The estimated sign ℮ (next to 50 ml or 200 g)
The packer (or importer) guarantees the quantity was measured under the EU average-quantity system: on average the packs contain at least the quantity stated, few packs are short by more than a small tolerance, and none is short by more than twice that tolerance.
How to read it
Worked example for a 150 ml bottle: the tolerance in Annex I point 2.4 is 4.5 % for quantities from 100 to 200 ml, so 6.75 ml, rounded up to 6.8 ml. The batch must hold 150 ml on average; only a small proportion of bottles may hold less than 143.2 ml; and no bottle holding less than 136.4 ml (150 minus twice 6.8) may carry the ℮ at all. From 200 to 300 ml the tolerance is a fixed 9 ml; from 500 to 1,000 ml it is 15 ml.
What it does not promise
It does not promise that every pack holds at least the stated quantity: it promises the average, with a small tolerance per pack. It does not promise anything about quality, safety or where the product was made — and it is not the CE mark.
This page explains what a symbol or mark on the pack means in law or in the scheme’s own rules. It is not advice on whether a product or an ingredient is safe for you or suits your skin: for that, read the product’s warnings and ask a pharmacist or doctor.
- What it looks like
- A small, rounded lower-case e, at least 3 mm high, printed right next to the quantity: 150 ml ℮. You find it on shampoo and cream but also on food, drinks and detergent — on any prepackage of 5 g or 5 ml up to 10 kg or 10 litres made to this rule.
- Legal reference
- Council Directive 76/211/EEC, Article 3 and Annex I points 1 to 3.3
- Also called
- e-mark; estimated sign; e symbol next to the quantity; EEC sign
Good to know
The directive fixes the letter’s form by reference to the drawing in Directive 71/316/EEC and requires it ‘in the same field of vision as the indication of the nominal weight or nominal volume’. The directive covers packs from 5 g or 5 ml up to 10 kg or 10 l, so a sample sachet under 5 ml does not carry it under this rule.
Related
Other marks with the same shape
Sources
Each document was fetched and read on the date shown. Written in our own words; quotations are the documents’ wording.
- Legal text — EU consolidated text of 26 July 2019, reproduced by legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives): Council Directive 76/211/EEC on the making-up by weight or by volume of certain prepackaged products (consolidated PDF) — Article 1 (prepackages from 5 g or 5 ml to 10 kg or 10 l); Article 3(1) (the packages that may bear the EEC sign); Annex I 1.1–1.3 (average not less than nominal, few packs beyond the tolerable negative error, none beyond twice it); 2.4 (the tolerance table); 3.3 (‘a small “e”, at least 3 mm high … constituting a guarantee by the packer or the importer’). Checked 2026-09-26.