Digital Product Passport: when it applies and to which products first

The Digital Product Passport is not arriving in 2027 for everyone. One date is fixed so far, and it concerns batteries. For textiles, furniture and the remaining product groups the obligation arrives gradually through separate legal acts, each followed by at least 18 months before it takes effect.

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One obligation from the same regulation does already apply: large companies have been barred from destroying unsold textiles and footwear since July 2026.

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This article sets out when the Digital Product Passport applies to which products, with sources to verify, and what that means for retailers in the DACH region.

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The only fixed date concerns batteries

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Anyone looking up when the Digital Product Passport applies will find the year 2027 almost everywhere in the trade press. It holds for a single product group. Article 77 of the EU Battery Regulation requires an electronic record, the battery passport, for every battery placed on the market from 18 February 2027. This covers batteries for light means of transport such as e-bikes and e-scooters, industrial batteries above 2 kWh and electric vehicle batteries.

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That matters to retailers more than it first appears. A sports retailer selling e-bikes falls within scope through the batteries built into them, without manufacturing any battery. Anyone selling end devices containing or shipped with such batteries needs to be able to rely on the passport being in place at the point the product is placed on the market.

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All other product groups follow a different mechanism, and there the year 2027 is misleading.

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How the obligation arises group by group

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Outside the battery field the legal basis is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, ESPR for short, in force since 18 July 2024. It is a framework regulation and requires a passport for no individual product. What it does is set out which requirements the European Commission may impose at all.

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Obligations become binding through delegated acts, each covering one product group. Under Article 4(4) ESPR the date of application of such an act must fall at least 18 months after it enters into force, although the Commission may let individual requirements apply earlier in duly justified cases.

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Every product group therefore runs on its own timeline, and between the decision in Brussels and the obligation on the shelf there are usually 18 months or more. Retailers looking for a reliable date for their assortment will not find it in the Commission work plan, but in the delegated act covering their own product group.

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Which products need a passport first

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The sequence follows from the ESPR work plan the European Commission adopted in April 2025. Priority goes to textiles and apparel, furniture including mattresses, tyres and the intermediate products iron, steel and aluminium.

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Two of those groups stand out for physical retail. Textiles and apparel comes first, which means fashion retailers and sports retailers are affected before anyone else. Furniture and mattresses follow at some distance and will then reach furniture stores and the DIY segment.

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Electronics is handled differently from the other groups. It is not a final product group with its own act, but is covered through two cross-cutting measures on reparability and on the recyclability of electrical and electronic equipment. Added to that are energy-related products, which are being moved from the old Ecodesign Directive into the ESPR framework step by step. Retailers carrying electronics should therefore look at the horizontal acts rather than search for a product group of their own.

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One point matters for internal planning: the work plan is a Commission communication and binds nobody. It names periods in which an act is expected. So far, every shift has been backwards.

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The destruction ban already applies

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While the industry debates future deadlines, the ESPR is already taking direct effect in one place, with no delegated act required. Since 19 July 2026 large companies have not been allowed to destroy unsold textiles and footwear. Medium-sized companies follow later, micro-enterprises are exempt.

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For fashion retailers this is current law rather than a preview. Anyone handling returns, seasonal stock and sample pieces needs a documented route into reuse, donation or recycling, and has to be able to account for goods that were disposed of.

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The passport is therefore not the beginning of this regulation but its next step. Retailers who have to get their assortment data in order for the destruction ban anyway are well advised to build that data in a structure that will later carry the passport too.

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Why retailers cannot wait for manufacturers

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Formal responsibility for the passport sits with the economic operator placing the product on the market. Article 27 ESPR covers manufacturer obligations, Article 29 those of importers. Retailers often conclude from this that the topic belongs to their suppliers. In three situations that conclusion does not hold.

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Private labels are the most obvious case. Selling under your own name, or importing goods from outside the EU yourself, makes you the manufacturer or importer in regulatory terms and puts the obligation on you directly, wherever production took place.

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In distance selling, a code on the delivered item is not enough. When selling online, access to the product passport has to be available in the offer itself so customers can see the information before they decide to buy. That makes it a question for the product page in the shop, and per variant, because the passport belongs to the specific item rather than the model.

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That leaves the infrastructure retailers are deciding on anyway. Moving product identification from one-dimensional barcodes to two-dimensional codes has been under way for years and touches POS systems, merchandise management and scanner hardware. The passport uses the same data carrier. Treating the switch as a POS project alone means planning the same thing twice.

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What the passport does not do

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The passport describes a product, not a purchase. It sets out what a jacket is made of, how it can be repaired and how it should be disposed of. Who bought it, and when, is not part of it.

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That information is exactly what the processes behind the regulation depend on. A repair claim needs proof of purchase, a take-back needs an allocation, a recycling record needs the path from shelf to return. The passport supplies the product layer, the purchase layer stays open.

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In physical retail the receipt is the only thing connecting the two. As long as it is printed on thermal paper and fades in a wallet, that connection remains unusable in practice. Whether digital receipts close the gap is an open question, and one the debate around the product passport has barely raised so far.

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What retailers should do now

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• Start with the destruction ban if textiles or footwear are part of the assortment. It is the only ESPR obligation already in force.
• Check which product groups appear on the priority list, separating private label from third-party brands.
• Agree with suppliers who delivers which data and in what format. Experience shows the bottleneck sits in the supply chain, not in the technology.
• Plan the move to two-dimensional codes and the passport work as one project.
• Review the internal roadmap. If it says 2027, check that year against the specific product group.

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