Part 4. The standards, and what they do not do

Six standards are cited in the Official Journal. None is compulsory, and their texts are sold rather than published.

This part holds 15 documents in 5 subjects. It is part 4 of 9. All parts.

What a standard does

Which standards apply to a digital product passport The European Commission cited six European standards for digital product passports. All six stay voluntary.
What a harmonised standard is, and why it is voluntary A harmonised standard is a technical document cited in the Official Journal. Citation gives a presumption of conformity, not a duty.
What presumption of conformity means for your product An authority treats your product as compliant because you built it to a cited standard. It is not permission, and not a certificate.
What Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736 does The Decision cites six European standards for digital product passports. A product built to them gets a presumption of conformity.

Who writes the digital product passport standards CEN and CENELEC write them in one joint committee, CEN/CLC/JTC 24, with its secretariat at DIN. New Zealand has no seat on it.
What Standardisation Request M/604 is, and why it matters Standardisation Request M/604 is the European Commission instruction to CEN and CENELEC to write the digital product passport 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 18219, the standard for unique identifiers EN 18219 stays voluntary, and the ESPR itself names the ISO/IEC 15459 series and no vendor scheme. No law makes you buy an identifier service.
EN 18220, the data carrier standard for passports A data carrier is the code a scanner reads on a product. EN 18220 stays voluntary, and no ecodesign passport rule reaches any product group yet.
EN 18221: data storage, archiving, and persistence A battery passport must stay readable after your company stops, and that duty starts in 2027. The text is sold, so this site states no requirement.
EN 18222: passport application programming interfaces EN 18222 stays voluntary, and nobody has to build to it. The text is sold rather than published, so this site states nothing that it requires.
What EN 18223 covers, and the law it serves EN 18223:2026 is one of six cited European standards. It covers passport system interoperability, which the EU battery regulation requires.

prEN 18239 is a draft standard, and it binds nobody The draft covers access rights for a passport. The Official Journal does not cite it, so it gives you no presumption of conformity.
prEN 18246, the draft standard on data authentication The Official Journal does not cite the draft, so it gives no presumption of conformity. The battery duty on data authentication arrives first.

Why you cannot read the six passport standards The six passport standard texts are sold, not published. Distributor listings put each one between 190 and 370 euros.