Which languages the instructions have to be in, and who decides
Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 names no languages. It names a decider: the member state the machine is placed on the market in. Sell one model into eight countries and you have eight language duties, not one.
This is the question with the least useful answer online, because people look for a list and there is no list. The regulation does not say which languages your instructions have to be in. It says who gets to decide, and the answer is not you.
“The instructions for use, the safety information and the information set out in Annex III shall be in a language which can be easily understood by users, as determined by the Member State concerned, and shall be clear, understandable and legible.”
The market decides, not the factory
"As determined by the Member State concerned" is the operative phrase, and the member state concerned is the one the machine is placed on the market in. Not where you are established, not where it was built, not where your head office answers the phone. A German builder shipping to Finland owes what Finland determines; the same machine going to Portugal owes what Portugal determines. Most member states require their own official language, several accept more than one, and a handful treat professional-only machinery differently. The duty is national, so the only reliable source for any single country is that country.
It scales with your markets, not with your product range
One model sold into eight countries carries eight language obligations. Eight models sold into one country carry one. This catches people out because the engineering work scales with models and the documentation work scales with markets, and the two are planned by different departments on different budgets.
Your distributor is required to check it
“the machinery or related product is accompanied by the instructions for use and the information referred to in Article 10(7), and that they are in a language which can be easily understood by users, as determined by the Member State in which the machinery or related product is to be made available on the market;”
This is the part that makes the language duty commercially real rather than theoretical. Before a distributor makes your machine available, they have to verify that the instructions are there and that they are in a language users in that market can easily understand, as determined by that member state. A distributor who does that properly will refuse the shipment. A distributor who does not has taken on a duty they are going to discover later.
The language duty is wider than the manual
“Manufacturers shall indicate their name, registered trade name or registered trade mark, and the postal address and website, e-mail address or other digital contact at which they can be contacted, on the machinery or related product or, where that is not possible, on its packaging or in a document accompanying the machinery or related product. The address shall indicate a single point at which the manufacturer can be contacted. The contact details shall be in a language easily understood by users and market surveillance authorities.”
Contact details carry their own language rule, and it has a second audience: users and market surveillance authorities. Article 13(3) puts the same duty on importers for their own details. So the plate is not only a pointer to a document, it is itself a place the language requirement lands.
What this does to digital delivery
A single address that opens an English PDF satisfies nothing outside the markets that accept English. The access point can be one QR code, but what it opens has to lead each user to their own language, and it has to keep doing so for the whole retention period rather than for as long as somebody remembers to maintain the page. Adding a market later means adding a language behind a code that is already stamped into metal on machines in the field, which is a documentation problem rather than a printing one.
What this guide does not tell you
It does not tell you which languages your particular machines need. Nobody honest can, from a web page: it depends on your markets, on national law in each of them, and on whether non-professional users could plausibly end up operating the machine. What this page can tell you is that the question has twenty-seven answers rather than one, and that the quoted text above is where the duty comes from.
Everplate is where this documentation lives
Upload the manuals and declarations you already have and you get a QR code, plate artwork and a permanent address, in every language you sell into. Published revisions are never deleted, so what you served in 2027 is still provable in 2037.