Health claims on supplements: what you can legally say (EU Register 1924/2006)

"Supports immunity." "Contributes to normal energy metabolism." "Boosts your defences." Three phrases that sound similar — but under EU law, only one of them may be usable, and only if your formula qualifies. Health claims are one of the most tightly controlled parts of supplement marketing, and getting them wrong is a fast route to a compliance problem.

The rule in one sentence

Under Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006, you may only make nutrition and health claims that are authorised and used under their specified conditions. You cannot invent a claim, and you usually cannot freely reword an authorised one.

That single principle drives almost everything else.

Nutrition claims vs health claims

The regulation covers two distinct things.

Nutrition claims describe what a product contains or does not contain — for example "source of" or "high in" a nutrient. These have defined conditions: a product can only be called a "source of" a vitamin if it actually contains a qualifying amount.

Health claims describe a relationship between a nutrient and health — for example that a nutrient contributes to a normal bodily function. These must come from the authorised list, and the conditions of use specify exactly when and how the claim can appear.

Confusing the two, or treating a health claim as freely editable marketing copy, is where many products go wrong.

Why wording is so constrained

Authorised health claims come with specific conditions — including the amount of the nutrient that must be present for the claim to be allowed, and often the population the claim applies to. The wording used on the label has to reflect the authorised meaning; you have some flexibility in phrasing, but you cannot stretch a claim into saying something stronger than what was authorised.

This is why "contributes to the normal function of the immune system" and "boosts immunity" are not equivalent. One reflects an authorised relationship; the other implies an enhanced effect that goes beyond it.

The condition of use is the catch

The part teams most often miss is that a claim is tied to a condition. An authorised health claim for a vitamin usually requires the product to contain a significant amount of that vitamin — typically linked to its reference value — per serving.

That means a claim is not just a marketing decision; it is a formulation decision. If the formula does not contain enough of the nutrient, the claim is not permitted, however true it might be in principle. Claim eligibility and formula composition are linked.

Where it gets harder across markets

The authorised-list approach is specific to the EU framework. Other markets handle claims differently — the US structure/function model, for instance, works on entirely different principles and requires its own disclaimer.

A claim that is authorised and correctly worded for the EU is not automatically valid elsewhere, and vice versa. For a manufacturer selling across markets, each claim has to be checked against the framework of the market it appears in.

Keeping claims compliant in practice

The sustainable approach links claims to the formula. When the system knows how much of each nutrient a formula contains, it can tell you which authorised claims the product is actually eligible for — and flag a claim that the formula does not support.

Instead of writing marketing copy and hoping it is compliant, you start from the claims the formula has earned.

The takeaway

EU health claims are authorised, conditional, and constrained in wording. They are not free marketing text — they are tied to the composition of the formula and the framework of the market. The manufacturers who treat claim eligibility as part of formulation, rather than a marketing afterthought, are the ones who stay on the right side of the rule.

Lemoniq links authorised claims to your formula, so you can see which claims a product is eligible for as you build it — across each market it serves. See how it works