What is a digital product passport?

A digital product passport is structured data about one product that a computer can read without a person interpreting it. A person reaches it by scanning a code on the product, its packaging or its paperwork.

The European Union created it for the people who handle a product later. A buyer, a repairer and a recycler can each find out what the product is made of, and what was done to it.

The idea comes from European environmental policy, not from trade policy. Today the product record stops at the sale, and that gap is the problem a passport solves.

Almost nobody needs a passport yet, and a supplier can still sell you one. If you buy a QR code that opens a web page, you have not bought a passport, and you pay for the work twice.

The passport is the data, not the code

The QR code carries the address, and the passport is the data at that address. A QR code on the label of an e-bike battery can open a marketing page. That page is not a digital product passport, however good it is. A retail barcode names the model and not the item. See how a passport differs from a barcode.

What makes it a passport is that the data is structured. A computer can read it without a person interpreting it. Customs software, a recycler's system and a buyer's purchasing system can all pull the same facts out of it.

So none of these is a passport:

• a PDF specification sheet emailed to a buyer
• a product page on your website
• a customer portal that needs a login
• a spreadsheet of certificates

What is not a passport sets out four tests, and says which test each item fails.

One address answers a person with a page, and answers a machine with structured data

A passport has one web address, and that address answers two kinds of visitor.

A person scans the code and gets a readable page.

A machine calls the same address and gets structured data instead. Customs systems and market surveillance authorities use that second answer, and not your web page.

A passport carries identity data and product facts

The exact contents depend on the product. Each product group gets its own rule that lists the fields.

In general a passport carries two kinds of information.

Identity. What the product is, who made it, where, and under what identifiers. This part is broadly consistent across product groups.

Product facts. What it is made of, how long it lasts, how to repair it, what certificates it holds, and how to dispose of it. This part varies by sector.

The battery passport is the one written in law today. It shows the pattern: it holds the chemistry, the carbon footprint, the state of health, the due diligence information and the recycled content. See what data a passport holds for that list in full.

Your European importer is usually responsible for the data

The company that places the product on the European market is responsible for keeping the passport accurate, complete and current.

That company is usually your European importer, and not you. That does not remove your work. Your importer can only pass on what you give them.

The passport must stay available after the responsible company closes

A passport must stay available after the responsible company stops trading. The battery law says the passport stays available after that operator "ceases to exist or ceases its activity in the Union".

This is a real design requirement, not a formality. It is why passports are usually held by a service provider rather than on a company's own website. No published pilot gives a figure for what a passport costs, and what this site does not know lists what was searched.

Not everyone sees everything

A passport is not one public page. Each reader of a passport gets a different part of it.

The battery passport has three levels of access:

• information for the general public
• information for authorities and notified bodies
• information for anyone with a legitimate interest, such as a recycler

Commercially sensitive information does not have to be public. It has to be available to the right party.

The EU keeps a directory, not a database

The European Commission runs a central registry, which opened in July 2026. The Commission cited six passport standards in the same month. Those two events explain why this subject is in the news now.

The registry does not store your product data. It stores identifiers, and a pointer to where the passport actually lives. The data itself stays with the company or its service provider. The law requires that decentralised structure.

Registering does not mean you comply. The ecodesign regulation says plainly that the registry's response is not proof of compliance.

Your product probably does not need a passport yet

The ecodesign regulation is in force, but it binds no product group until the Commission writes a rule for that group. As at August 2026 it has not written one for any group.

The exception is batteries, under a separate law that is in force, from February 2027.

Food and drink are excluded from the ecodesign regulation altogether.

Two other pages take this further. How to read the timeline explains why the published dates are later than they look. What this means for New Zealand exporters sets out who is actually affected.