Machinery Regulation Harmonised Standards List 2026 — Which EN ISO/IEC Standards Give Presumption of Conformity

Every few weeks someone forwards me a link to an Official Journal decision and asks whether it changes how they certify a light curtain. The latest one doing the rounds is Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/79, published on 13 January 2026. The short answer: it does not. It is not a machinery decision at all. Sorting out what that decision actually does, and what genuinely gives presumption of conformity for a safety sensor in 2026, is worth doing properly — because the gap between the Regulation's application date and its standards list is exactly the kind of thing that trips up a technical file.

Does Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/79 list machinery standards?

No. This is the misreading worth killing first. Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/79 of 12 January 2026, published in the Official Journal on 13 January 2026 and in force from that day, has nothing to do with the Machinery Regulation. Its full title amends Implementing Decision (EU) 2025/165 as regards harmonised standards drafted in support of Directive 2014/68/EU — the Pressure Equipment Directive.

The standards it adds or updates are pressure-equipment standards: EN 10216-2:2024 for seamless steel tubes, EN 10253-4:2025 for butt-welding pipe fittings, the EN 12420 / EN 12735-2 / EN 1982:2024 copper and copper-alloy set, EN 13445-5:2021+A1:2024 for unfired pressure vessels, EN 1591-1:2024 for flanges and their joints, EN 16668:2025 for industrial valves, and EN ISO 4126-10:2024 for safety devices against excessive pressure. Not one of those touches a light curtain, a laser scanner or a safety relay. The word “safety devices” in its title means pressure-relief valves and bursting discs, not machine-guarding sensors. If you have seen 2026/79 quoted as a Machinery Regulation list — and it has been, in a few places — treat that as wrong and move on.

Are any standards cited under the Machinery Regulation yet?

Not as of the middle of 2026. The Official Journal contains no harmonised standards cited under Regulation (EU) 2023/1230. That is not an oversight; it is where the process honestly sits. The Regulation was adopted on 14 June 2023, entered into force on 19 July 2023, and applies from 20 January 2027. The standards machinery have to support it are still in the pipeline.

The mechanics are slow by design. The Commission issued its standardisation request to CEN and CENELEC as Implementing Decision C(2025) 129 on 20 January 2025. Exactly one year later, on 20 January 2026, the two bodies submitted their Phase 1 package of draft harmonised standards. The Commission now has to assess each draft — check the Annex Z mapping, the coverage of the essential requirements, the consultant's opinion — before any of them can be cited. The stated aim is an implementing decision carrying the list of harmonised standards for the Machinery Regulation by the end of 2026, leaving a narrow window before the application date. So for the whole of 2026, the practical answer to “which standards give presumption under the Regulation?” is: none yet.

What gives presumption of conformity for safety sensors right now?

The Machinery Directive list, and only that. Until the Regulation list is published, presumption of conformity for machinery flows from the standards cited under Directive 2006/42/EC, via Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/1586 of 26 July 2023 (OJ L 194, 2 August 2023) as amended. That is the live, legally effective list, and it stays effective right up to 20 January 2027.

For a protective device, that list is what your technical file leans on. A safety light curtain or laser scanner gets its presumption through the application standards harmonised there:

• EN IEC 61496 — electro-sensitive protective equipment. The -1 / -2 parts cover Type 4 light curtains; -3 covers the active opto-electronic devices used in safety laser scanners. This is the device standard that says a curtain is what it claims to be.
• EN ISO 13855 — positioning of safeguards with respect to approach speeds. The standard behind the minimum mounting distance, the S = K × T + C calculation that decides how far the curtain sits from the hazard.
• EN ISO 13849-1:2023 or EN IEC 62061:2021 — the safety-related control function the curtain feeds. PL a to e in 13849-1; SIL 1 to 3 in 62061. Both are harmonised under the Directive and both confer presumption for the safety-related parts of control systems.

None of this is changed by 2026/79, and none of it lapses on a standards technicality before 2027. If you are certifying a machine in 2026, you cite the Directive's harmonised standards, full stop.

Will EN ISO 13849-1 and EN IEC 62061 move to the Regulation list?

That is the intention, but it has not happened yet, and the wording matters. More than 800 harmonised standards are currently listed under the Machinery Directive. The Commission has been clear that it wants to transfer or re-harmonise as many of those as cover the same essential requirements, so that machine builders are not left without standards when the Regulation applies. Most of the safety-sensor toolkit — IEC 61496, ISO 13855, ISO 13849-1, IEC 62061 — sits squarely in that “transfer where possible” category.

The practical marker to watch is the Annex Z section inside each standard. A standard revised in support of both legal acts will carry an Annex ZB referencing Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 alongside the existing Annex ZA for the Directive. When you open a draft or a fresh edition and see an Annex ZB, that standard has been written with the Regulation in mind, even if the formal OJ citation under the Regulation has not yet appeared.

Take EN ISO 13849-1:2023 as the worked example. The fourth edition was cited in the Official Journal under the Machinery Directive in May 2024, with a coexistence period running to 15 May 2027 during which the 2015 edition it replaces stays valid. That coexistence window deliberately straddles the Regulation's 20 January 2027 application date — which is no accident. EN IEC 62061:2021, the second edition with SIL 1 to 3, is harmonised under the Directive on the same logic. Both are exactly the kind of standard you would expect to see appear on the Regulation list when the end-2026 decision lands. Expect, do not assume: until the citation is published, the presumption runs through the Directive. We compare these two routes in our guide to Performance Level (PL) versus SIL under ISO 13849 and IEC 62061.

What should a machine builder do in 2026 about the standards list?

Keep the conformity work boring and current. Concretely, for the rest of 2026:

• Build today's technical files against the Machinery Directive list (Decision (EU) 2023/1586 as amended). It is the only list that confers presumption right now.
• Verify each cited standard's edition and any coexistence deadline — the EN ISO 13849-1:2023 transition to 15 May 2027 is the one most likely to catch you.
• Watch the Official Journal for the Machinery Regulation list expected by end of 2026, and re-base files onto it for machines placed on the market from 20 January 2027.
• Read the full legal-act title before reacting to any OJ entry. A number like 2026/79 can look relevant and be about a completely different directive.
• Keep specifying compliant devices. A Type 4 light curtain such as the DAIDISIKE DQT4 to IEC 61496, positioned per ISO 13855, does not change because the list does.

The bigger picture for the device side has not moved. We have written separately on the substantive changes the 2027 Machinery Regulation brings, on what IEC 61496-3 actually requires of a safety laser scanner, and on calculating the ISO 13855 safety distance. None of those mechanics depends on which legal act the harmonised version of the standard is cited under. The physics, the architecture and the distance maths are the same on 19 January 2027 as on 21 January.

Does the standards transfer mean my safety sensors need recertifying?

No. The type certification of a Type 4 light curtain to IEC 61496-1/-2 does not depend on which legal act the harmonised version of that standard is cited under. The device keeps its certificate. The harmonised-standards transfer is about the presumption of conformity the machine builder claims for the finished machine, not about the sensor's own type approval.

What you re-examine is the file, not the hardware: which standards the machine's technical documentation cites, and whether those citations should track from the Directive list to the Regulation list once that list is published. A DAIDISIKE DQT4 or a DLD-series scanner certified today is exactly as certified the day after the Regulation list appears. Spending money to “re-certify” a compliant curtain because the harmonised list moved house would be money thrown at a paperwork problem the paperwork already solves.