Free access is in the law, the no-app rule is not

Two European Union laws require free-of-charge access to a digital product passport. No text that this site has read bans a dedicated app, and no text that this site has read bans a login.

A dedicated app is a program that a reader installs on a phone. Commentary states that a passport must open without one. This site found no primary provision that says so.

Here is what the difference costs you. A supplier can sell you a passport service, and support the sale with a rule that nobody can quote. You can also make the opposite mistake. You can treat free of charge as a duty to publish every field. Then you give away data that your competitor keeps.

Article 78(b) requires free access to a battery passport

Warning: Article 78 governs the battery passport alone.

Article 78 sets its requirements in lettered points, (a) to (h). This site found no point that names an app, and no point that names a login.

The passport duty covers 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

A Commission news item of 20 July 2026 uses the phrase large batteries. That phrase is loose and it is dangerous. A light means of transport battery carries no size threshold, and it is covered.

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.

Annex XIII limits free access, and this site found no implementing act

Article 78 point (b) reads:

(b) consumers, economic operators and other relevant actors shall have access to the battery passport free of charge and based on their respective access rights set out in Annex XIII and the implementing act adopted pursuant to Article 77(9);

Read the last clause again. The free access right follows the Annex XIII rights, and it follows an implementing act as well.

Article 77(2) of the battery regulation names three groups of readers. Annex XIII sets the data out in numbered points. The general public reads point 1.

The second limit has no text behind it today. This site searched the Official Journal, the Commission comitology register and the Commission planning register on 15 August 2026. It found no implementing act under Article 77(9), and no draft act before the committee.

So two rules apply together. You cannot charge a reader who is entitled to a field. You also do not have to show that field to everybody. Read who can see what before you publish anything you cannot take back.

The ecodesign regulation requires free access too

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) 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.

Article 10(3) of ESPR adds a second free duty. A dealer or an online marketplace can ask for a digital copy of the data carrier, or of the unique product identifier. That copy is free of charge, and the limit is five working days.

This site found no app, no browser and no login named in either duty. ESPR also sets no passport duty for a product group until a delegated act covers that group. The Commission has adopted no such act, as at August 2026.

This site has not verified a rule against an app or a login

Commentary about EN 18220 carries one sentence. It says that at least one data carrier must be free, and that a phone must read it with no app. EN 18220 is the European standard for data carriers.

Warning: this site has not read EN 18220. Each text in this set costs between 190 and 370 EUR. This site has bought none of them, so it states nothing about what EN 18220 requires.

The commentary may be right, but it is still commentary. See EN 18220 and why the texts are paywalled.

Two further points limit the claim, even if the purchased text carries it.

A cited European standard stays voluntary. Citation gives a product built to it a presumption of conformity, and that presumption comes from ESPR Article 41(2). It covers the requirements in Articles 10 and 11.

The presumption also has no practical effect for a product group until a delegated act requires a passport for that group.

The Commission cited six standards in Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736. That Decision is in force. Name the six one by one, because the numbers have a gap:

• EN 18216
• EN 18219
• EN 18220
• EN 18221
• EN 18222
• EN 18223

There is no EN 18217 and no EN 18218. Never write the six as a range. The Decision is in the Official Journal, and the list is on the six standards.

Four points in the law are hard to reconcile with a closed system

Read those four points together. A system that only one company's app can read is hard to reconcile with full interoperability. It is also hard to reconcile with a portal that puts your entry beside a competitor's entry. See EN 18223 and the EU portal.

Warning: that paragraph is how this site reads the design, and it is not a rule. This site cites no provision that bans a dedicated app, and no provision that bans a login.

A login has one clear weakness that this site does state. The battery regulation names the general public as one of the three groups of readers. A login that you give to one buyer serves that buyer, and it does not serve a public reader. See what is not a passport.

If a supplier says an app is forbidden, ask which article says so

Warning: do not buy hardware or software on a legal claim that the seller cannot cite. You pay the cost.

1. Ask for the instrument, and for the article number.
2. Read that article yourself. Article 78(b) is about cost.
3. If the answer names a standard, ask for the clause number.
4. Ask the seller to name the purchased text that the clause comes from.
5. Treat a slide, a blog post or a sales deck as commentary.

Most of these conversations end at step 5. A claim with no article is a design opinion, and you may still agree with it.

Your importer usually holds the duty, not you

You will probably not hold the passport duty. The operator that places the product on the European market holds it, and that is usually your importer. See what a non-EU exporter must supply.

These three steps cost no money.

1. Scan your own code with a plain phone camera. Look at what a buyer sees.
2. Ask your importer which software its compliance team uses.
3. Buy a service for what it does with your data. A legal claim from a seller is not a reason to buy.

For the full New Zealand position, see what this means for New Zealand exporters.