Mandatory Toy Safety Standards: Requirements for Neck Floats

<RULE> CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION <CFR>16 CFR Parts 1112 and 1250</CFR> <DEPDOC>[CPSC Docket No. CPSC-2024-0039]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Mandatory Toy Safety Standards: Requirements for Neck Floats</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Consumer Product Safety Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Section 106(a) of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) mandates that ASTM F963 shall be a mandatory toy safety standard. ASTM F963-23, however, does not establish specific performance requirements for aquatic toys, such as neck floats. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC or Commission) is issuing this final rule establishing additional performance requirements specifically for neck floats and revised labeling requirements for neck floats to address fatal hazards associated with neck floats. The Commission is also amending CPSC's list of notice of requirements (NORs) to include neck floats. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule will become effective June 15, 2026. The incorporation by reference of the publication listed in this rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of June 15, 2026. The incorporation by reference of certain other material listed in this rule was approved for use by the Director of the Federal Register as of April 20, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Carol Afflerbach, Compliance Officer, Office of Compliance, Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814-4408, telephone: 301-743-8595; email: <E T="03">cafflerbach@cpsc.gov.</E> Zachary R. Goldstein, Project Manager, Division of Mechanical Engineering, Directorate for Laboratory Sciences, Consumer Product Safety Commission, 5 Research Place, Rockville, MD 20850; telephone: 301-987-2472; email: <E T="03">zgoldstein@cpsc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background and Statutory Authority</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Background</HD> Section 106(a) of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) made ASTM International's (ASTM) voluntary standard for toys, ASTM F963-07, <E T="03">Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Toy Safety</E> (except sections 4.2 and Annex 4), a mandatory safety standard for toys beginning 180 days after the enactment date of the CPSIA. 15 U.S.C. 2056b(a). The CPSIA states that ASTM F963 shall be considered a consumer product safety standard issued by the Commission under section 9 of the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA; 15 U.S.C. 2058). Since 2009, CPSC has enforced ASTM F963 as a mandatory standard for toys. <E T="51">1 2</E> <FTREF/> In 2017, the Commission codified the mandatory toy standard in 16 CFR part 1250, Safety Standard Mandating ASTM F963 for Toys, and incorporated by reference the newly revised ASTM standard at that time, ASTM F963-16. 82 FR 8989 (Feb. 2, 2017). Most recently, on January 18, 2024, the Commission updated part 1250 to incorporate by reference a 2023 revision, ASTM F963-23. 89 FR 3344. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Since the CPSIA's enactment in 2008, ASTM has revised F963 five times: ASTM F963-08, ASTM F963-11, ASTM F963-16, ASTM F963-17, and ASTM F963-23 (approved August 1, 2023). <SU>2</SU>  Section 3.1.92 of ASTM F963-23 defines a toy as: “Any object designed, manufactured, or marketed as a plaything for children under 14 years of age.” </FTNT> ASTM F963-23 includes requirements for toys, including but not limited to a category of toys known as “aquatic toys.” Section 3.1.4 of ASTM F963-23 defines an aquatic toy as “an article, whether inflatable or not, intended to bear the mass of a child and used as an instrument of play in shallow water. This does not include bath toys, beach balls, and United States Coast Guard-approved life saving devices.” 16 CFR part 1250. ASTM F963-23 includes generally applicable performance requirements for all toys, such as flammability and toxicology (lead, phthalates, etc.). The mandatory standard also includes specific performance requirements for some toys, including pacifiers (4.20), teethers and teething toys (4.22), rattles (4.23), and squeeze toys (4.24), among others. The standard, however, does not include any specific performance requirements for aquatic toys or neck floats. The standard also contains generally applicable marking and labeling requirements for all toys for warning labels, instructional literature, and packaging. In addition, for aquatic toys, the standard includes, in section 5.4, specific labeling requirements that apply to aquatic toys like neck floats and their packaging. The labeling requirements are intended to communicate to the consumer that an aquatic toy is not a lifesaving device and to warn caregivers against leaving a child unattended while using the aquatic toy. More specifically, it requires aquatic toys, and their packaging, carry a safety label that at minimum includes the following, or equivalent, text: “ <E T="03">This is not a lifesaving device. Do not leave child unattended while device is in use.”