Do we need an EU authorised representative under the EU AI Act
A provider established outside the Union asks whether it has to appoint someone in the EU. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 answers by tier: Art. 22(1) requires an authorised representative before a high-risk system is made available on the Union market, from the Annex III application date Deferred, and Art. 54(1) requires one before a general-purpose AI model is placed on the market, from the GPAI date In force. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 moved the Annex III date and left both obligations unchanged. This page gives the mandate content, the sequence and the evidence.
Where this starts
The company holds no EU entity and no EU data centre, and its system or model is sold into the Union or its output is used there. Neither fact removes it from scope: Art. 2(1)(a) applies the Regulation to providers placing an AI system or a general-purpose AI model on the Union market irrespective of whether they are established in the Union or in a third country, and Art. 2(1)(c) applies it to third-country providers whose output is used in the Union. The appointment duty follows the tier. Art. 22(1) requires a provider established in a third country to appoint, by written mandate, an authorised representative established in the Union before it makes a high-risk AI system available on the Union market; Art. 22 sits in Chapter III Section 3, which applies to Annex III systems from the date carried by the Annex III entry and to Annex I products from the Annex I date Deferred. Art. 54(1) requires a provider of a general-purpose AI model established in a third country to appoint one before it places the model on the Union market, and Art. 54(6) lifts that duty for a model released under a free and open-source licence with publicly available parameters, unless the model presents systemic risk. Art. 22 carries no exception. A system that is neither high-risk nor a general-purpose AI model carries no appointment duty under either article. The role and scope determination under PR-CLS v1.0 records which case applies as a technical assessment for discussion with counsel.
The mandate is a written document with a fixed task list, and a mandate that only names the representative does not meet it. Under Art. 22(3) the mandate empowers the representative to verify that the EU declaration of conformity under Art. 47 and the technical documentation under Art. 11 have been drawn up and that the conformity assessment procedure has been carried out; to keep at the disposal of the competent authorities, for ten years after placing on the market or putting into service, the provider's contact details, a copy of the declaration, the technical documentation and any notified-body certificate; to provide a competent authority on reasoned request with the information and documentation needed to demonstrate conformity with Chapter III Section 2, including access to the Art. 12(1) logs to the extent they are under the provider's control; to comply with any action the authority takes on the system; and, where applicable, to register the system under Art. 49(1) or to confirm that the representative's details in Annex VIII Section A point 3 are correct. The mandate also empowers the representative to be addressed by the competent authorities in addition to or instead of the provider, and under Art. 22(3) the representative provides a copy of it on request in an official language of the institutions of the Union. Under Art. 54(3) the task list for a general-purpose AI model is parallel: verification that the Annex XI documentation is drawn up and that the Art. 53 and, where applicable, Art. 55 obligations are fulfilled, custody of the Annex XI copy and the provider's contact details for the period in Art. 54(3), information to the AI Office on reasoned request, and cooperation in any action on the model. Under Art. 22(4) and Art. 54(5) the representative terminates the mandate and informs the market surveillance authority or the AI Office when it has reason to consider that the provider acts contrary to its obligations.
The practical question behind the appointment is custody. Art. 22(3)(b) and Art. 54(3) require the representative to keep the documentation, and a link into the provider's repository is a common finding recorded in the Art. 54 obligation record: the representative holds a pointer rather than its own copy, or holds a copy older than the version the provider maintains. Art. 11(1) requires the provider to keep the technical documentation up to date, and Art. 18(1) requires the provider itself to keep the technical documentation, the quality management documentation and the declaration at the disposal of the national competent authorities for the same ten years. One Annex IV set at one version, held by the provider under document control and copied to the representative at each update, answers Art. 11, Art. 18 and Art. 22 with a single file. The Annex IV assembly under PR-11-DOC v1.0 produces the version-controlled sections that make that copy possible.
The sequence
The work runs in the order below: scope and tier first, then the mandate, then what the representative verifies and holds, then the request and termination procedures, then the register.
Record the place of establishment, the placing on the Union market and the use of the output in the Union.
Record Role determination record with the territorial scope row (PR-CLS output)
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 2(1)(a) and (c), Art. 3(3); PR-CLS steps 8 to 11]
Determine whether the product is a high-risk system under Art. 22 or a general-purpose AI model under Art. 54.
Record High-risk classification record or GPAI determination record (PR-CLS output)
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 6(2) and Annex III, Art. 3(63); PR-CLS steps 13 to 17 and 19 to 20]
For a model, test the licence, the public availability of the parameters and the systemic-risk classification.
Record Open-source exception assessment record with retrieval results (PR-CLS output)
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 54(6); PR-CLS steps 28 to 30]
Check the mandate: Union establishment, date before placing on the market, each listed task, the addressing power.
Record Mandate verification record, one row per task in Art. 22(3) or Art. 54(3), and the mandate copy request record
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 22(1) and (3), Art. 54(1), (3) and (4); PR-CLS steps 4 and 31 to 32]
Verify that the technical documentation and the EU declaration of conformity exist for the version placed on the market.
