Roles
What a recycler or a repairer gets from a passport
The EU battery law gives a person with a legitimate interest the composition data and the item-level condition data. Who counts is not settled.
A recycler or a repairer gets the detailed composition of a product, and the condition of the individual item. In European Union (EU) law today only the battery regulation gives them that right, and the right starts on 18 February 2027.
If you export an e-bike battery, this decides what data you must collect. A recycler in Germany opens the passport and looks for the cathode material and the dismantling information. If nobody in your company holds that data, your EU importer cannot put it in the passport.
ESPR names a recycler as a reader, but sets no duty yet
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) entered into force on 18 July 2024. It requires a passport to give different actors different subsets of the data, free of charge. It names customers, repairers, refurbishers, remanufacturers, recyclers, market surveillance authorities and customs authorities.
That list explains the shape of the data. The fields ask what the product is made of, how to take it apart, and what condition it is in. They do not ask how the product is sold.
ESPR sets no passport duty for a product group until a delegated act covers that group. As at 15 August 2026 the European Commission has adopted no such act for any group. So the ESPR reader list is an instruction to the rule writers, and not yet a right that a recycler can use.
Only the battery law gives a recycler a right of access today
The battery regulation is Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, and it is in force. Its Article 77 sets the passport duty, and that duty applies from 18 February 2027.
Three categories carry the duty:
- 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: a Commission news item of 20 July 2026 uses the loose phrase large batteries. An e-bike battery is not large, and it carries the duty.
The Commission web page on digital product passports writes "certain types of batteries, including". That list is open, and the three categories above are the full list. See batteries for the scope and the battery regulation for the instrument.
Article 77(2)(c) names a person with a legitimate interest
Article 77(2) sets three tiers of reader. Each tier points into Annex XIII of the same regulation. The table below names the points that each tier reads.
| Tier | Who reads it | Annex XIII |
|---|---|---|
| (a) | The general public | Point 1 |
| (b) | Notified bodies, market surveillance authorities and the Commission | Points 2 and 3 |
| (c) | Any person with a legitimate interest | Points 2 and 4 |
A recycler and a repairer read under tier (c), if they count as a person with a legitimate interest. Who counts is not settled, and the section below explains why.
The tiers are not nested, and two of them overlap
Your access control cannot rank the three tiers, because a bigger tier does not contain a smaller one. Tier (b) and tier (c) share point 2, and each one reads a point that the other cannot read.
Article 77(2) does not give point 4 to the authorities. It does not give point 3 to a person with a legitimate interest. Point 3 holds one item, the results of the test reports that prove the battery meets the regulation. Read who can see what before you design the access control.
Points 2 and 4 hold what a recycler and a repairer need
| Annex XIII | What it holds | Who reads it |
|---|---|---|
| Point 1 | The recycled shares of cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead, and the responsible sourcing information from the due diligence report | Everybody |
| Point 2 | The detailed composition, including the materials in the cathode, the anode and the electrolyte, the part numbers for components, the contact details for sources of replacement spares, the dismantling information, and the safety measures | The authorities, and a person with a legitimate interest |
| Point 4 | The item-level values for performance and durability, the state of health, the status of the battery, and the data from its use | A person with a legitimate interest |
Point 2 names what the dismantling information must contain. Six items sit under that heading, and each one is work you must do before you ship:
- the exploded diagrams for the battery
- the disassembly sequences
- the type and the number of fastening techniques
- the tools that the work needs
- a warning wherever a risk of damage to parts exists
- the number of cells used, and their layout
Take a repair shop that replaces one cell in an e-bike battery. It needs the part number and a source of spare parts. Both sit in point 2, so the shop must prove a legitimate interest to read them.
Take a recycler that receives the same battery at the end of its life. The cathode material decides the process. The state of health decides if the battery is repurposed or recycled. The cathode material sits in point 2, and the state of health sits in point 4.
The public part still carries work for you. The recycled shares and the responsible sourcing information are in point 1, so a competitor reads them too. See what a passport holds.
The law already names a recycler and a repairer as the purpose
Article 77(2)(c) does not give a bare legitimate interest. It ties that interest to a purpose, so the open part is the person and not the purpose. The third subparagraph of Article 77(2) writes the purposes down:
(a) concern dismantling of the battery, including safety measures to be taken during the dismantling, and the detailed composition of the battery model and be essential to allow repairers, remanufacturers, second-life operators and recyclers to conduct their respective economic activities in accordance with this Regulation; or
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(b) in the case of individual batteries, be essential to the purchaser of the battery or parties acting on the purchaser's behalf, for the purpose of making the individual battery available to independent energy aggregators or energy market participants.
So a repairer, a remanufacturer, a second-life operator and a recycler are named in the law itself. A recycler who asks your importer for point 2 data can point at that text today.
The implementing acts must still say how a company proves it. Read the purposes as the shape those acts must take.
The definition of a legitimate interest is open, and it decides the access
Article 77(9) required the Commission to adopt implementing acts by 18 August 2026. Those acts must specify who counts as a person with a legitimate interest. They must also specify what that person may download, share, publish and re-use.
This site searched the Official Journal, the Commission comitology register and the Commission planning register on 15 August 2026. It found no adopted act, and no draft act before the committee that must vote on one.
Warning: confirm the position yourself before you build access control for the third tier. See what is an implementing act for the instrument. See what is public in a passport, and what is not for the search and its limits.
The Commission's own planning record puts the act in the last quarter of 2026. That record is a plan, and it is later than the date in the law.
The European draft standard on access rights, prEN 18239, settles nothing either. It is not published, and the Official Journal does not cite it. Read prEN 18239 before you treat it as an answer.
So a recycler holds a right that the law states, and waits for the rule that says how to prove it. See public data versus legitimate interest.
A repurposed battery gets a new passport, and recycling ends the passport
Two rules shape the work at the end of a battery life.
Article 77(7) requires a new passport for a repurposed battery. It is also the only route that transfers responsibility, and it covers re-use, repurposing, remanufacture and waste status.
Article 77(8) reads:
the battery passport shall cease to exist after the battery has been recycled
Read the two rules together. A repairer that replaces a cell works on the same battery, so the passport continues. A company that repurposes an electric vehicle battery into a storage unit creates a new passport, and then carries the duty for it. A recycler ends the record.
That is why the duty is per battery, and not per model or per batch. See lifecycle events and who is the economic operator.
No ESPR duty reaches you today, and an e-bike battery needs a passport in 2027
Food and drink products sit outside ESPR. No ESPR delegated act binds any product group yet. So no ESPR passport duty reaches you today.
The recycler still decides the content of your data work. The EU requires these fields for the person who takes the product apart at the end of its life. That is why the passport asks for the cathode material, and not for the brand story.
If you export an e-bike battery, the recycler reads your passport from 18 February 2027. If you export a merino jumper, no rule reaches you yet, and the same data question arrives from your buyer instead. See what this means for New Zealand exporters.
List the recycler fields now, and build access control later
- List the fields a recycler needs: composition, dismantling steps and spare part sources.
- Tag each field with the tier of reader that may see it.
- Record the state of health of each battery you export, at the date of sale.
- Ask your EU importer who answers a request from a person with a legitimate interest.
- Check if the Article 77(9) implementing acts exist, before you build access control.
- Write the answer to step four into your supply agreement. Name one person on each side.
Steps one to four stay correct whatever the implementing acts say. See agreeing data duties with your EU importer.