Every dated milestone for EU digital product passports

The first date that binds a product is 18 February 2027, and it covers three kinds of battery. The only other binding passport date is 1 August 2030, for toys under their own regulation.

Most of the later years are plans, not deadlines. If you read a plan as a deadline, you will buy a passport system about two years early. The status column in the table below gives you the plans and the fixed dates.

An adoption year is not a deadline

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) creates no passport duty for any product by itself. Each product group needs its own rule, called a delegated act. The European Commission has adopted no such rule for any group.

The years in the published plan are the years the Commission expects to adopt each act. They are not the dates on which you must comply.

Two things occur after an adoption. The European Parliament and the Council get time to object. Then companies get a transition period before the rule applies.

The transition period is at least 18 months, and the law allows a shorter one in a duly justified case. So a published year gives you a compliance date about two years later. How to read the timeline works through the arithmetic, and what is a delegated act explains the instrument itself.

Every dated milestone, oldest first

Warning: the transition period of 18 months is the usual minimum. Article 4(4) permits an earlier date in a duly justified case, for a full act or for some of its requirements.

Read the status column first. Indicative means a plan, and a plan can move. Fixed by law means an adopted act sets the date, and no further step is needed.

The Commission publishes the indicative adoption years for the product groups. The Commission also states that the timelines may change as the work progresses. The four earliest application dates come from arithmetic. This page adds the scrutiny period and the transition period to the adoption year.

The Commission web page is the source of the plans, and it disagrees with itself

Every indicative row above rests on one publisher. The European Commission runs a web page on digital product passports, and that page carries a timeline widget. The widget carries its own footnote: "This is an indicative timeline and subject to publication requirements".

Read those rows as a report of what one page states. No second publisher confirms any of them, and this site collected no independent corroboration.

The page states the transition period in its own words:

Following the adoption of ESPR delegated acts, economic operators will have a transition period of at least 18 months.

The Commission answers a related question on its own list of frequent questions:

Crucially, inclusion of a product group in the Working Plan does not automatically mean that the use of a DPP among these products is mandatory.

Those two sentences are the argument of this page, in the Commission's words rather than this site's arithmetic. Quote them to a supplier who gives you a sector year as a deadline.

The same page contradicts itself twice, and this site reports both. It gives the service providers act in Q2 2027, and again in Q3 2027. Its widget also gives a mattress act and a recycled content act in 2029, but its legal basis list gives no recycled content act. That list gives mattresses and information and communication technology products in 2029 instead.

The passport service providers act has four published dates

No act on passport service providers is adopted. Four readings are in circulation, and they disagree with each other.

This page gives no single date, because the sources disagree and one source disagrees with itself. See what a passport service provider does.

The law set 18 August 2026 for the implementing act on battery access rights, and this site found none

Article 77(9) of the battery regulation set 18 August 2026 as the date for the implementing acts on battery passport access rights. That row says "Fixed by law", and it is a duty on the Commission rather than on you.

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.

The Commission's own planning record puts adoption in the last quarter of 2026. That is after the date the law sets. See what is public in a passport, and what is not for the search, its limits and the criteria the law gives.

Nothing binds today under the ecodesign regulation

As at 15 August 2026, no delegated act is adopted for any product group. So no ecodesign passport is mandatory for any product.

Three facts in the table look like duties, but none of them is one. Two of the three occurred in July 2026. See why passports are in the news now.

The regulation is in force. It has been in force since 18 July 2024. It sets the general rules, and it reaches a product group only through a delegated act.

The registry is operational. The Commission launched it in July 2026. No operator has to upload anything to it yet, because no delegated act applies. The regulation also states that a registration identifier is not proof of compliance. See the EU registry.

The six standards are cited. Citation gives a product built to a standard a presumption of conformity, and the standards stay voluntary. The presumption has no practical effect for a product group until a delegated act covers that group. See the six standards and Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736.

Some vendors present an identifier choice as a dated obligation. Annex III of the ecodesign regulation names the ISO/IEC 15459 series for the unique identifier and the data carrier. It does not name GS1 Digital Link, and it names no other scheme. See identifier schemes: what is verified.

The first date that binds a product is 18 February 2027, for three kinds of battery

The battery passport comes from the battery regulation. The ecodesign regulation does not create it. The battery regulation is already law, and the date needs no further step.

From 18 February 2027 three kinds of battery need a passport:

• 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 duty applies to each individual battery. It does not apply to a model or to a batch.

One amendment moved the battery due diligence duties to 18 August 2027. It did not move the passport date. That amendment is Regulation (EU) 2025/1561.

Warning: do not use the phrase "large batteries" to decide your position. A Commission news item of 20 July 2026 uses that phrase, and it is loose. The light means of transport category carries no size threshold at all, so an e-bike battery is covered.

The Commission web page on digital product passports is loose in a second way. It writes "certain types of batteries, including", and that list is open. Article 77(1) of the battery regulation names three categories, and that list is closed.

Other batteries get a QR code under Article 13(6). That code leads to other information, and it is not a passport. See batteries.

Other regulations carry their own dates

Packaging has its own regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40. It starts to apply in August 2026, in phases. It does not create a passport. A food product is outside the ecodesign regulation, and European law treats its packaging as a separate product. See food and feed are excluded and packaging.

Toys get a passport from the toy regulation. The application date of 1 August 2030 is consistent across the sources checked. The entry into force date is disputed, so this page does not give one. See toys.

Detergents and construction products also get passports from their own regulations. Those are Regulation (EU) 2026/405 for detergents and Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 for construction products.

The Commission web page names one date here. It plans a delegated act for construction materials under the Construction Products Regulation, in Q2 2027. The page gives no regulation number, and this site supplies the number above.

Read that date as an adoption date. It is the date the rule gets written, and it is not the date a construction product needs a passport. The page gives no date for detergents. See construction products and detergents.

Ask which instrument sets any date a supplier gives you

• Find out if a delegated act covers your product group. None covers any group today.
• Read the status column. An indicative year is a plan, and a plan can move.
• Ask which instrument sets any date that a supplier gives you. An adoption year is not an instrument.
• Ask your European importer what data they need, and when. A purchase condition can arrive years before a law.

The two documents to read next are which products need a passport, and when and what this means for New Zealand exporters.