On July 21, 2026, France's Agence nationale des fréquences (ANFR) released the results of its 2025 market surveillance campaign on mobile terminal wave exposure, checking 80 devices from 33 brands against the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR, or DAS in French) limits set by Radio Equipment Directive 2014/53/EU. The campaign produced 9 SAR limit breaches and 8 administrative non-conformities, and pushed 17 models into corrective measures ranging from verified software updates to market withdrawal and recall.
For RED/SAR compliance leads at manufacturers and importers selling handsets into France, the headline signal is where the failures concentrate: 8 of the 9 limit exceedances hit the limb SAR test (DAS membre, 4 W/kg limit), and the highest limb value reached 6.25 W/kg. The full results are published in the official ANFR release, and the underlying measurements are open data.
What did the 2025 ANFR DAS campaign actually test?
ANFR controlled 80 mobile equipments in 2025: 73 mobile phones and 7 other device types. The checks covered both administrative obligations (CE marking, conformity dossier) and SAR measurements against the three European regulatory limits: 2 W/kg for head and trunk, 4 W/kg for limb. The tests follow the harmonised European standards and reflect the limb-at-contact posture that has driven most non-conformities in recent campaigns.
| SAR type | Devices tested | Max measured (W/kg) | Median (W/kg) | Limit (W/kg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Head | 4 | 3.74 | 0.26 | 2 |
| Trunk (5 mm) | 3 | 1.83 | 1.49 | 2 |
| Limb (contact) | 77 | 6.25 | 2.31 | 4 |
The distribution is the real story. Limb SAR is tested on 77 of 80 devices and accounts for 8 of 9 breaches, with a median of 2.31 W/kg sitting close enough to the 4 W/kg ceiling that software tuning or test-position drift can tip a model over. One head-SAR exceedance, 3.74 W/kg against a 2 W/kg limit, rounds out the 9. Trunk SAR stayed within the limit across the 3 devices tested at 5 mm.
Which obligations does this trigger for manufacturers and importers?
Under Directive 2014/53/EU and its French transposition (Decree No. 2017-599 of April 21, 2017, codified in the Code des postes et des communications électroniques), ANFR is the French market surveillance authority for radio equipment. A non-conformity finding obliges the economic operator to take corrective action, and ANFR can escalate to withdrawal and recall when a device cannot be brought back into conformity.
The 2025 campaign split remediation into two tracks. 17 models in total were placed under corrective measures. Some were resolved by software updates that bring SAR back under the limit, with ANFR verifying effectiveness before closure. The rest went to market withdrawal paired with recall of units already sold. Separately, 8 models were flagged for administrative non-conformities, chiefly CE marking deficiencies and missing or incomplete technical documentation, which are fixable but block valid CE conformity.
What should compliance teams do before the next ANFR wave?
Three concrete actions follow from this release. First, re-run limb SAR at the contact test position against the 4 W/kg limit for every model placed on the French market, not just new filings, because the 2.31 W/kg median shows how thin the margin is. Second, audit the technical dossier and CE marking for completeness, since administrative findings accounted for nearly as many non-conformities as SAR breaches. Third, confirm that a software-update remediation path is pre-engineered for each model family, because ANFR verifies corrective updates before it closes a procedure and a recall is the alternative.
Continuous, per-jurisdiction real-time monitoring surfaces this kind of ANFR release the moment it publishes, instead of at the next quarterly compliance review.
Take advantage of this real-time watch
Verify whether any of your placed models appear in the 2025 non-conformity list on ANFR's open-data platform, confirm the deadline posture for any in-flight corrective procedure, and brief the regulatory affairs and product engineering teams on the limb-SAR margin before the 2026 campaign begins.
