Last updated: 5 August 2026.
The question reaches us most often from riders in Britain, and it is always the same one, phrased a dozen ways: since the United Kingdom left the European Union, is a part approved on the continent still legal here?
The short answer is yes, and it deserves explaining properly — because the long answer is where most of the confusion sits.
One note before we start. The regulations quoted below are those of Great Britain — England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland has its own equivalent instruments, and its own approval arrangements. If you ride in Northern Ireland, write to us rather than assume.
Why your E-marked part is still valid
Type approval for vehicle parts does not run through the European Union. It runs through the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, under an agreement signed in 1958, and the United Kingdom acceded to that agreement in its own right on 15 January 1963 — ten years before it joined the EEC, and thirty-five years before the European Union itself acceded in 1998. Its membership was never derived from Brussels, and it did not leave with Brussels.
The Vehicle Certification Agency is the designated British approval authority, and its own guidance says it plainly: UNECE type approvals are internationally recognised approvals and continue to be accepted in the UK and EU markets. Britain’s distinguishing number under that system is 11.
So a lamp approved in France and marked E2, or in Germany marked E1, remains as valid on a road in Yorkshire as it was the day before Brexit.
Two clarifications follow, and both save people money:
- The circled E and the boxed e are two different systems — and British lighting law accepts either. A capital E in a circle is the UNECE mark; a lower-case e in a rectangle is the EU mark. Both are designated approval marks in GB law, and the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989 accept one or the other. What changed after Brexit is narrower than people think: it is not the standing of the E-mark, but the standing of UK-issued e11 approvals — the VCA confirms that those not converted before 1 February 2024 have been withdrawn and no longer have any legal basis. The UN mark E11 is current; the EU mark e11 is not.
- UKCA is not the scheme that governs road vehicle parts. Motor vehicles and their components do not appear among the product types listed in the UK government’s UKCA/CE marking guidance — road vehicles and their parts are regulated through the type-approval regime instead, which uses UN and GB approval marks. You will not find UKCA on a mudguard, and its absence there tells you nothing. An accessory that is not itself a type-approved vehicle part — an electronic device, a charger, protective equipment — is a separate question, and can fall under UKCA.
What actually needs approval
Approval matters for some parts and not others. The distinction is not about quality — it is about what the regulations cover.
Lighting and signalling. Lamps and indicators fall under the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations 1989, which set both what must be fitted and what must be marked. One detail rewards owners of older machines: for motorcycles first used before 1 April 1986, direction indicators are not required at all, and where they are fitted, no approval mark is specified for them. The rest of the schedule still applies to whatever is actually fitted — colour, visibility, a flash rate between 60 and 120 per minute, a working tell-tale. On anything more recent, the marking requirement applies too.
Exhausts. Every machine must carry a silencer, maintained in working order and not altered to increase noise. For motorcycles first used on or after 1 April 1983, a further regulation applies, and two points of it matter in practice. The manufacturer’s marking has to remain legible once the silencer is fitted — a marking so obscured by part of the machine that it cannot easily be read counts, in law, as no marking at all. And a silencer indelibly marked by its manufacturer NOT FOR ROAD USE, TRACK USE ONLY or words to that effect may not be used on the road, full stop. The MOT inspection manual records it as a major defect, which is a failure.
Mudguards. This one surprises people. The regulations require every motorcycle to be fitted with wings or similar fittings that catch, so far as practicable, what the wheels throw up. There is no approval mark involved — it is a functional requirement, and there is no exemption for older machines. Nor is it an MOT item: the tester is not looking for it, which means a very short rear mudguard passes the test and still puts the machine outside the regulations at the roadside. Worth knowing before you cut anything.
What does not need approval — and still gets looked at
Seats, handlebars, side covers, engine guards and luggage carry no approval requirement. No mark, no certificate, no scheme.
That is not the same as escaping scrutiny, and the MOT grades these things carefully. A rider’s seat missing or insecure is a dangerous defect; a seat whose supporting structure is defective is a major defect. A handlebar grip insecure to the bar is dangerous; a missing grip is major. A handlebar fractured, excessively deformed or excessively corroded is major — and becomes dangerous where the steering is affected or the part is likely to detach. A loose or missing handlebar retaining device is major. Major and dangerous are both failures.
The lesson is a good one: on these parts, what is judged is not paperwork but fit, fixing and condition. Which is where an atelier earns its keep.
A word about number plates
We make plate holders. We do not make plates, and we would advise against buying British plates from anyone outside Britain.
UK number plates must come from a supplier on the DVLA’s register and be marked with the relevant British Standard number — BS AU 145e for plates fitted from 1 September 2021. Motorcycles have their own format, set out in the DVLA’s own leaflet: characters 64 mm high, arranged over two lines on machines registered from 1 January 1973. The two-line layout is not optional; the 64 mm height is the motorcycle figure the DVLA publishes, and the regulations also leave the standard 79 mm height lawful.
One point is worth stating flatly, because it is the one people get wrong in the other direction: a motorcycle first registered from 1 September 2001 displays a plate at the rear only. A front plate is not merely unnecessary — it is not permitted. Machines registered before that date may carry one, and are not required to.
What a holder must do is simple: keep the plate vertical, or as close to vertical as is reasonably practicable, and obscure nothing — including with its own screws and bolts. Both are MOT points, and a non-conforming plate is a major defect. Buy the plate from a registered supplier near you; we make the piece that carries it.
How we talk about approvals
We never transpose a status from one market to another. Where a part carries an approval, we say which one, under which regulation, for which market. Where it carries none, we say that too, and we say what that means for road use.
Technical files are freely downloadable on the product pages concerned. They are written to be read by your workshop, your MOT tester, or your insurer — not to be admired.
If you are unsure whether a specific part suits a specific machine and a specific year, write to us at contact@baakmotocyclettes.com. We would rather answer the question twice than have a part come back.
Built to be remembered.