Current as of 9 October 2026
This describes the state of things at the date shown, without a claim about which way it is moving next. Checked yearly. First observed: Adopted July 2024; applies to chocolate and cocoa from 1 July 2025.
EU limits on nickel in chocolate
Since 1 July 2025 the European Union has had legal maximum levels for nickel in chocolate and cocoa powder, for the first time. Cadmium was already limited in the same table; nickel now is too.
Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/1987 added nickel to the EU's table of contaminant limits. For cocoa and chocolate the levels are 2.5 mg/kg for milk chocolate with less than 30% total dry cocoa solids, 7.0 mg/kg for milk chocolate with 30% or more and for chocolate, and 15 mg/kg for cocoa powder sold to the final consumer or used in sweetened cocoa powder or drinking chocolate. They have applied since 1 July 2025; only the cereal entries in the same table apply a year later.
What would make this page wrong
Written before the page went up rather than added afterwards. If one of these has happened since the date above, treat what follows as history.
- A revision of the levels. The contaminants table was amended three more times in July 2026, for other substances in other foods, and its consolidated text of 19 August 2026 still shows the three nickel levels for cocoa and chocolate as set out here.
- Published results of official controls under the new levels. No report of how many chocolate or cocoa samples exceed them has been read for this record.
- A limit in another large market. None was looked for on the date above, so this record says nothing about nickel rules outside the EU.
What stays true when this is over
The limits follow the cocoa, as the cadmium limits do: the more cocoa solids a product has, the higher its permitted level, because the metal arrives with the cocoa. That is a general feature of how metals in chocolate are regulated and it explains what looks like a paradox, that the darkest bar is allowed the most. A limit is an enforcement threshold for a product. It is not a statement that a product under it is free of the metal, or that one over it has harmed anyone. The health reference point is separate: the European Food Safety Authority's 2020 assessment set a tolerable daily intake of 13 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, and found that high-percentile chronic exposure was below it in adolescents and adults and generally above it in toddlers and other children, across the whole diet.
The three numbers, and what they attach to
MILK CHOCOLATE WITH LESS THAN 30% COCOA SOLIDS: 2.5 mg/kg.
MILK CHOCOLATE WITH 30% OR MORE, AND CHOCOLATE: 7.0 mg/kg.
COCOA POWDER for the final consumer, or as an ingredient in sweetened cocoa powder or drinking chocolate: 15 mg/kg.
The categories are the legal product names, so they depend on the composition rules that define chocolate and milk chocolate. The limit applies to the product as sold.
How this sits beside cadmium
The cadmium levels in the same table are far lower, between 0.10 and 0.80 mg/kg for chocolate depending on cocoa solids. The two sets of limits are built the same way, rising with cocoa solids, and should not be compared as if a bigger number meant a laxer rule.
Both metals are covered, with their sources and limits, on the cadmium and contaminants pages in the data section.
Widely said, not established
These are claims in circulation about this subject that the evidence available to this catalogue does not carry. They are listed rather than ignored, because a reader who has met them elsewhere is entitled to know where they stand.
- Where the nickel in cocoa comes from, or how it differs by origin. No soil or origin study of nickel in cacao has been read here; one factory study found it the most abundant of three metals measured in raw cocoa, and lower in the finished chocolate.
- That chocolate is the main source of nickel in anybody's diet. The safety assessment found the high mean level of its sugar and confectionery category was driven mainly by chocolate and cocoa products, which is a statement about concentration in a food category, not about total intake.
- That any particular bar is over or under the limit. This site holds no nickel measurements of products.
- Anything about nickel allergy and eating chocolate. That is a clinical question, not a matter of these limits.
Related
The data and the studies
- Contaminants in cocoa and chocolateLead, nickel, mould toxins and five more, each with its sources and limits.
- Cadmium in cacao and chocolateEvery limit beside its product category, and what soil, tree and processing change.
What is happening now
- Cadmium and heavy metals in cacaoThe metal that was limited first and is understood best: where it comes from, how it varies by origin and what the limits are.
- How to read a chocolate labelHow to find the cocoa solids declaration that decides which of the three levels a product falls under.
Sources
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/1987 amending Regulation (EU) 2023/915 as regards maximum levels of nickel in certain foodstuffs — European Commission, 2024
- Update of the risk assessment of nickel in food and drinking water — European Food Safety Authority (EFSA Journal 2020;18(11):6268), 2020
How this page is kept current
Dates on this site are advanced by a person who has re-read the record, never by a build step. If the date at the top of this page is old, that is the honest state of it rather than a bug — and the list of what would make it wrong is there so you can check for yourself. See the editorial policy.