What a manufacturer must do for a product passport

Article 77(4) of the battery regulation puts the digital product passport duty on the economic operator that places the battery on the EU market. A New Zealand manufacturer with no EU establishment does not do that, so the EU importer carries the duty.

You still have work to do. The importer cannot enter data that it never received. It also cannot sell your product without the documents that only you can produce.

From 18 February 2027 a covered battery needs a passport. If your e-bike battery has no passport on that date, your EU importer cannot lawfully place it on the market.

Only the battery regulation binds a manufacturer today

One EU law gives a passport duty a date that binds a product now. That law is Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, the battery regulation.

ESPR is the framework law. It creates no passport duty for a product until the European Commission adopts a rule for that product group, called a delegated act. As at 14 August 2026 the Commission has adopted no such rule.

Other regulations create a passport for detergents, toys and construction products. This page does not cover them. See which products need a passport, and when.

So every duty below comes from the battery regulation. Read how to read the timeline and what is a delegated act before you accept any other date.

The battery duty covers three categories, and no others

Article 77(1) names them:

• 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

Warning: do not read this as a rule for large batteries. An LMT battery 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", and that list is open.

Other batteries get a QR code to other information under Article 13(6). They do not get a passport. See batteries.

Article 77(4) puts the duty on the operator that places the battery on the market

Article 77(4) of the battery regulation reads:

The economic operator placing the battery on the market shall ensure that the information in the battery passport is accurate, complete and up to date. It may give written authorisation to any other operator to act on its behalf.

The subject of that sentence is the operator that places the battery on the market. It is not the factory that built the battery. A New Zealand manufacturer with no EU establishment does not place the battery on the market, so the EU importer carries the duty. See who is the economic operator.

You still supply the data. The importer cannot enter data that it does not hold. The written authorisation in the second sentence lets the importer appoint you to enter the passport data. It moves the work, and it does not move the responsibility. See agreeing data duties.

Article 41(2) sets out what the importer must verify before it places a battery on the market. You produce every item on that list. See what a non-EU exporter must supply.

Accurate, complete and up to date are three separate requirements

Each word fails in a different way.

• Accurate. Each value matches the physical battery in the box.
• Complete. Every required field holds a value. One blank field fails.
• Up to date. The information matches the battery today, not on the day somebody created the passport.

Up to date does not finish

Accurate and complete look like a task that ends, but up to date does not.

The duty is a state that you hold. You do not produce a document once and then stop. An e-bike battery passport that nobody updates stops being up to date at the first change. A new cell supplier makes it out of date. So does a new test report or a corrected capacity figure.

The regulation does give the duty an end. Article 77(8) says the passport ceases to exist after the battery is recycled. So the work runs from the first sale to the recycler.

Plan staff time for that work. Do not plan only for the cost of the first system. See updating a passport after sale and who is liable for the data.

Article 78 sets what your passport system must do

Warning: Article 78 governs the battery passport alone. It does not govern a passport under any other regulation.

Article 78 lists the technical requirements as lettered points, from (a) to (h).

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). Article 78 carries no numbered paragraphs, so that second citation is wrong. See what happens if the company closes.

Point (b) is easy to misread. Free of charge does not mean open to everybody. The right of access follows the Annex XIII rights, and it follows the implementing act under Article 77(9) as well. The general public sees the data in Annex XIII point 1 only.

That second condition matters, because no such implementing act exists. This site searched the Official Journal and two Commission registers on 15 August 2026, and found none. Read who can see what before you publish a field.

Point (d) is a contract requirement. Your host may not sell or re-use your data. That data includes the detailed composition of the cathode, the anode and the electrolyte. Write the same limit into your own hosting agreement. See what a service provider does.

Point (a) and point (g) apply to the system design. Decide who signs the data. Decide who can show that nobody changed it. Point (g) names no method for either job. See verifiable credentials are not required, EN 18223, system interoperability and versioning and archives.

The duty is per battery, not per model

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

Those three provisions decide your identifier design, so build at item level. See what is a product identifier and batteries.

Article 77(7) is the only provision that moves the responsibility. The duty moves when a person re-uses, repurposes or remanufactures the battery. It also moves when the battery becomes waste. The new operator then issues a new passport. See lifecycle events and recyclers and repairers.

No ESPR product group gives a manufacturer a duty yet

Do not build to ESPR as though it binds you today.

ESPR Article 9 makes a passport a condition of market access for a covered product. No product group is covered, because no delegated act is adopted. See ESPR Article 9.

ESPR Article 13(4) puts the registry upload on the operator that places the product on the market. The registry became operational in July 2026. No operator is yet obliged to upload, because no delegated act applies. See the EU registry.

Warning: check any identifier claim before you buy. ESPR does not require a GS1 Digital Link identifier. A search of the full regulation returns no hit for GS1 and no hit for Digital Link.

ESPR names the ISO/IEC 15459 series in Annex III. Article 10(1)(c) makes that an interim rule, until the references of harmonised standards are published. See what is a product identifier.

The work starts with the importer's name and a unique identifier

1. Ask your EU buyer which company places your product on the EU market.
2. Give each individual battery a unique identifier before you build anything.
3. Send your importer the conformity documents that Article 41(2) lists.
4. Name one person who updates a passport field when the product changes.
5. Set the update time in working days. Write it in the supply agreement.
6. Ask your host if it may re-use your data. Write the answer down.
7. Keep your own copy of every passport record, in a format you can export.