Is food in America full of additives that are banned in Europe?

Not in the way the claim implies. 495 additives permitted in the United States hold no permission in the European Union, but on only 1 of them has the EU made a decision about the substance — a prohibition, or a removal from its list. For the rest the usual reason is that nobody applied for authorisation, or that the EU regulates the substance under a different law altogether. An additive missing from the EU list has not been judged and rejected; in most cases it has not been judged at all.

Are Red 40 and Yellow 5 banned in Europe?

No. Both are authorised in the European Union — Red 40 is E 129 and Yellow 5 is E 102 — and both are permitted in named foods at named levels. What the EU requires that the United States does not is a statement on the label: a food containing either must carry the words "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children". That labelling obligation is what is usually being described, inaccurately, as a ban.

Is anything actually banned in Europe but allowed in America?

Yes, and those cases are worth naming precisely because they are rare. 1 substances permitted in the United States have been prohibited by the European Union or removed from its authorised list, each by a dated instrument. Titanium dioxide, removed from the EU list in 2022 and still permitted in the United States, is the clearest example.

Is it banned in Europe?

It is the standard line about American food, and it is usually wrong — not because Europe is permissive, but because an additive missing from the EU's list has not normally been judged and rejected. In most cases it has not been judged at all.

This page checks the claim against both regulators' own lists, substance by substance. It does not tell you whether anything is safe: no regulator's decision is a verdict this site endorses, and where two regulators disagree, both positions stand.

The substances usually named

Each row is read from this site's database when the page is built, not written into it, so what you see is what the two regulators' lists say today.

Additive	In the EU	In the US
FD&C Red No. 40 E129	Permitted, with conditions	Permitted, with conditions
FD&C Yellow No. 5 E102	Permitted, with conditions	Permitted, with conditions
FD&C Yellow No. 6 E110	Permitted, with conditions	Permitted, with conditions
Butylated hydroxyanisole E320	Permitted, with conditions	Permitted, with conditions
Titanium dioxide E171	Delisted	Permitted
Potassium bromate	Not listed	Permitted, with conditions
Azodicarbonamide	Not listed	Permitted, with conditions

4 of the 7 substances in that table are authorised in the European Union. The colours among them — the ones most often named — are permitted in the EU in specified foods at specified levels. What the EU requires and the United States does not is a sentence on the label: a food containing one of six colours must state that it may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children. That obligation, which is set out in the regulation, is what is usually being described as a ban.

What the whole comparison shows

495 additives permitted in the United States hold no permission in the European Union. The European Union has made a decision about the substance itself — prohibited it, or removed it from the authorised list — in one of those 495 cases, or 0.2% of them. What the other 494 are is set out below, and none of the categories is a ban.

Removed from the EU’s list 1: The EU once permitted these and has removed them. The date and the instrument are on each additive’s page.
Possibly covered by a related listing in the EU 2: The EU lists a substance under the same number — often a group entry such as “E 322 Lecithins” where the other regulator lists a single form. This site cannot tell whether that listing covers this form, so these are not counted as absent.
Regulated outside the additives list in the EU 160: Every function regulators give these — flavouring, enzyme, nutrient, solvent or processing aid — is one the EU regulates under separate rules, so they would not be expected on its list of food additives. Their absence here says nothing about whether the EU permits them.
Not on the EU’s list 332: The EU permits food additives only where it lists them, and these are not listed. That is not a finding against the substance: usually no one has applied for authorisation there. It does mean they may not be used as food additives in the EU today.

Each of those groups, with every substance in it, is on the United States and European Union comparison. The same question can be asked of any two of the 7 national and supranational regulators this site reads — the EU against Great Britain after Brexit, Canada against Australia — from Compare.

Where the claim is true

These are the cases worth naming, precisely because they are the rare ones: a substance the United States permits and the European Union has decided against, by a dated instrument that each additive's page cites.

Titanium dioxide E171 — removed from the EU list with effect from 2022-02-07

A removal is not a statement that everything still on the list is safe, nor that the removed substance was found harmful: read the instrument on the additive's page, which says what the body actually concluded and when.

And the other direction

The comparison runs both ways, and it is rarely put that way in print: 204 additives permitted in the European Union hold no listing in the parts of 21 CFR this site reads. That is not a claim that the United States bans them — the US permits substances through routes that never appear in the Code of Federal Regulations at all, which is exactly the kind of gap this page exists to stop people reading as a prohibition.