The standards
EN 18216, the passport data exchange standard
EN 18216 stays voluntary, so no law makes you build to it. The text is sold rather than published, so this site states nothing that it requires.
EN 18216:2026 is a European standard for digital product passport data exchange. Its official title is "Digital product passport - Data exchange protocols". The standard is voluntary.
A seller can call a product "EN 18216 compliant". The text is paywalled, and this site has not read it. So you cannot check that claim from a free source. Today no delegated act requires a passport for any product group, and no law makes EN 18216 mandatory.
EN 18216 is one of six published standards, and it stays voluntary
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Standard | EN 18216:2026 |
| Official title | Digital product passport - Data exchange protocols |
| Written by | CEN/CLC/JTC 24, under Standardisation Request M/604 |
| Published | Late May 2026. The British Standards Institution dates it 28 May 2026. |
| Cited in | Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736 |
| Decision adopted | 14 July 2026 |
| Decision in force | 15 July 2026 |
| Status | Voluntary |
CEN and CENELEC are the European standards bodies. Their joint committee CEN/CLC/JTC 24 wrote the passport standards. The European Commission asked for the work in Standardisation Request M/604.
The committee produced eight standards. Six are published, and EN 18216 is one of them. The other two are still drafts under approval, and the Commission has not cited them. See the six standards.
Some sources interchange the titles of EN 18216 and EN 18219
Warning: check every title against the Decision before you order a document.
Some secondary sources give the unique identifiers title to EN 18216, and the data exchange title to EN 18219. Those sources are wrong. The correct source is Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736, and its text is in the Official Journal.
The numbers in the set are not consecutive. There is no EN 18217 and no EN 18218. Never write the set as a range, because a range invents two documents. Name each standard on its own, and the table on the six standards gives all six with their titles.
Citation gives a presumption of conformity, not a duty
Citation in the Official Journal does not make a standard mandatory. It gives a product built to the standard a presumption of conformity. You may meet the legal requirement another way, and you must then show your own evidence.
Three points set the limit of that presumption.
- The legal basis of the Decision is Article 10(6) of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 on European standardisation.
- The presumption comes from Article 41(2) of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).
- The presumption covers Articles 10 and 11 of the ESPR.
The Decision does not mention Article 9. Article 9 is the article that makes a passport a condition of market access. So EN 18216 belongs to the question of how a passport is built, not to if your product needs one. See how to read the timeline.
Why an exchange standard exists: other systems must read your passport
The ESPR is Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. It has been in force since 18 July 2024. The articles below explain why an exchange standard exists.
| Rule in the ESPR | What it requires |
|---|---|
| Annex III | The data carrier and the unique product identifier follow the ISO/IEC 15459 series, parts 1 to 6 |
| Article 10(c) | The economic operator, or a passport service provider, stores the passport |
| Article 13(4) | The operator uploads the registry data |
| Article 13(5) | The registry returns a registration identifier, which is not proof of compliance |
| Article 14 | A public web portal lets stakeholders search and compare passport data |
| Article 15 | Customs receive the registration identifier |
Read those rows together. You store your passport, or your provider does, under Article 10(c). The Commission runs the portal and the registry. A portal cannot compare data that it cannot read.
So systems that different people built need an agreed way to read the same passport. That is the reason for a data exchange standard. That reason is a conclusion from the articles above, and not a quotation from EN 18216.
Two qualifications go with the table. Article 15 applies only once the registry is operational, and only to a product that a delegated act covers. As at August 2026 the Commission has adopted no delegated act for any product group.
One passport duty is already law. It comes from the battery regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/1542. Article 77(1) sets the date and the scope. From 18 February 2027 three categories of battery need a battery passport:
- 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
Article 78(a) of that regulation requires full interoperability for the battery passport. Warning: Article 78 governs the battery passport alone. See batteries.
The law names no exchange protocol
The ESPR names no data exchange protocol. Annex III names the ISO/IEC 15459 series, parts 1 to 6, for the data carrier and the unique product identifier.
A search of the full regulation returns no hit for GS1, for Digital Link, for IEC 61406 or for the digital object identifier (DOI). The search covered the recitals, the 79 articles and every annex. So a supplier cannot cite the regulation for a protocol claim. Ask which document the claim comes from, and ask for the clause.
This site has not read EN 18216
The text is paywalled. A copy of one passport standard costs from 190 to 370 EUR.
This page thus states no requirement from EN 18216. It gives the number, the title, the publication and the citation.
Neither the title nor a distributor listing tells you the scope of EN 18216.
"Data exchange protocols" tells you the subject of the document. It tells you no requirement, no protocol, no format and no security rule.
A distributor listing is promotional copy. The scope summaries in circulation come from a webinar deck by CEN and CENELEC, not from the standard itself. See why the texts are paywalled.
Ask for the clause before you buy a system sold as EN 18216 compliant
Warning: do not buy a system sold as compliant with a standard that the seller has not shown you.
- Ask which of the six standards the product implements, by number.
- Ask the seller to quote the clause the product meets, from the purchased text.
- Ask which delegated act covers your product group. Today none does.
- Ask your European customer which format its own system reads.
You usually do not hold the passport. The operator that places the product on the European market holds that duty. If your company has no European establishment, that operator is usually your European importer.
A white paper from the PARSEC, CIRPASS-2 and BORDERLINK projects says a non-EU manufacturer stays a duty-holder, whatever its establishment. That paper is not the legal text. In either case you must keep your data structured and current. The importer cannot supply what you do not send. See what this means for New Zealand exporters.