The EU Political Advertising Regulation: what you need to know

On 10 October 2025, the remaining provisions of the European Union’s Regulation (EU) 2024/900 on the transparency and targeting of political advertising (i.e. the Political Advertising Regulation, or "PAR") became applicable. Guidance issued by the European Commission on implementation of PAR (“Guidance”) was finalised two days beforehand on 8 October 2025.

PAR can apply to a wide range of services in the advertising ecosystem - even those only involved in commercial advertising - and regulatory fines under PAR can be up to 6% annual income, budget or worldwide turnover.

Objectives

PAR aims to (i) ensure EU citizens are better placed to recognise political advertising and therefore better able to exercise their democratic rights, (ii) place stricter conditions on the targeting of political advertising online in order to respect users’ right to privacy, and (iii) protect the integrity of elections and referendums against information manipulation and foreign interference. 

Scope – what is political advertising?

PAR defines “political advertising” broadly such that in some circumstances it can capture commercial advertising. The definition covers 

“the preparation, placement, promotion, publication, delivery or dissemination, by any means, of a message, normally provided for remuneration or through in-house activities or as part of a political advertising campaign: 
(a) by, for or on behalf of a political actor, unless it is of a purely private or a purely commercial nature; or 
(b) which is liable and designed to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, voting behaviour or a legislative or regulatory process, at Union, national, regional or local level […] ”

In both cases, the message must be disseminated within the EU, brought into the public domain in one or more EU Member States, or directed at EU citizens.

This wide scope means that services throughout the advertising supply chain including those that typically only handle commercial advertising may be subject to the regulation if their activities meet the defined criteria.

Scope – industry players

Many players involved in political advertising will be subject to obligations under PAR, including:

• “Sponsors” e.g. political parties, candidates, or commercial organisations requesting a political advertisement;
• “Political advertising services” e.g. agencies, consultancies, Adtech providers, data brokers, online platforms;
• “Political advertising publishers” a subset of political advertising services which publish, deliver or disseminate political advertising and play a role in bringing it to the public; and
• Any controllers using “targeting and ad-delivery techniques” in the context of online political advertising.

Speak to a member of the Bird & Bird team for more context on these definitions.

Key obligations

Key obligations include, for political advertising services:

• Non-discrimination in the provision of services solely on grounds of the sponsor’s residence or establishment;
• Foreign interference-related restrictions in the three months leading up to an election or referendum;
• Contractual arrangements must be in place that enable compliance with the PAR, and support the understanding of and facilitate the flow of information across the supply chain;
• Record-keeping obligations, and obligations to transmit information to end-publishers; and
• Governance and information sharing obligations, including legal representative and point-of-contact requirements,

And in addition, for political advertising publishers:

• Labelling and transparency obligations;
• Upload of advertisements and transparency notices to a public repository maintained by the European Commission;
• Periodic reporting through attachment of certain information to their management reports; and
• Implementation of notification mechanismsto receive notifications of non-compliant political ads.

Additional obligations impacting targeting and ad-delivery

These obligations may be subject to further guidance from the European Data Protection Board. In summary, where targeting and ad-delivery techniques are used in the context of political advertising, the controller must:

• Obtain explicit consent from the data subject separately for the purpose of political advertising;
• Not profile individuals using special category data in connection with such techniques
• Only use personal data for such techniques which the controller collected from the data subject;
• Ensure such techniques do not involve the processing of personal data relating to individuals the controller knows with reasonable certainty to be at least one year under voting age as established by national rules; and
• Comply with additional transparency requirements, including publication of internal policies, annual risk assessments, and providing additional information to data subjects.

Takeaways

Given PAR’s expansive and challenging scope, organisations who want to continue political advertising in the EU will need to consider the following aspects:

• Scoping: Determine whether you conduct, or provide services consisting of, political advertising within the meaning of PAR;
• Information mapping: Ensure that information flows are well-documented and understood throughout your supply chain;
• Contractual updates: Understand how responsibility is allocated between stakeholders so this can be reallocated or renegotiated as required; and
• Product changes: Implement additional transparency or product design requirements where these apply to you, including in relation to targeting and ad-delivery techniques.

This article was co-authored by Stephanie Ong.