The EU battery regulation, and the first binding passport duty

Article 77(1) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, the European Union (EU) battery regulation, creates the passport duty for each battery in three categories. That duty starts on 18 February 2027, and it is the first binding digital product passport duty in EU law.

The regulation is in force, and the Official Journal holds its text. The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) does not create this duty. No further EU act has to arrive before it starts.

If you export an e-bike battery, and it has no passport on that date, your EU importer cannot lawfully place it on the market.

The duty needs no delegated act, and that is why it binds first

The ESPR creates no passport duty for any specific product. Its Article 9 makes a passport a condition of market access, but only for a covered product group. A group becomes covered when the European Commission adopts a delegated act for it. As at August 2026 the Commission has adopted no such act for any group.

The battery regulation works the other way. It names the products, sets the date, and lists the data in its own text. See ESPR Article 9 and what is a delegated act for the contrast.

Article 77(1), word for word

From 18 February 2027 each LMT battery, each industrial battery with a capacity greater than 2 kWh and each electric vehicle battery placed on the market or put into service shall have an electronic record ('battery passport').

LMT means light means of transport. That is the battery in an e-bike or an e-scooter. The regulation names three categories and no others.

Only the industrial category carries a size threshold. The threshold is strictly greater than 2 kilowatt hours (kWh).

Warning: do not decide your position from the phrase "large batteries". A Commission news item of 20 July 2026 uses that phrase, and it is loose. The Commission web page on digital product passports writes "certain types of batteries, including", and that list is open. Name the three categories instead:

• a light means of transport battery, with no size threshold at all
• an industrial battery with a capacity greater than 2 kilowatt hours
• an electric vehicle battery

Batteries sets out the scope test for each category.

Article 77 creates the duty, and Article 78 sets the technical requirements

The duty is per item, not per model and not per batch

One passport belongs to one physical battery. A single passport for a model or a production run does not meet Article 77.

Three parts of the article confirm this.

So build your identifier scheme at item level. A model-level scheme cannot carry a state of health value or a repurposing event. See lifecycle events.

Article 1(5) removes military, security and space batteries from everything

The exclusion covers the full regulation, not the passport article alone. A battery for military equipment, security equipment or space equipment falls outside the full instrument.

Article 13(6) gives every battery a QR code, and a QR code is not a passport

Every battery carries a QR code under Annex VI Part C. A portable battery gets no passport, so its QR code leads to other information.

A QR code on the pack is not evidence that a passport exists behind it.

Article 77(2) names three sets of readers, and two of them overlap

Article 77(2) points each set of data at Annex XIII.

The three sets are not nested. A market surveillance authority and a person with a legitimate interest both read point 2. Each of them also reads a point that the other cannot read.

Some summaries describe the battery passport as one public part and one restricted part. Build for three sets. See who can see what.

Article 78 sets the technical requirements, and it governs this passport alone

Article 78 has lettered points from (a) to (h). It has no numbered paragraphs.

Point (e) reads:

the battery passport shall remain available after the economic operator responsible for the fulfilment of the obligations under Article 77(4) or (7) ceases to exist or ceases its activity in the Union

Cite that as Article 78(e). Some summaries call it Article 78(5), and Article 78(5) does not exist. Note also the words the regulation uses. Article 78 does not use the word insolvency. It names two events: the operator ceases to exist, or it ceases its activity in the Union. See what happens if the company closes.

Four other points shape the build:

• Point (a) requires full interoperability.
• Point (b) requires free-of-charge access, on two conditions and not one.
• Point (d) bars resale and re-use by an authorised third-party host.
• Point (g) requires data authentication, reliability and integrity.

Read point (b) again, because the second condition is easy to miss:

(b) consumers, economic operators and other relevant actors shall have access to the battery passport free of charge and based on their respective access rights set out in Annex XIII and the implementing act adopted pursuant to Article 77(9);

So free access follows the Annex XIII rights, and it follows the implementing act as well. That act does not exist yet, and the section below gives the search. See who can see what.

Article 78 governs the battery passport. It does not govern passports under any other regulation.

The six standards do not settle a battery passport

Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736 cites six European standards. The six are:

• EN 18216, data exchange protocols
• EN 18219, unique identifiers
• EN 18220, data carriers
• EN 18221, data storage, archiving, and persistence
• EN 18222, application programming interfaces for product passport lifecycle management and searchability
• EN 18223, system interoperability

There is no EN 18217 and no EN 18218. A range invents two standards that do not exist.

The presumption of conformity in that Decision comes from ESPR Article 41(2). It covers ESPR Articles 10 and 11, and nothing else. So a product built to the six standards gets no presumption against Article 78 of the battery regulation. See the six standards.

ESPR also names no vendor scheme. A search of the full regulation returns no hit for GS1, for Digital Link, for IEC 61406 or for the digital object identifier (DOI). It returns no hit for a decentralised identifier either. ESPR names the ISO/IEC 15459 series, in Annex III.

A separate claim says that the battery passport prescribes that same series. The research check refuted it. See identifier schemes.

The passport date has not moved

Three acts amended the battery regulation. None of them changed Article 77.

The phrase "battery passport" does not appear in Regulation (EU) 2026/1738 at all. The due diligence date moved, and the passport date did not. Plan on 18 February 2027.

Article 77(9): the legitimate interest acts are due, and this site found none

Article 77(9) required the Commission to adopt implementing acts by 18 August 2026. Those acts must specify who counts as a person with a legitimate interest. They must also specify what that person may download, share, publish and re-use.

The same paragraph sets three criteria for the Commission, and the list is closed. They cover the residual value of the battery, the choice between re-use and recycling, and the limit on access to commercially sensitive information.

Warning: confirm the position yourself before you build access control for the third set of readers. See what is an implementing act and what is public in a passport, and what is not.

This site searched the Official Journal, the Commission comitology register and the Commission planning register on 15 August 2026. It found no adopted act, and no draft act before the committee. Article 90 of this regulation requires that committee to give an opinion before the Commission adopts.

Your EU importer carries the duty, and you supply the data

Article 77(4) puts the duty on the economic operator that places the battery on the market. A New Zealand manufacturer with no EU establishment does not place the battery on the market, so the EU importer carries it. See who is the economic operator.

Written authorisation under Article 77(4) does not transfer that responsibility. Article 77(7) is the only transfer route, and it covers re-use, repurposing, remanufacture and waste status.

Your importer cannot supply data that you never send. The package the importer must verify is in what a non-EU exporter must supply.

If you sell a battery in one of the three categories, the date binds your product. No further EU act must arrive first.

If you sell anything else, no ESPR passport duty reaches your product yet. Some other regulations set their own passport duties, and they cover other products. See which products, and when and what this means for New Zealand exporters.