages (Cd, young-child, 617). The values below are historical and should be cited as such.
Scope and amendment history
EC 1881/2006 was amended numerous times between 2006 and 2023. Notable amendments:
- Regulation (EU) 488/2014 — tightened cadmium maximum levels across multiple matrices (cocoa, chocolate, infant cereal-based foods).
- Regulation (EU) 2015/1006 — introduced inorganic arsenic (iAs) maximum levels for rice and rice-based products, including infant food.
- Regulation (EU) 2015/1933 — tightened iAs limits.
- Regulation (EU) 2021/1317 — tightened lead maximum levels in many foods, including drinking water, fruits, vegetables, fishery products, and infant foods.
- Regulation (EU) 2022/617 — introduced new maximum levels for mercury in fishery products (still in force as a successor instrument; see eu-reg-2022-617-mercury-fish).
- Regulation (EU) 2023/915 — full recast superseding EC 1881/2006 as of 25 May 2023.
The values shown below are the final (most recently amended) levels in force under EC 1881/2006 immediately prior to the May 2023 recast. Many of these values carried forward into EU 2023/915 substantively unchanged; the regulatory citation merely shifted.
Lead (Pb) maximum levels (selected, mg/kg wet weight unless noted)
| Matrix | Maximum level | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Raw milk, heat-treated milk, and milk for the manufacture of milk-based products | 0.020 | Product as placed on market |
| Infant formulae and follow-on formulae | 0.020 | Product as placed on market (after preparation per manufacturer instructions for liquid; powder limit as marketed) |
| Processed cereal-based foods and baby foods for infants and young children | 0.020 | Product as placed on market |
| Meat (excluding offal) of bovine, sheep, pig, poultry | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
| Liver (bovine, sheep, pig, poultry) | 0.50 | Product as placed on market |
| Kidney (bovine, sheep, pig, poultry) | 0.50 | Product as placed on market |
| Muscle meat of fish (most species, fillets excluding species listed elsewhere) | 0.30 | Product as placed on market |
| Crustaceans (excluding brown crab meat, head and thorax of lobster and similar large crustaceans) | 0.50 | Product as placed on market |
| Cephalopods (without viscera) | 0.30 | Product as placed on market |
| Cereals, legumes, pulses | 0.20 | Product as placed on market |
| Vegetables (excluding brassica vegetables, leaf vegetables, fresh herbs, fungi, seaweed, and fruiting vegetables of the Solanaceae family) | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
| Brassica vegetables, leaf vegetables, and cultivated fungi | 0.30 | Product as placed on market |
| Fruit juices, concentrated fruit juices as reconstituted, and fruit nectars | 0.030 | Product as placed on market (tightened by 2021/1317) |
| Wine (including sparkling, excluding liqueur wines) | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
Cadmium (Cd) maximum levels (selected, mg/kg wet weight)
| Matrix | Maximum level | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Infant formulae, follow-on formulae (powder, cow-milk-based) | 0.010 | Product as placed on market |
| Infant formulae, follow-on formulae (liquid, cow-milk-based) | 0.005 | Product as placed on market |
| Processed cereal-based foods and baby foods for infants and young children | 0.040 | Product as placed on market |
| Meat (excluding offal) of bovine, sheep, pig, poultry | 0.050 | Product as placed on market |
| Horse meat | 0.20 | Product as placed on market |
| Liver | 0.50 | Product as placed on market |
| Kidney | 1.0 | Product as placed on market |
| Muscle meat of fish (most species) | 0.050 | Product as placed on market |
| Muscle meat of bonito, eel, sardinella, and similar species | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
| Muscle meat of swordfish, tuna, and similar predatory species | 0.30 | Product as placed on market |
| Bivalve molluscs and cephalopods (without viscera) | 1.0 | Product as placed on market |
| Cereal grains (excluding wheat, rice, bran, germ, and wheat grains) | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
| Wheat grains, rice grains | 0.20 | Product as placed on market |
| Soybeans | 0.20 | Product as placed on market |
| Vegetables (excluding leafy, brassica, root/tuber, stem, fungi) | 0.050 | Product as placed on market |
| Leafy vegetables, fresh herbs, leafy brassica vegetables | 0.20 | Product as placed on market |
| Root and tuber vegetables, stem vegetables (excluding celery) | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
| Cocoa powder sold to the final consumer | 0.60 | Product as placed on market |
| Chocolate (≥50% total dry cocoa solids) | 0.80 | Product as placed on market |
| Chocolate (<30% total dry cocoa solids) | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
Mercury (tHg / total mercury) maximum levels (mg/kg wet weight)
| Matrix | Maximum level | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Fishery products and muscle meat of fish (default) | 0.50 | Product as placed on market |
| Predatory species (anglerfish, catfish, eel, pike, tuna, swordfish, shark, marlin, and other species listed in Annex) | 1.0 | Product as placed on market |
| Food supplements consisting exclusively or mainly of dried seaweed, seaweed products, fish or fishery-product products | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
The 1.0 mg/kg limit for predatory species was raised from the default 0.50 mg/kg to acknowledge naturally higher mercury accumulation in long-lived top-predator fish. The maximum level applies to total mercury; speciation (MeHg vs inorganic Hg) is not enforced separately in this regulation. Subsequent guidance (EFSA Scientific Opinions, JECFA PTWI for methylmercury) addresses the speciation-driven toxicity separately from the enforceable total-mercury maximum.
