DPPesprEU ESPR: Which Products Need a Digital Product Passport, and When
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is the EU framework that will make Digital Product Passports mandatory. It does not switch everything on at once — the requirements arrive product group by product group through separate “delegated acts,” each with its own rules and dates.
The order of rollout
Batteries lead, under their own dedicated regulation, with a mandatory battery passport from 2027. The ESPR working plan then prioritises high-impact categories. Expect the first ESPR passports to land for groups such as:
- Textiles and apparel — widely expected to be among the first ESPR categories.
- Consumer electronics and IT — building on existing energy-labelling work.
- Furniture, tyres, iron and steel, and other priority goods.
The exact requirements for each group — what data is mandatory, and at what level of detail — are set when that group’s delegated act is finalised, so timelines continue to firm up.
What a delegated act decides
Each act spells out the data fields you must publish, the level of granularity (model, batch, or individual item), the format of the data carrier, and who in the supply chain is responsible. Until your category’s act is final, treat the published drafts as strong direction rather than the last word.
What this means for you
If you place physical products on the EU market, the safe assumption is that a passport is coming for your category this decade. The brands that cope best start early: they get their product data clean, decide how they will identify products, and pilot passports before they are forced to.
How to prepare now
- Get your product data in order — composition, origin, certificates, care and end-of-life guidance.
- Decide your identification level — one shared code per model or batch, or a unique code per unit.
- Pilot a passport — generate GS1 Digital Link QR codes and a live passport page before deadlines bite.
DPPespr.com lets you do all three today, so you are ready the moment your category’s rules land.