The law
The EU passport portal, and how it differs from the registry
Article 14 requires a public portal where people can search and compare passport data. The registry is a different system, and it is open.
Article 14 of the European ecodesign regulation requires a publicly accessible web portal. That portal lets stakeholders search and compare digital product passport data, and it is not the registry.
The registry is the other system. Article 13 makes it a store of identifiers, and the European Commission opened it in July 2026. This site has found no date for the portal.
Two mistakes follow from the confusion. The first is to believe that the Commission holds your product data. The second is to buy a portal service today, when no source found here gives an opening date.
The registry and the portal do two different jobs
The regulation is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which is Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. It entered into force on 18 July 2024. See what law creates the passport for the two laws that matter.
| Question | The registry, Article 13 | The portal, Article 14 |
|---|---|---|
| What the law calls it | A digital registry | A publicly accessible web portal |
| What it holds | At least the unique identifiers | Product information from the passport, as the Commission states |
| What a reader does with it | Customs will check the registration identifier under Article 15 | Stakeholders search and compare passport data |
| Who puts data in | The operator that places the product on the market, under Article 13(4) | Not confirmed by this site |
| Status today | Operational | No opening date confirmed |
Article 13(1) is direct about the registry:
By 19 July 2026, the Commission shall set up a digital registry (the 'registry') which stores in a secure manner at least the unique identifiers.
Article 14 is the other half, and the source text this site has read describes search and comparison only. The duty to upload sits in Article 13(4). This site has read one summary that puts that duty in Article 14, and that is the wrong article. Read the EU registry for the system that exists today.
The registry is open, and the portal has no confirmed date
| Item | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|
| ESPR entered into force | 18 July 2024 | in force |
| The Article 13(1) deadline for the registry | 19 July 2026 | statutory deadline |
| The Commission launched the registry, with a test environment | 20 July 2026 | operational |
| The Article 14 portal opens | No date found | unknown |
Both registry dates are correct, because they describe different things. One is the deadline in the law. The other is the day the Commission launched the system. This site says operational, and never in force, because a database is not a legal act.
The Commission describes the portal, and it gives no date
The European Commission publishes a list of frequent questions on digital product passports. That list is the first Commission text this site has read that describes the portal. Each quotation below is the Commission speaking about its own plan, and none of them names an article.
Answer 4 gives the plan:
A DPP web portal is planned for launch in the coming years. This portal will serve as a central public interface, allowing consumers and other interested parties to look up and compare product information contained within the DPP.
Answer 14 puts the same idea from the side of a consumer:
Through the EU Web Portal: A dedicated public web portal will be launched, acting as a central search engine where consumers can look up and compare information for different products.
Answer 18 separates the two systems:
To manage the DPP system, the European Commission will launch two platforms. The DPP Registry will function as a secure database, storing the unique identifiers for each product. The DPP Web Portal will serve as a public website, allowing consumers, businesses, and authorities to easily compare and search for product information.
Answer 3 gives a second route to a passport:
It can be accessed by scanning a data carrier, allowing stakeholders to retrieve relevant data. Alternative options will also exist, including searching for the DPP through the web-portal.
The words "in the coming years" are not a date. So the portal still has no opening date on this site, and none of the four answers changes that.
Answer 14 adds one duty that no article on this site carries.
Warning: read the sentence below as a Commission statement, and not as verified law. The answer gives no article number for it, and this site has found none.
Online marketplaces will be required to make the DPP easily accessible on the product page.
What this site does not know about the portal
Warning: do not plan a data project around a portal feature that nobody has published. You cannot check the claim, and neither can this site.
Three questions have no answer in this site's sources. A supplier may give you an answer to any of them. Ask which article, or which published document, the answer comes from.
- When it opens. The Commission says "in the coming years". No source found here gives a date, a quarter or a year.
- What it shows. Article 14 names passport data. The fields for a product group come from a delegated act, and the Commission has adopted none.
- How it selects what to compare. No source found here states the method, the product grouping or the search terms.
Your product data stays outside both systems
ESPR Article 10(c) requires the passport to be "stored by the economic operator responsible for its creation or by digital product passport service providers". Recital 41 of the regulation requires "a decentralised data system".
So the law keeps your data out of a central European database. A portal that searches passport data must thus reach data that other parties hold. This site has not confirmed how it does that. See how a passport works for the parts and the order.
No operator must upload anything yet
Article 9 makes a passport a condition of market access. That condition reaches a product group only when a delegated act under Article 4 covers the group. As at August 2026 no such act is adopted, so the duty in Article 13(4) binds nobody. See Article 9 and which products, and when.
Article 13(5) adds one warning that reaches the portal question too. The registry returns a registration identifier to the operator. That communication "shall not be deemed to be proof of compliance with this Regulation or other Union law". A record in a Commission system is not a certificate.
The portal lets a buyer compare your entry with a competitor's entry
This part is a consequence of the design, not a rule. No law tells you to publish more than a delegated act requires.
Take a merino jumper. If a textile delegated act applies one day, a buyer in Hamburg can open the portal and put your jumper beside a competitor's jumper. The buyer reads both entries in one view. The buyer sees which entry has fewer fields, and draws their own conclusion.
A comparison also needs two entries that use one field with one meaning. See what a semantic data model is.
The result can help you or hurt you, so decide the question early. Decide which fields you are content to show in public, and which fields you are not.
Public does not mean everything. Only the battery passport has access tiers written in law today. Article 77(2) of the battery regulation sets three tiers of reader, and the general public reads one tier. Read who can see what and commercially sensitive data before you publish a field you cannot take back.
The standard that names searchability is paywalled
The European Commission cited six published European standards for passports. The instrument is Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736, in force since 15 July 2026. Name the six one by one, because the numbers are not consecutive:
- EN 18216
- EN 18219
- EN 18220
- EN 18221
- EN 18222
- EN 18223
There is no EN 18217 and no EN 18218. Never write the six as a range.
Citation does not make a standard mandatory, and all six stay voluntary.
One title names the subject of this document. The Decision gives EN 18222 the title "Digital Product Passport - Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for product passport lifecycle management and searchability".
A title is not a scope. The text of that standard costs money to read, and this site has not read it. So this site cannot say if EN 18222 describes the portal. See the six standards.
Buy no portal integration until the Commission gives a date
- Do not buy a portal integration. This site cannot confirm that a portal is open.
- Monitor the delegated act for your product group, not the portal.
- Ask your EU importer who owns the registry entry when a delegated act arrives.
- Tag each data field with the reader who may see it, and start with the public tier.
Steps 3 and 4 cost only time. They keep their value whatever the portal does. Write the answers into the supply agreement. See agreeing data duties with your EU importer and what this means for New Zealand exporters.