</E> It also requires “no advertising copy or graphics shall state or imply that the child will be safe with such a toy if left unsupervised.” The Commission determined that warning requirements specified in section 5.4 of ASTM F963-23 are inadequate for neck floats because they do not adequately address the hidden hazards specifically associated with these products, such as the risk of neck opening expansion during use, the risk of drowning in very shallow water, and the risk of death associated with partial or full slip-through. As noted above, ASTM F963-23 does not establish adequate requirements specific to neck floats because it does not include specific performance requirements that take an aquatic environment and associated hazards into consideration for these toys. For example, rattles and pacifiers account for the expected use scenario that infants may attempt to put them in their mouths, and to address this, ASTM F963-23 establishes a performance requirement in sections 4.20 and 4.23 that they must not pass through the Pacifier Test Fixture and Rattle Test Fixture, respectively, to mitigate the possible choking or impaction hazard associated with that use. In comparison, for aquatic toys, there are no requirements to adequately address foreseeable use hazards such as those identified for neck floats in this rule. For example, even though aquatic toys are defined as “intended to bear the mass of a child,” there are no buoyancy performance requirements in ASTM F963-23 to evaluate whether an aquatic toy can adequately perform that duty. On November 20, 2024, the Commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) to address hazards associated with neck floats. Incident data, discussed in the NPR (and described in section III of this preamble), demonstrated that children have suffered drowning injuries and deaths associated with the use of neck floats. The NPR included a proposed definition of “neck floats” and performance requirements that included requirements for conditioning, buoyancy, restraining systems, and the neck opening. The NPR proposed to amend existing marking, labeling, and instructional literature requirements. The NPR also stated that it would revise the title of part 1250 from “Safety Standard Mandating ASTM F963 for Toys” to “Safety Standards for Toys,” to reflect the inclusion of additional requirements that are not included in the existing requirements in ASTM F963-23. The Commission received 145 public comments on the NPR. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Statutory Authority and Voluntary Standards Activity</HD> The Commission is authorized to issue this final rule pursuant to both sections 106(c) and (d) of the CPSIA. 15 U.S.C. 2056b(c) and (d). Section 106(c) requires the Commission to periodically review and revise its mandatory toy safety standards to ensure that such standards provide the highest level of safety for toys that is feasible. 15 U.S.C. 2056b(c). Section 106(d) further requires the Commission to examine and assess the effectiveness of its mandatory toy safety standards in protecting children from safety hazards, and then to promulgate consumer product safety standards that are more stringent than the existing requirements if the Commission determines that the more stringent standards would further reduce the risk of injury associated with such toys. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 2056b(d). Consistent with the consultation requirement in section 106(d)(1) of the CPSIA, staff have worked with the ASTM F15.22 Subcommittee since 2009 to update the toy standard. In August 2021, CPSC staff corresponded with the ASTM Subcommittee and task group to discuss hazards associated with neck floats, including sharing incident data associated with neck floats and staff's recommendation to develop performance requirements to address the hazards identified in the incident data. In December 2024, ASTM held an exploratory meeting to determine if there was interest from its members and stakeholders in designating a subcommittee for work developing a standard for buoyancy aids for children. Following an organizational meeting in January 2025, ASTM designated the F15.07 subcommittee to develop the draft standard. CPSC staff attended both the exploratory and organizational meetings. CPSC staff have been involved with the F15.07 subcommittee meetings since its inception and participates in its two task groups that focus on performance requirements and warning labels. At these meetings, staff recommended that the subcommittee consider the requirements proposed in the NPR as the baseline for their draft. The subcommittee is also considering performance requirements not discussed in the NPR, such as seam strength, puncture resistance, and ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 234k characters. 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