EN 13594is the European standard for motorcycle riders' protective gloves, and the version makers quote is EN 13594:2015. It sorts a glove into Level 1 or Level 2, and it adds a separate optional mark, KP, for knuckle impact protection. If you only remember one thing, remember this: a glove can be fully certified at Level 1 without passing any knuckle impact test at all. The KP mark is what tells you the hard knuckle on the back of the glove is more than decoration, and at Level 1 it is optional.
The second thing worth knowing is how rare published detail is. Of the twelve riding gloves we rank across this site, only five have a maker who publishes an EN 13594 certification claim at all, and only four print a level. The rest are gloves whose cards say, in their own cons, "no published EN 13594 certification." That is not us being unfair to them — it is what the product pages say. The honest default when shopping gloves is that you are buying leather and stitching on trust unless the maker says otherwise.
What to look for on a glove's certification claim
- Level 1 or Level 2? Level 2 is the higher performance tier and demands more of the glove across the board. Level 1 is the everyday road tier. Both are real; neither is a race licence.
- Is there a KP after the level? KP means knuckle protection was tested and passed. Per the test house's description of EN 13594:2015, KP is optional at Level 1 and mandatory at Level 2. A glove advertised as "Level 1" with no KP has a knuckle guard nobody measured.
- Does the maker name the standard and the year? "Level 1 KP certified according to EN 13594:2015" is a claim you can check. "CE certified" on its own is not, and plenty of gloves wearing a CE logo on the cuff are certified as general-purpose gloves rather than as motorcycle PPE.
We have not abraded, cut or impact-tested a glove and we do not run a lab. Everything below comes from the published standard and the test house's own description of its requirements, plus the makers' published certification wording, all linked at the bottom of the page.
What the standard actually assesses
EN 13594 is broader than most riders assume. It is not only a measure of how tough the palm leather is; it covers the whole glove as a piece of equipment that has to stay on your hand.
| Area assessed | What it is about | Why it matters in a crash |
|---|
| Abrasion resistance | How long the glove materials survive being dragged | The sliding seconds before anything hits anything |
| Cut resistance | Resistance to being sliced by an edge | Road debris, bodywork, broken glass |
| Tear and seam strength | Whether the glove holds together under load | A glove that bursts at the seam has stopped protecting |
| Cuff length and restraint | That the glove covers the wrist and is held on | The most common real-world failure: the glove comes off |
| Knuckle impact (KP) | Optional at Level 1, mandatory at Level 2 | The hard shell over the knuckles doing its job |
| Ergonomics and dexterity | That you can still operate the controls | A glove you cannot brake in is a hazard |
The restraint strap is not a styling detail
The single most under-appreciated line in the standard is the one about the cuff and the restraint. A glove is only protective while it is on your hand, and in a slide the friction that tears a glove also tries to pull it off — fingers first, then the whole thing, usually within the first second. That is why certified gloves have a wrist strap separate from the main cuff closure, and why race gauntlets have two.
It is also the reason a short glove is a different proposition from a gauntlet, and not just a cooler one. A gauntlet covers the gap where the jacket sleeve ends, seals against the wind and has more surface to hold on with; a short glove is easier to live with and gives up some of that. Our short vs gauntlet comparison goes through the trade properly. Whichever you buy, fasten the wrist strap — a certified glove with the strap hanging loose has had the test condition removed.
Why so few gloves publish a level
Certification costs money per model and per colourway, and the US market does not require it. A glove sold into the US only can carry a hard knuckle, a leather palm and a slider and never see a test house, and most budget gloves are exactly that. The brands that do publish tend to be the ones already selling into Europe, where motorcycle gloves placed on the market as PPE are regulated.
There is a curiosity in our own catalog worth stating, because it is what the data says rather than what we expected: the gloves that print a complete level string are disproportionately the women'smodels. All four women's gloves we rank publish "Level 1 KP" with the standard and its year; among the unisex and men's gloves, only the Alpinestars SP-8 V3 publishes an EN 13594 claim at all, and it does so without a printed level. We are not going to invent a reason for that. We note it because it means the women's pages on this site are, by accident of what makers document, the best-evidenced glove pages we have — see our women's gloves ranking.
What a CE logo on the cuff does not tell you
A CE mark by itself is a declaration of conformity with whichever European regulation applies — it is not a motorcycle rating. A pair of gloves can carry CE as general PPE for, say, general-purpose hand protection and have nothing to do with EN 13594. The phrase to look for is the standard number, not the logo. If a product page says "CE certified" and nothing else, treat it the way we do on the cards: as unverified for motorcycle use, and rank it below anything that names the standard.
The same logic runs through every piece of gear on this site, with a different number each time. Boots are rated under EN 13634, which scores four properties separately. Jackets and trousers are rated as whole garments under EN 17092 and their armor separately under EN 1621, which our CE armor levels guide takes apart. Helmets sit outside the CE system in the US, where DOT FMVSS 218 is the requirement.
Level 1 or Level 2 — which should you buy?
For road riding, a Level 1 KP glove that fits properly and that you will actually wear every ride beats a Level 2 race gauntlet sitting in a drawer because it is stiff. Level 2 demands more of every material, which in practice means thicker leather, more armor and less feel at the lever; that is the right trade on a track day and an annoying one in traffic. The level to avoid is "unstated," because it is not a level.
Fit matters more than either, and it is the one variable the standard cannot help you with. A glove that is too long in the fingers bunches at the lever; one that is too tight across the palm goes numb in twenty minutes. Our glove sizing guide covers measuring your hand properly, and our how to choose gloves guide covers the rest of the decision.
The gloves on this page, and why these three
These are the gloves in our catalog whose makers publish an EN 13594 claim you can check. The Alpinestars SP-8 V3 is our top-ranked glove overall and publishes an EN 13594 CE claim on a full-gauntlet leather glove with a hard knuckle and a palm slider, though without a printed level. The Alpinestars Stella SP-8 V3is the women's version of the same glove and publishes the complete string — EN 13594 2015, Level 1 KP — on full-grain leather with a moulded hard knuckle and a third- and fourth-finger bridge. The KLIM Women's Adventure GTX Short publishes CE Level 1 KP to EN 13594 on a fully bonded GORE-TEX glove with a carbon fibre knuckle guard over 5 mm of XRD foam. For the complete rankings rather than the certification lens, start with our motorcycle gloves ranking.
