The law
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.
Presumption of conformity means an authority treats your product as compliant with a legal requirement. It applies because you built the product to a standard that the European Commission cited in the Official Journal. The presumption changes who has to prove what, and it gives you nothing else.
If you read it as more than that, you will spend money in the wrong place. A supplier can sell you a digital product passport system on the claim that a cited standard makes your product legal in Europe. It does not. Market access comes from Article 9 of the ecodesign regulation. Today that article reaches no product group.
The presumption moves the burden of proof
A legal requirement states the result you must reach. A standard states one way to reach it.
Build your product to the cited standard, and an authority starts from the position that you met the requirement. Build it another way, and you must show your own evidence that you met the requirement. Both routes are lawful. The harmonised standard stays voluntary in each case.
In an inspection you show the standard, not your own evidence
This sequence describes the mechanism. No ecodesign passport rule covers any product group today.
- A market surveillance authority in an EU country takes your merino jumper for a check.
- The authority compares the product against the legal requirement.
- You show that you built the product to a cited standard.
- The authority then starts from the position that the requirement is met.
- If you used another method, you produce your own evidence instead.
Step 5 is the full value of the presumption. Without it you carry the work of proof, and you must argue that your evidence is enough. Market surveillance and customs covers who these authorities are.
A presumption is not permission, and not a certificate
Three things a presumption of conformity is not.
- It is not permission to sell. Permission comes from the market access rule, not from a standard.
- It is not a certificate. No body issues a document that says you hold it.
- It is not a duty. No law forces you to use a cited standard.
The ecodesign regulation makes the same point about its own registry. Article 13(5) states that the registry's communication "shall not be deemed to be proof of compliance with this Regulation or other Union law". A registration identifier proves nothing about conformity, and neither does a standard number in a brochure. See the EU registry.
The passport presumption comes from ecodesign Article 41(2)
The Commission cited six passport standards in Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736. That Decision entered into force on 15 July 2026. Its own legal basis is the European standardisation regulation, not the ecodesign regulation. See what is an implementing act.
| Item | Position |
|---|---|
| The ecodesign regulation | Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 |
| The article that creates the presumption | Article 41(2) of the ecodesign regulation |
| The requirements the presumption covers | Articles 10 and 11 of the ecodesign regulation |
| Article 9, the market access rule | The Decision does not mention it |
| The legal basis of the Decision | Article 10(6) of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 |
| The effect on each standard | The standard stays voluntary |
The Decision cites six standards, and the numbers have a gap. There is no EN 18217 and no EN 18218. Never write the six as a range. A range invents two standards that do not exist, and you cannot then tell which six to build to. The table below names them.
| Standard | Subject |
|---|---|
| EN 18216 | Data exchange protocols |
| EN 18219 | Unique identifiers |
| EN 18220 | Data carriers |
| EN 18221 | Data storage, archiving, and persistence |
| EN 18222 | Application programming interfaces for product passport lifecycle management and searchability |
| EN 18223 | System interoperability |
The Official Journal holds the text. The six standards sets out the full titles.
The presumption does not decide if you need a passport
This is the part that people overstate. Article 9 of the ecodesign regulation controls market access. It allows a covered product on the market only if a passport is available. Articles 10 and 11 carry the essential requirements for the passport itself.
The Decision does not mention Article 9 at all. So the presumption covers how you build a passport, and not if your product needs one. See Article 9.
It has no practical effect until a delegated act covers your product group
A delegated act is the rule that requires a passport for one product group, such as iron and steel or textiles. As at August 2026 the Commission has adopted no such act for any group.
Until an act covers your product, Articles 10 and 11 impose no requirement on you. A presumption of conformity with a requirement that does not yet reach you is worth nothing to you now. Which products, and when lists the state of each group.
One passport duty is real, and it sits in a different law. The battery regulation is Regulation (EU) 2023/1542. Its passport duty applies from 18 February 2027 to 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
The presumption above covers two ecodesign articles and nothing else. Work to the battery regulation for a battery. See batteries.
Citation does not give a standard legal effect
A common claim says that citation gives the standard its legal effect. That claim is wrong, and this site made the same error in an unpublished draft.
Citation gives a product built to the standard a presumption of conformity. The standard itself stays voluntary. Nobody must buy it, and nobody must build to it.
Two further standards show the difference. The drafts prEN 18239 and prEN 18246 are under approval. Neither is published and neither is cited, so neither gives a presumption today.
Warning: two different laws each have an Article 41(2)
Warning: ask which regulation a person means before you act on a quotation of Article 41(2).
- The ecodesign regulation, Article 41(2), creates the presumption of conformity.
- The battery regulation, Article 41(2), lists what an EU importer must verify before it places a battery on the market.
The second one reaches you through your EU importer. The importer must verify these items. So you must supply them.
- the EU declaration of conformity
- the technical documentation
- the conformity assessment that the manufacturer carried out
- the CE marking on the battery
- the marking and the labelling
See what a non-EU exporter must supply.
The presumption usually serves your EU importer, not you
The presumption is a European mechanism, and your EU importer usually places the product on the market. So the presumption serves the operator that answers the authority, and that operator is frequently not you.
Two New Zealand facts go with it.
Standards New Zealand has adopted no passport standard as a New Zealand standard. The distributor listings put each European text between 190 and 370 EUR. See why the texts are paywalled.
The New Zealand-EU Free Trade Agreement does not help you either. Its Article 9.7(5) obliges New Zealand to accept EU conformity assessment documents. It puts no matching obligation on the EU. See the New Zealand-EU free trade agreement.
Do one thing before you buy anything. Ask the supplier which requirement its product gives you a presumption against, and ask for the article number. If the answer names Article 9, or names no article, the claim is wrong.