Data, access and durability
What happens to a passport if the company closes
EU law makes the battery passport stay available after the responsible company closes, or after it stops selling in the Union.
A digital product passport must stay available after the company behind the product stops. European Union law states this for the battery passport. The duty applies from 18 February 2027.
That single requirement decides where you keep a passport. A website on your own domain fails at the exact moment the law needs it. A recycler in Hamburg then scans an e-bike battery and gets an error page.
Article 78(e) requires the passport to stay available after the operator stops
Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 is the EU battery regulation, and it is in force. Article 78 lists the technical requirements for the battery passport. 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
Article 78 uses lettered points. It has no numbered paragraphs, so a citation in numbered form points at nothing.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Instrument | Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, in force |
| Correct citation | Article 78(e) |
| Wrong citation in circulation | Article 78(5) |
| Duty starts | 18 February 2027 |
The regulation sits in the Official Journal.
Warning: some guidance calls this a rule for large batteries. An e-bike battery is not large, and it is covered. The Commission web page on digital product passports writes "certain types of batteries, including", and that list is open. Read batteries for the scope and the battery regulation for the instrument.
The passport duty covers three categories and nothing else:
- 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
The duty stays if you stop selling into the Union
Read the last words of point (e) again. "Ceases to exist" and "ceases its activity in the Union" are two different events.
A company ceases to exist when it closes and comes off the company register. That is the first event.
Your company can keep trading in New Zealand and stop selling into the Union. That is the second event. The passport duty on the batteries you already sold does not stop with the sales.
So a decision to leave the European market does not release the passports you put there. Each battery keeps its passport, and the duty stays attached to it.
The passport ends with the battery, not with the company
The regulation names the event that ends the passport. Article 77(8) says the passport ceases to exist after the battery has been recycled.
So the battery decides when the passport ends, and your company does not. See how long a passport lasts and lifecycle events.
A passport on your own website ends when the domain lapses
Consider a New Zealand maker of e-bike batteries that sells into Germany. It publishes one page for each battery on its own website.
The company closes. Nobody pays the hosting bill, and nobody renews the domain name. Every code on every battery then returns an error. The batteries stay in use for years after the website ends.
A company web server fails at the exact event that Article 78(e) names. That is why a website is a weak place to keep a passport. See a passport is not a product page.
A service provider can outlast your company, and nobody says what happens if it fails
Warning: treat a claim of an approved or guaranteed continuity service as a claim about a rule that does not exist. A delegated act on passport service providers is planned, and none is adopted. Two sources give different adoption dates, so this site gives none. See what a service provider does and what a delegated act is.
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. It entered into force on 18 July 2024. Its Article 10(c) requires the passport to be "stored by the economic operator responsible for its creation or by digital product passport service providers".
A service provider is a separate legal person. It can serve your passport after your company stops. The provider itself can also stop.
This site cannot tell you what happens when the provider itself fails. The battery regulation puts the duty on the economic operator, not on the host. ESPR Article 10(4) requires a back-up copy through a passport service provider, and that duty waits on a delegated act. No source this site has read states what happens if the provider itself stops.
One European standard covers data storage, archiving, and persistence. Its text is paywalled, so this site states no requirement from it. See EN 18221, data storage, archiving, and persistence.
A host may not sell or re-use your data
Article 78(d) of the battery regulation bars an authorised third-party host from the resale of the data, and from its re-use.
Warning: the material composition is a wider field than the detailed composition, and Annex XIII point 1(b) makes it public. That field names the battery chemistry, and lithium iron phosphate is an example. See who can see what.
That limit is written for the battery passport. Write the same limit into your own contract for any other product. The battery passport holds the detailed composition, which is the materials used in the cathode, the anode and the electrolyte. The general public cannot see that part, and a host that sold it would put it in front of a competitor.
ESPR says insolvency, and it binds nobody yet
The two regulations name the same commercial event in different words. Article 78 does not use the word insolvency.
| Regulation | Point | The words it uses | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batteries, (EU) 2023/1542 | Article 78(e) | ceases to exist or ceases its activity in the Union | Applies from 18 February 2027 |
| Ecodesign, (EU) 2024/1781 | Article 10(e) | insolvency | Waits for a delegated act |
Use the words of the regulation that covers your product. A summary that mixes the two gives you the wrong test.
The ESPR passport duty reaches a product group only after the European Commission adopts a delegated act for that group. As at 14 August 2026 it has adopted none.
Two questions to put to a provider in writing
Ask both before you sign. Put the answers in the contract, and not in an email.
- What happens to our passports if you stop trading?
- How do we export our data, in what format, and how long does it take?
Question one gets a checkable answer or a vague one. An answer that names a party and a period can be tested. An answer such as "full passport compliance" cannot.
Question two decides if you can leave the provider. Ask for every field, in a format a machine can read, on request. If you cannot export the data, you cannot move to another provider.
OwlQR, a New Zealand company that publishes this site, builds this type of service. Put both questions to it, and to every other provider you consider.
Name the party that keeps each passport available after you stop
- Find out which company places your product on the EU market.
- Ask that company where it stores each passport.
- Put the two questions above to the provider in writing.
- Name the party that keeps the passport available after you stop.
- Do not buy a continuity service for a product that no rule covers yet.
A New Zealand manufacturer with no EU establishment is not the responsible operator. The EU importer is. See who is the economic operator and agreeing data duties with your EU importer.