This guidance document recommends that material declarations include any regulatory exemptions that are applicable to the use of declarable substances and declarable substance groups. Once declared, the standard requires that information about exemptions, must be carried through the supply chain (subclause 4.3.4(f)). Users should check the reportable application to assess whether an exemption is applicable or not to a given application

The IEC 62474 standard is very flexible in allowing users to specify exemptions from one or a multiple of exemption lists. For example, a material declaration may specify both an EU RoHS exemption and simultaneously an EU ELV exemption for a given use of lead. Exemptions may be specified for a substance, a substance group or at the level of the entire product. In most cases, exemptions will be associated with the substance or substance group. The IEC 62474 XML schema does not currently allow exemptions to be associated with product parts or materials.

Users should use exemptions from a recognized and maintained list that is readily available and commonly accepted throughout the electrotechnical industry and supply chain. This is necessary to allow computer processing of the exemptions in the material declaration XML file. Examples of such maintained lists include the IPC 1752 standard and the JAMP material declaration system. Examples of declaring such exemptions are provided in Clause 4 of this guidance document. Within the material declaration file, each Exemptions entry has data fields for “UniqueID” (provides information about the exemption list used) and “Exemption” which identifies the specific exemption that is applicable. The UniqueID field will include the authority — use the exact text string provided by the authority (e.g. IPC) — and the specific exemption list that is used (e.g. see IEC 62474 exemption lists published on the IEC 62474 database). The “Exemption” field will include the identity of the exemption (e.g. ee IEC 62474 exemption lists published on the IEC 62474 databaseand the text based description of the exemption. All of these fields should be copied verbatim from the maintained exemption list that is used. Detailed XML examples of exemptions are provided in clause 4