Record Annex IV gap table or Annex XI and XII gap table, and the declaration of conformity consistency row (PR-11-DOC output)
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 22(3)(a), Art. 54(3)(a), Annex IV, Annex XI; PR-11-DOC steps 10 to 11 and 35]
Send a simulated reasoned request and record what the representative produces from its own custody.
Record Retrieval exercise record: items requested, items produced from own custody, version match
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 22(3)(b) and (c), Art. 54(3)(b) and (c); PR-CLS steps 33 to 34]
Record the document control version and the update trigger that sends each new version to the representative.
Record Document control record per section: version, owner, update trigger, and the representative copy date
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 11(1), Art. 18(1), Art. 22(3)(b); PR-11-DOC step 42]
Compare the representative's details in the EU database entry, or its draft, with the mandate.
Record Registration entry check: the representative's name, address and contact details as registered
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 22(3)(e), Art. 49(1) and Annex VIII Section A point 3]
Record the termination trigger, the authority to inform, and the Art. 22 or Art. 54 line in the obligation register.
Record Mandate termination and notification procedure, and the obligation register with the regulation entry id
[Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 22(4), Art. 54(5); PR-CLS step 39]
PR-CLS step 31 is written against the Art. 54 elements; for a high-risk system the same record layout carries one row per Art. 22(3) task, and the row for the registration duty in Art. 22(3)(e) is the only one without a parallel in Art. 54(3).
Evidence this situation ends with
| Artifact | Answers | Produced by |
|---|---|---|
| Role determination record (PR-CLS output) | Art. 2(1)(a) and (c), Art. 3(3): third-country establishment, placing on the Union market, output used in the Union | PR-CLS v1.0 |
| Article 54 applicability and exception determination memo (PR-CLS output) | Art. 54(1) and 54(6): whether the appointment duty applies to the model and whether the open-source exception holds | PR-CLS v1.0 |
| Authorised representative written mandate (Art. 54(1)) | Art. 22(1) and (3) or Art. 54(1) and (3): a representative established in the Union, appointed before placing on the market, with each listed task | the provider |
| Mandate copy in an official language of the institutions of the Union (Art. 54(3)) | Art. 22(3) or Art. 54(3): the copy the authority or the AI Office receives on request | the representative |
| Annex IV technical documentation set (Annex IV sections 1 to 9) | Art. 11(1) and Art. 22(3)(a) and (b): the documentation the representative verifies and holds, with the Art. 47 declaration copy in section 8 | the provider |
| Annex XI technical documentation copy held by the representative (Art. 54(3)(b)) | Art. 54(3)(b): the copy at the version the provider maintains | the representative |
| Annex IV gap and consistency report (PR-11-DOC output) | Art. 11(1) and Annex IV: each section present, partial or absent, and each declared value matched to its report | PR-11-DOC v1.0 |
| Reasoned-request handling procedure (Art. 54(3)(c) and (d)) | Art. 22(3)(c) and (d) or Art. 54(3)(c) and (d): who produces which document, including log access, within what the mandate allows | the provider and the representative |
Each artifact follows a specification with a synthetic sample on the deliverables page: the role record and the Art. 54 memo follow the assessment memo specification, the gap and consistency report follows the findings register specification, and the Annex IV set assembled from test results follows the evidence pack specification.
If nothing is done
A high-risk system made available on the Union market by a third-country provider without an authorised representative fails the importer's check under Art. 23(1)(d), which requires the importer to verify that the representative has been appointed before placing the system on the market, and a market surveillance authority acting under Art. 79 has no representative in the Union to address, in addition to or instead of the provider, for the corrective action, withdrawal or recall it can require under Art. 79(2). Non-compliance with the authorised representative obligations under Art. 22 falls in the penalty tier of Art. 99(4)(b), and the amount in a given case is set by the national authority under the Art. 99(7) criteria. For a general-purpose AI model, the AI Office addresses the representative in addition to or instead of the provider under Art. 54(4), and requests for documentation and fines on the provider run under Art. 101 from the date in the Commission enforcement entry In force. The provider's action is the written mandate with the full task list, a representative that holds its own current copy of the documentation, and the procedures for reasoned requests and termination; the evidence pack for a first information request describes what the representative produces when the request arrives.
Services, guides and tools for this situation
The classification and readiness assessment records the scope, the tier and the mandate check under PR-CLS v1.0, within the limits stated on what we cannot do; the technical documentation service runs the Annex IV or Annex XI gap analysis and the document control that keeps the representative's copy current under PR-11-DOC v1.0, and the obligation tracker carries the Art. 22 and Art. 54 lines with their regulation entries.
- Services
- Tools
- ICP hubs
Questions
What does the AI Act authorised representative mandate have to cover?
Under Art. 22(3) of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 the mandate for a high-risk system empowers the representative to verify that the EU declaration of conformity and the Art. 11 technical documentation exist, to keep the provider's contact details, the declaration and the documentation for ten years after placing on the market, to answer reasoned requests including log access, and to handle registration under Art. 49(1). Under Art. 54(3) the mandate for a general-purpose AI model covers the Annex XI documentation, its custody, reasoned requests from the AI Office and cooperation.
Every inquiry receives a reply within 24 hours. Scope and availability are discussed per request.