Foundations
What a digital product passport costs
No published pilot gives a cost, a time or a benefit figure. Here are the numbers that circulate, and what each one really measures.
No published figure says what a digital product passport costs. The one public price is the price of a standard text on the distributor listings: 190 to 370 euros.
What this site searched, and what came back, is listed in what this site does not know.
An estimate here would be invention. A gap on a reference site is safer than a number that somebody spends money against.
Here is what the gap costs you. A supplier can quote you a price today for a product group that has no rule yet. You buy the system, the rule arrives, and the data fields are not the ones you paid for.
No passport pilot has published a cost or a benefit figure
CIRPASS-2 is an innovation project funded by the European Union (EU). It has 49 partners, and it names 13 lighthouse pilots. Its target value chains are textiles, electrical and electronic equipment, tyres and construction materials.
The project claims feasibility and interoperability across those pilots. It publishes no cost, no time, no error rate and no benefit figure. No other published pilot does either.
So nobody can tell you what a passport costs to build, to run, or to keep available for the life of a product. This site records that as a gap.
What this site searched, and what came back, is listed in what this site does not know. See also the sources this site uses.
The one price that is public is the price of the standards
You must buy each European passport standard. A single standard text costs between 190 and 370 euros on the distributor listings. That price is public, and it is the only verified price on this subject.
The European Commission cites six standards today:
- 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
Never read the six as a range. EN 18217 and EN 18218 are not passport standards, and a range invents them.
The law does not force you to buy a text, because a standard stays voluntary. A product built to a cited standard gets a presumption of conformity, and that is the benefit you pay for. See which standards apply and why the standard texts are paywalled.
Four figures circulate, and none of them prices a passport
You will see these numbers in an article or a sales deck.
| Figure | Published by | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 40 per cent less food waste | Woolworths Australia, quoted by GS1 UK | Two-dimensional barcodes that carry batch and date data |
| Up to 21 per cent better store productivity | Woolworths Australia, quoted by GS1 UK | The same barcode work |
| 16 per cent feel fully prepared | GS1 UK | A survey with no published method |
| An export market of 300 billion pounds at risk | GS1 UK | A claim with no published method |
The Woolworths result comes from barcodes, not from passports
The Programme Lead for the Next Generation of Barcodes at GS1 UK described this result in an interview published on 9 March 2026. The products carried two-dimensional barcodes with dates on them. The work used no passport.
The work was a barcode upgrade in a grocery chain. It is real, and it is evidence for a barcode change. It is not evidence for the cost or the benefit of a passport.
Note the product too. Those goods were food, and food sits outside the EU passport law. See food and feed are excluded.
Source: The future of barcodes: turning every product into an intelligent asset.
The two GS1 UK figures carry no sample size, date or method
GS1 UK publishes a readiness figure and an export value figure. Neither one comes with a published sample size, a survey date or a method.
The population is unclear as well. One GS1 UK page describes the group as UK exporters. Another describes it as UK managers who trade with the EU. Both describe the United Kingdom, and neither describes New Zealand.
Use these figures to recognise a claim rather than to build a budget.
The New Zealand market report tells you to prepare, and gives no figure
This site searched for New Zealand material on 16 August 2026, in fifteen separate searches, and read 104 separate pages. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade wrote the substantial government account, in a market report of October 2025. See what New Zealand agencies have said.
No page in that search gives a cost figure.
On money, the report is short. It says that systems to generate and manage a passport "will involve IT infrastructure investment and data management costs".
The report gives no figure. This site searched 104 New Zealand pages on 16 August 2026, and not one estimates what a passport costs an exporter. Sector bodies publish on the subject, and none of them prices it either. See what New Zealand industry has published and what does a passport cost.
Source: EU Circular Economy: [Ecodesign, Digital Product Passports, and Green Public Procurement](https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/mfat-market-reports/eu-circular-economy-ecodesign-digital-product-passports-and-green-public-procurement).
The certain cost is a delayed order when nobody can find your product data
One cost is certain today, and it has nothing to do with software.
A European buyer can ask you for product data as a condition of sale, with no law behind the request. Your merino jumper needs a current specification, a test certificate and origin evidence. If nobody in your company can produce all three on the day, you delay the order or you lose it.
You pay that cost even if no passport rule ever reaches your product. It is also the cheapest thing to fix, because the first step is a question and not a purchase. Answer three questions about the products you export:
- Which system holds the current version of each specification?
- Who owns each field, and who approves a change to it?
- Can you separate the public information from the confidential information?
A "no" is not a failure. It shows you where the work starts, and it costs nothing to find out. See first steps for a New Zealand exporter.
Do not buy a system for a product group with no adopted rule
Warning: as at August 2026 the European Commission has adopted no ecodesign delegated act for any product group. A delegated act sets the data fields for its group. If you buy against a guessed field list, you pay twice.
The law behind this is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which has been in force since 18 July 2024. It works as a frame. Each product group needs its own delegated act before any duty starts. See what is a delegated act and how to read the timeline.
One passport duty is already law, and it comes from the battery regulation. 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
If you sell one of those, spend against that date. If you sell textiles, furniture, tyres, steel, aluminium or electronics, an indicative adoption year is not your deadline. See which products need a passport, and when and batteries.
Five questions to ask before you accept a price
Ask these of any supplier who quotes you a figure.
- Which adopted rule does this system build to? Today only the battery regulation gives an answer.
- What happens to the price when a delegated act sets the data fields?
- Who stores the data, and who keeps it available if we stop trading?
- Can we export all of our own data, at any time, in a format we can read?
- Does the price change per product, per code, or per year?
The third question is a legal point, not a commercial one. Article 78(e) of the battery regulation covers it. A battery passport must stay available after the responsible operator "ceases to exist or ceases its activity in the Union". See what happens if the company closes.
Settle who pays for each part of the work with your EU importer, in writing, before the first shipment. See agreeing data duties with your EU importer.
A New Zealand company, OwlQR, publishes this site and sells product identity software. Ask it the same five questions.