Which products the ESPR excludes, and what that means

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) excludes food, feed, medicinal products and living things. Its Article 1(2) puts them outside the full regulation. So the ESPR can never require a European Union (EU) digital product passport for them.

If your product is excluded, no ESPR rule can ever reach it. That is not the same as having no rule yet: a merino jumper has no rule today, and a delegated act can give it one.

If you read this article incorrectly, you lose money in one of two ways. You can buy a passport system for a product that the ESPR can never cover. You can also treat your full company as excluded, and miss the rule that reaches your second product line.

The full list in Article 1(2)

Article 1(2) names these products:

• food
• feed
• medicinal products and veterinary medicinal products
• living plants, animals and micro-organisms
• products of human origin
• products of plants and animals that relate directly to their future reproduction

For every item on that list, the exclusion covers the full product. Vehicles are different, and a section below explains them. Medicinal products have their own page at medicinal products are excluded.

An exclusion is not a delay

Your product sits in one of two positions today, and only one of them can change later.

The ESPR gives a passport duty to a product group through a delegated act. The European Commission had adopted no such act for any group on 14 August 2026. So the jumper needs no passport today, and the wine needs no passport today. The jumper needs one more check, because a textile delegated act can still reach it. No ESPR delegated act can ever reach the wine.

Article 9 makes a passport a condition of market access for a covered product. An excluded product never becomes a covered product.

No delegated act covers textiles today. See what is a delegated act and how to read the timeline.

Drink is food, because the ESPR borrows the meaning

The ESPR does not define food. It takes the meaning from Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, the EU general food law. That article says:

'Food' includes drink, chewing gum and any substance, including water, intentionally incorporated into the food

So wine, beer, spirits, fruit juice and bottled water are food. A New Zealand winery needs no ESPR passport for its wine. See wine, beer and spirits. Food and feed are excluded checks every other EU passport law against a food product.

The exclusion covers the product, not the company

Write "this product is outside ESPR scope". Never write "this exporter is outside ESPR scope". The second sentence is wrong, and it hides work.

A company that sells manuka honey and merino jumpers holds two positions at once. The honey is excluded. The jumper is inside scope, and no textile rule exists for it yet.

Check each product line on its own. Check a new line when you add it.

Vehicles are excluded only for some product aspects

Warning: do not read "vehicles are excluded" as a clearance for a full vehicle. Find the aspect you care about, then find the Union act that covers it.

A vehicle is not excluded in the same way as food. The ESPR excludes a vehicle only for the product aspects that sector-specific Union acts already regulate.

So the exclusion runs aspect by aspect, and not product by product. Where another Union act already regulates an aspect of the vehicle, the ESPR leaves that aspect alone.

Your packaging is not excluded

Packaging is a separate physical good in EU law.

A bottle of sauvignon blanc is excluded. The glass bottle, the closure, the label and the carton are not. Those four items fall under the packaging regulation. The table above gives its number and its dates.

So you have one excluded product, and four packaging components with their own duties. See packaging.

Cosmetics, tobacco, medical devices and batteries stay inside scope

Four kinds of product are frequently reported as excluded. None of them appears in Article 1(2):

• cosmetics
• tobacco products
• medical devices
• batteries

The battery claim causes the most harm. Some secondary sources state that the ESPR excludes batteries. Article 1(2) does not name batteries, so that claim is wrong.

A separate law gives some batteries a passport duty. Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 is in force, and it names 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

Every other battery gets no passport. Article 13(6) of that law gives it a QR code to other information instead. The duty for the three categories applies from 18 February 2027.

Warning: a Commission news item of 20 July 2026 uses the phrase "large batteries". The phrase is loose and it is dangerous. The light means of transport category carries no size threshold, so a small e-bike battery is covered.

The Commission web page on digital product passports writes "certain types of batteries, including". That list is open, and the battery regulation closes it at three categories. See batteries.

A skincare line or a supplement needs one more check. A product regulated as a medicinal product is excluded. A product regulated as a cosmetic is not. See cosmetics and natural health products.

Check each product line against Article 1(2), then check your packaging

1. Find your product on the Article 1(2) list. If it is there, stop.
2. If it is not there, treat your product as inside ESPR scope.
3. Check if a delegated act covers your product group.
4. Check your packaging separately, whatever the product is.
5. Repeat the four steps for every other product line you sell.

Step 3 has the same answer for every group today. No delegated act is adopted. Which products need a passport, and when gives the position for each group. The legal basis sets out the laws that create passports.