Inorganic arsenic (iAs) maximum levels (mg/kg wet weight, added 2015)
| Matrix | Maximum level | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Non-parboiled milled rice (polished or white rice) | 0.20 | Product as placed on market |
| Parboiled rice and husked rice | 0.25 | Product as placed on market |
| Rice waffles, rice wafers, rice crackers, and rice cakes | 0.30 | Product as placed on market |
| Rice destined for the production of food for infants and young children | 0.10 | Product as placed on market |
Inorganic arsenic was added to the regulation in 2015 via Regulation (EU) 2015/1006. Total arsenic is not regulated under EC 1881/2006; only the inorganic species (sum of arsenite and arsenate) has an enforceable maximum level.
Tin (Sn) maximum levels (mg/kg wet weight)
| Matrix | Maximum level | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Canned foods other than beverages | 200 | Product as placed on market |
| Canned beverages, including fruit and vegetable juices | 100 | Product as placed on market |
| Canned baby foods and processed cereal-based foods for infants and young children (excluding dried and powdered products) | 50 | Product as placed on market |
| Canned infant formulae and follow-on formulae (excluding dried and powdered products) | 50 | Product as placed on market |
| Canned dietary foods for special medical purposes (excluding dried and powdered products) intended specifically for infants | 50 | Product as placed on market |
How this page interacts with HMT&C
Per CLAUDE.md Part 2, the wiki reports what EU regulation set as the operative maximum levels under EC 1881/2006; it does not propose what HMT&C should certify at. HMT&C certification pages may cite this regulation as the regulatory baseline for EU-market product categories and document any deviation (tighter for precautionary, market-ratcheting, or feasibility-driven reasons; aligned with regulatory-alignment label per Part 19).
For HMT&C-facing material, prefer citing the current successor framework 915 unless the source paper specifically pre-dates the May 2023 recast and uses the EC 1881/2006 thresholds as its benchmark — in which case cite EC 1881/2006 here for accurate provenance.
How standards math uses this page
The values on this page are operative EU enforceable thresholds during the regulation’s lifetime (2007-2023). They are used by the HMTc workbench as the regulatory-cap floor in final = min(literature-baseline-percentile, regulatory-cap) calculations for any product category whose contributing source evidence pre-dates May 2023 and cites EC 1881/2006. Post-May-2023 evidence should use the successor framework citations.
Sources
- Commission Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 of 19 December 2006, consolidated text including all amendments through 2023. Source URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02006R1881-20230101
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915 of 25 April 2023 (recast superseding EC 1881/2006). See eu2023-contaminants-maximum-levels.
- Specific amendment regulations cited in the “Scope and amendment history” section above.
Pre-2023 source pages in the wiki citing EC 1881/2006 maximum levels — including but not limited to:
- hussein2023-freshwater-marine-fish-egypt (Pb 0.30 / Cd 0.05 / Hg 0.50 fish flesh limits)
- vaishali2020-tomato-ketchup-delhi-ncr-pb-cd (Pb and Cd limits in vegetable products)
- bair2022-infant-toddler-food-heavy-metals-policy (review citing EC infant/child-food iAs limit of 100 µg/kg)
— route to this regulation page via the wiki’s routing audit. The full list is in data/evidence/product_source_routing_audit.csv filtered for target_kind=regulation, declared_target=ec-1881-2006.
Verification notes
- This regulation page was created 2026-05-18 as a routing target for pre-2023 EU literature in the wiki. Codex correctly surfaced the gap in its 2026-05-18 session. Per CLAUDE.md Part 10, regulations are created on first encounter; the surfacing-first restriction in Codex’s prior operating manual is being relaxed 2026-05-18 (see Codex collaboration README) since regulations have hard identifiers and can be looked up from official EU sources without ambiguity.
- The values shown are the FINAL amended levels under EC 1881/2006 prior to the May 2023 recast. Earlier versions of the regulation (2007-2014) had different cadmium and lead limits for several matrices; cite the specific amendment regulation if working with a source published before the relevant amendment took effect.
- Tin maximum levels (50-200 mg/kg) carried forward into EU 2023/915 substantively unchanged. Lead infant/young-child-food limit was tightened by 2021/1317 (the 0.020 mg/kg value shown). Cadmium infant formula was tightened by 2014/488 (the 0.010 mg/kg powder / 0.005 mg/kg liquid values shown). iAs rice limits added by 2015/1006.
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.