How to agree data duties with your EU importer

Write the split of data work into your supply agreement before the first shipment. The law puts the passport duty on your EU importer, and the data behind the passport comes from you.

Warning: the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) creates no passport duty for any product today. The battery regulation is in force, and its passport duty starts on 18 February 2027. Read how to read the timeline before you accept a date.

Here is what happens if you skip that step. Take an e-bike battery. Your importer must hold a set of documents before it may place that battery on the EU market. If one document is missing, it must not place the battery on the market. Your stock then stays in a warehouse in Europe.

Your EU importer places the product on the market, so it carries the duty

The duty falls on the economic operator that places the product on the EU market. If you have no office in the Union, you are not that operator, but your EU importer is.

The battery regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, is in force and says so plainly. Article 77(4) requires the operator placing the battery on the market to keep the passport information accurate, complete and up to date.

ESPR applies the same test. Its Article 13(4) puts the registry upload on the operator that places the product on the market. No product group has an ESPR passport duty yet. See who is the economic operator for the definitions.

Your importer cannot invent the documents, so it will ask you for them

Take an e-bike battery built in Christchurch and sold by an importer in Rotterdam. Article 41(2) of the battery regulation tells that importer what to verify before it places the battery on the market:

• the EU declaration of conformity and the technical documentation in Annex VIII
• the conformity assessment under Article 17, carried out by the manufacturer
• the CE marking under Article 19
• the marking and the labelling under Article 13

The importer did not design or build the battery. It cannot draw up any of those four items. You draw them up and you send them. That is the package a non-EU exporter must supply.

The battery passport applies from 18 February 2027. It covers three categories:

• each light means of transport (LMT) battery, such as an e-bike battery
• each industrial battery with a capacity greater than 2 kilowatt hours
• each electric vehicle battery

Nine points to write down, in one document

Copy this table into your agreement. Answer every line with a company name and a job title.

Point 7 is a data question first. The battery law gives three groups of readers different subsets of one passport, so read access tiers before you answer it.

Point 8 needs a named person on both sides. A market surveillance authority asks the operator that placed the product on the market. Your importer must then find your test report quickly. See market surveillance and customs.

Give the update speed as a number of working days

"Promptly" is not a number. Two parties will read that word differently on the day it matters.

The passport duty continues for as long as the battery is on the market. Article 77(4) requires the information to stay accurate, complete and up to date for that full period.

ESPR sets one interval that you can use as a comparison. Article 10(3) requires the responsible operator to give a dealer a digital copy of the data carrier, free of charge. The limit is five working days from the request. That duty starts only when a delegated act covers the product group, and no delegated act has been adopted.

So pick your own interval and write it down. Match it to the event that triggers a change, such as a new certificate or a supplier change. See updating a passport after sale.

Say who obtains an operator identifier for a party that has none

ESPR Annex III requires the passport to carry unique operator identifiers for the manufacturer and for other actors in the chain. Article 12(2) covers the case where an actor has none. The operator that creates the passport must then request an identifier on behalf of that party.

Ask your importer which scheme it will use, who applies, and who pays. See operator identifiers and why a New Zealand Business Number is not enough.

Write down what happens to the data when the relationship ends

A passport must stay available after a commercial relationship ends.

The battery regulation is direct. Article 78(e) requires the battery passport to remain available after the responsible operator ceases to exist or ceases its activity in the Union. ESPR carries the same idea. Its Article 10(e) names the case of insolvency. Under ESPR the passport must also stay available for at least the expected lifetime of the product.

So agree who keeps a copy of the data, in what format, and how you get it back. ESPR Article 10(4) requires a back-up copy through a passport service provider. See what a service provider does and what happens if the company closes.

Then agree what a host may not do. Article 78(d) of the battery regulation bars an authorised third-party host from selling or re-using the data. Write the same limit into your own contract, because that data includes your material composition.

OwlQR, a New Zealand company that publishes this site, builds this type of service. Ask any provider where the back-up copy sits, and what the provider may do with your data.

Do not promise more data work than you can do

The duty is to keep the data current. A test report that no longer matches production is a defect in the passport.

So do not sign for a monthly refresh of forty fields if you can maintain twelve. Agree a narrower list, or a later start, and expand it when the work is real. Nothing under ESPR binds your product group yet, so you can negotiate the start date.

The expensive failure is a passport nobody maintains. See who is liable for the data.

Written authorisation does not move the duty

Article 77(4) lets the responsible operator authorise another operator in writing to act on its behalf. You may do this work, because you hold the data.

That authorisation is not a transfer. The operator that placed the product on the market stays responsible. One route does transfer the duty: Article 77(7) moves it when a battery is re-used, repurposed, remanufactured, or becomes waste.

You can agree to pay for your own mistake. You cannot agree to become the party that EU law holds responsible. Expect a contract that shares the cost.

A consortium paper reads the duty more widely than the text

The PARSEC, CIRPASS-2 and BORDERLINK projects published a white paper on 31 March 2026. It states two points that go further than the wording above. It says a non-EU manufacturer stays a duty holder regardless of establishment. It also says that the appointment of an authorised representative does not move responsibility away from the manufacturer.

Mark what that document is. It is a paper from EU-funded projects, and it binds nobody.

Treat the wider reading as a position your European customer may write into a contract. Ask which reading your importer holds before you negotiate.

The articles this page uses, and their status

Find out which company places your product on the EU market

1. Ask your European buyer which company places your product on the EU market.
2. List every data item that buyer already asks for by email.
3. Put a named person against each item, on both sides.
4. Set the update interval in working days.
5. Agree what happens to the data if you change importer.

If you sell food or drink, no ESPR passport reaches your product. Food and feed are excluded, and the New Zealand exporters page explains who is left.