Both Connecticut and New Mexico are moving forward with regulations to implement statutory labeling requirements for products in certain categories that contain intentionally added PFAS.  Connecticut’s labeling requirement will be effective July 1, 2026, and New Mexico’s, when approved and finalized, would go into effect January 1, 2027. Manufacturers should begin preparing now for these deadlines.

Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) recently issued an order approving of specific words and phrases to be used in compliance with the state’s requirement that products in certain categories that contain intentionally added PFAS must be labeled visibly to inform consumers, effective July 1, 2026.  Under Connecticut’s statute (see Conn. Gen. Stat. § 22a-903c), any new (not used) apparel, carpet or rug, cookware, cleaning product, cosmetic product, dental floss, fabric treatment, juvenile product, menstruation product, textile furnishing, ski wax, or upholstered furniture that contains intentionally added PFAS must, as of July 1, 2026, be labeled in accordance with the statute or will be barred from sale in Connecticut.  The labeling requirement extends not only to physical products and their packaging, but also to any online listings of covered products for sale.  If a covered product is a component of another product, the product that contains the component with intentionally added PFAS must be labeled.  The approved words and phrases, under the order issued December 1, 2025, are as follows:

  • “Contains PFAS,”
  • “Made with PFAS,”
  • “Made with PFAS chemicals,”
  • “Made with intentionally added PFAS,”
  • “This product contains PFAS chemicals,”
  • or such other language as may be proposed by a producer or manufacturer of a product covered by this section and approved by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP)

Note that Connecticut’s labeling deadline is the same as its deadline for manufacturers of covered products containing intentionally added PFAS to notify DEEP of the presence of PFAS in those items (also subject to a sales ban if notification is not provided).  Further, Connecticut’s labeling requirement is a transitional step toward a full sales ban on covered products with intentionally added PFAS, which itself will become effective January 1, 2028.

In New Mexico, proposed regulations from the New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED) would implement an even more expansive labeling requirement effective January 1, 2027 (also coinciding with implementation of reporting requirements, and the first stage of a phased sales ban, which will include cookware, food packaging, dental floss, juvenile products, and firefighting foam).  Approved language and symbols that will be deemed compliant with the labeling requirements are still being finalized.  If approved and finalized, NMED’s labeling regulation would require all new (not used) products containing intentionally added PFAS to bear labels, whether or not such products are covered by the state’s phased sales ban and regardless of any Currently Unavoidable Use determination or exemption. As discussed in our previous post, the New Mexico statute pertaining to the sales ban and reporting requirements provides various exemptions, including one for fluoropolymers.  Instead, the proposed regulations would offer for some exempted products (such as internal components that consumers would not ordinarily contact when using the end product as intended) a process by which NMED would have to approve any request for waiver of the labeling requirement.

In implementing these labeling requirements, Connecticut and New Mexico would join California, Colorado, New York, and Minnesota, which already require labeling of at least some products that contain intentionally added PFAS.