Guide · updated 30 October 2026

Section 15(b): you have 24 hours to tell CPSC about a defect

The short answer: if you manufacture, import, distribute or sell a consumer product in the US and you obtain information that reasonably supports the conclusion that the product is defective, non-compliant or unreasonably risky, you must report it to the Consumer Product Safety Commission immediately — which 16 CFR 1115.14(e) defines as within 24 hours. You do not wait for proof, for a recall decision, or for your lawyer to finish reading. The duty sits in section 15(b) of the Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. § 2064(b)); the machinery is 16 CFR part 1115.

Who has to report

16 CFR 1115.10 puts the same obligation on three separate parties: the manufacturer (expressly including the importer), the distributor, and the retailer. They are not ranked. An Amazon seller who imports its own private-label run is the importer and therefore the manufacturer for this purpose; a reseller who only moves someone else's goods is a distributor or retailer and carries the duty anyway.

Two escape routes exist, and both are narrow:

• Actual knowledge that CPSC already knows. Under § 1115.10(f) you need not report what you actually know the Commission has been adequately informed about — for example a recall already published for the same model. "Someone at the factory probably told them" is not actual knowledge.
• The distributor/retailer route. A party that is neither manufacturer nor importer may satisfy the duty by following the procedure in § 1115.13(b), which pushes the report through the supply chain rather than requiring a full technical submission. It does not suspend the 24 hours.

What starts the clock

This is where most importers lose the argument, because CPSC does not count from the day the boss found out. 16 CFR 1115.11 imputes knowledge to the company the moment the information reaches any official or employee who could reasonably be expected to appreciate its significance — a QC inspector, a customer-service lead reading a complaint, a warehouse manager handling a return.

§ 1115.14(b) then adds the part that gets quoted in penalty cases: 5 days is the maximum reasonable time for information to travel to the CEO or the person responsible for 15(b) compliance, and at that point the company is deemed to know it. And § 1115.12(a) is blunt about not stalling: the obligation arises on first information, and "subject firms should not delay reporting in order to determine to a certainty the existence of a reportable noncompliance, defect or unreasonable risk."

There is a real investigation allowance, but it is bounded. § 1115.14(d) lets a firm run a "reasonably expeditious investigation" of a death, grievous bodily injury or other information, and says that investigation should not exceed 10 days unless the firm can show a longer period is reasonable. At day 10 the Commission deems you to have received everything a diligent investigation would have found. If reportable information surfaces mid-investigation, § 1115.14(e) restarts the 24-hour clock — you report then, not at the end.

The four things that are reportable

Section 15(b) lists four triggers, and they are alternatives, not a ladder:

1. Failure to comply with an applicable consumer product safety rule, or a similar rule or ban under another Act CPSC enforces, that creates a substantial risk of injury.
2. Failure to comply with any other rule, regulation, standard or ban under the CPSA or another Act CPSC enforces.
3. A defect that could create a substantial product hazard.
4. An unreasonable risk of serious injury or death.

Triggers 1, 2 and 3 are all about compliance and defect — they do not require you to prove anyone was hurt. § 1115.14(c) names the kinds of material that can start the duty: complaints, injury reports, and quality-control or engineering data. A factory audit finding that a batch used the wrong plastic, or a lab report showing a part fails the applicable standard, is enough on its own.

Where this shows up in real recalls

In the 90 days to 29 October 2026 the CPSC public recall feed carried 146 recalls naming 26,363,961 units (source: CPSC public recall feed, pulled 30 October 2026). Two features of that set show how the 15(b) process actually behaves.

It is iterative. Two of the 146 are expansions rather than first reports. ZMC Group expanded its light-up children's toy recall on 10 September 2026 to 245,124 units (recall 26766); Walmart reannounced its Mainstays nine-drawer fabric dressers on 27 August 2026 covering 165,250 units (recall 26726), with the notice stating that Walmart had distributed recalled dressers post-recall, sold to consumers through liquidators. A first 15(b) report is the start of a file, not the end of one.

It is mostly compliance-driven. Ten of the eleven dresser notices in that window end with the same phrase: violate mandatory standard for clothing storage units. Nobody had to prove a child was injured for those reports to be required — non-compliance with 16 CFR part 1261 was the reportable event.

What a 15(b) report is not

§ 1115.12(a) is explicit that a firm "need not admit, or may specifically deny" that the information supports a reportable conclusion. Filing is not a confession and it is not a recall. After the report arrives, CPSC staff investigate and make a preliminary determination whether the product presents a substantial product hazard; that determination can rest on the firm's information or on anything else the staff finds. A large share of reports end without a recall because staff conclude the defect does not create a substantial product hazard — but that judgement is theirs to make, not the firm's to pre-empt by not reporting.

How to file

Reports go to CPSC's Office of Compliance and Enforcement, Division of Corrective Actions (§ 1115.10), and in practice the initial report is filed through the CPSC Business Portal at saferproducts.gov/Business, which produces a PDF copy of what you submitted. File an initial report with what you have and supplement it — § 1115.13 contemplates exactly that, an initial report followed by more data. Do not hold the filing back until the unit count is perfect.

What non-reporting costs

Section 20 of the CPSA (15 U.S.C. § 2069(a)(1)) sets civil penalties of up to $100,000 per violation, with a cap of $15,000,000 for any related series of violations; these figures are statutory and adjusted over time. "Knowingly" is defined in § 2069(d) to include not just actual knowledge but the knowledge a reasonable person would have had — including knowledge obtainable upon the exercise of due care. That is the same due-care standard § 1115.11 uses to impute knowledge to your company. The practical reading: the company that never asked its factory for test reports is treated as knowing what the reports would have said.

Five steps for the week you get the email

1. Write down the timestamp you first knew and who received it. That timestamp, not the board meeting, starts the 24 hours.
2. Freeze the SKU in your own systems so no further units ship while you assess. Shipping after you knew is a separate problem from the original defect.
3. Ask the factory three questions in writing: which production dates, which test report, which standard revision. Silence is itself information.
4. File the initial report inside 24 hours if the information reasonably supports a reportable conclusion, and state what you do not yet know. Then supplement.
5. Check your other SKUs from the same factory or mould. Recalls cluster: the ten dresser recalls in this 90-day window came from ten different importers selling what is functionally the same product.

Related

Dresser tip-over recalls: 11 in 90 days and the STURDY test — the compliance failure behind 11 of the 146 notices in that window.
How to check if a product has been recalled — the four official databases, including the one that publishes recalls after a 15(b) report becomes a recall.
When a supplier's product is recalled, who pays? — the commercial cost that follows the report.
Children's Product Certificate (CPC) checklist — the certificate that has to exist before a children's product can be lawfully imported.
CPSC eFiling deadlines — how certificate data reaches CBP at entry.
Live recall dashboard · children's product recalls · home and electrical recalls · Pricing

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