Read the label on a pair of safety gloves and you will usually find two standards. EN 388 gets all the attention, because cut resistance is what buyers compare. Above it, often in smaller print, sits EN ISO 21420, or EN 420 on older stock. That second standard is the reason the glove is safe to put on in the first place, and most people skim straight past it.
EN ISO 21420 replaced EN 420 in March 2020 and has since been adopted as a worldwide ISO standard. It sets the general requirements for protective gloves: how they are built, what they are made of, how they are sized, how much your fingers can still do inside them, and what the manufacturer has to tell you. It applies to every glove sold as PPE, whether it is an 84p PVC handling glove or a £59 Ansell chemical glove.
It does not test protection, and that is the point
This is where people get confused. EN ISO 21420 does not measure how well a glove resists cuts, heat or chemicals. That is the job of the specific standards: EN 388 for mechanical risks, EN 407 for heat and flame, EN ISO 374 for chemicals, EN 511 for cold.
EN ISO 21420 sits underneath all of them. It is the same layered approach protective clothing uses, where EN ISO 13688 covers the general requirements for garments. Our guide to EN ISO 13688 covers that side of things.
A glove that only carries EN ISO 21420 is not a protective glove. A glove carrying EN ISO 21420 and EN 388 is. If you see the general standard on its own, ask what it is actually claiming.
Where itchy hands come from
Chemical innocuousness is the part of the standard that affects your team most, and the part nobody reads about. The materials in a protective glove must not release anything harmful under normal use. Six limits do most of the work.
Chromium VI is the one worth knowing. Leather tanned badly can carry it, and it is a well documented skin sensitiser. The limit is 3 mg/kg for every leather component in the glove. When a team complains about cracked, itchy hands after a shift in leather riggers, chromium VI is a common culprit, and it is usually a sign of cheap tanning rather than anything wrong with the wearer's skin.
The rest are less dramatic but still worth knowing. Nickel release must stay under 0.5 micrograms per square centimetre per week for metal parts in prolonged skin contact. pH has to sit between 3.5 and 9.5 on all materials. Azo colourants stay under 30 mg/kg, PAHs under 1 mg/kg in rubbers and plastics, and DMFa under 1,000 mg/kg in anything containing polyurethane.
That last one catches PU coated gloves, which is most of the general handling range. If your supplier cannot show you an EN ISO 21420 test report, you are taking their word for it.
Sizing is measured, not guessed
Glove sizes under the standard run from 4 to 13, worked out from hand circumference and hand length, which means wrist to the tip of your middle finger. Both numbers matter. Circumference on its own gets you a glove that fits around the hand but sits wrong across the fingers.
When you are kitting out a team, measure hands rather than guessing from a letter on the pack. Sizing varies more than people expect between brands, especially on gloves with an inner liner. It is a ten minute job that saves a round of returns.
Dexterity, and why thick is not always better
Dexterity is graded by how small a steel pin the wearer can pick up from a flat surface three times in 30 seconds. The pins range from 5 mm up to 11 mm. Pick up the smallest and you are at the top of the scale. Miss all of them and you score zero.
It sounds like a laboratory curiosity. It is not. A glove that scores badly means someone fumbling with a small part, pulling the glove off to finish the job, and working bare handed. That is how hand injuries happen, and no cut rating on the packaging prevents it.
It is also why two gloves with identical EN 388 cut levels can behave completely differently on site. The thinner, better fitting one usually wins, provided the cut protection holds. Our guide to EN 388 covers how the cut levels and the rest of the four digit score are worked out.
What changed in 2024
The current version is EN ISO 21420:2020+A1:2024. The amendment was harmonised in June 2026, which means all new EU type-examination applications for protective gloves are now assessed against it rather than the original 2020 text.
The main additions deal with gloves built from layers. Multi-layer reusable gloves have to stay together when you take them off, and the design should keep donning and doffing quick. That matters more than it sounds on a production line, because the longer it takes to get a glove on, the more often someone skips it.
What to check when you buy
Look for both standards on the label, the general one and the specific hazard standard. Ask for the test report rather than accepting the claim on the pack. Match the size to measured hands. And if the price on certified leather or PU gloves looks too good, check the chromium VI and DMFa paperwork before you order a pallet of them.
None of this is glamorous, and that is probably why the general standard gets ignored. But it is what separates a glove that protects your team from one that only looks like it does, and the difference tends to show up in hand injuries and sickness absence long before anyone connects it to what they bought.
We supply nitrile, PU, latex and leather gloves to businesses across Scotland and the UK, and we are happy to talk through which standard matters for your job. Browse the work gloves range online, or call us on +44(0)1236 755544.
REF: EN-ISO-21420-GLOVE-GENERAL-REQUIREMENTS
