On December 4, 2017, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a direct final rule (82 FR 57119) to adopt ASTM F963-17 as the new mandatory US toy standard. The rule will become effective on February 28, 2018. The current version ASTM F963-16 will be replaced by ASTM F963-17 under Section 106 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), unless CPSC receives significant adverse comment by January 3, 2018.

Except editorial changes, there are two substantive changes that will affect safety in the new standard:

1. Relating to requirements for projectile toys (Section 4.21), (Details pls. refer information released on August 31, 2017 by BACL Official WeChat).The Commission had anticipated this change.

2. Relating to sound-producing toys. ASTM added a sentence to the sound-producing toys test method in Section 8.20.1.5 (5) of ASTM F963–17 that functionally exempts push/pull toys from the A-weighted maximum sound pressure level (LAFmax) requirement. This item was not balloted and was not reviewed by CPSC staff before ASTM published ASTM F963–17.

The Commission accepts all changes in ASTM F963–17, with the exception of the addition of text in Section 8.20.1.5 (5) .

The ASTM F963–17 NOR (Notice of Requirements) will continue the transition period provided in the ASTM F963–16 NOR. The CPSC will accept ASTM F963–17 testing results by laboratories that are CPSC-accepted to ASTM sections in F963–11 (or 4.27 of ASTM F963–07e1-toy chest) until February 4, 2019.

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