The question we are asked most often is not “what is a Digital Product Passport?”. It is “when does it reach us, and what exactly has to go in?”. The honest answer almost always begins with “that depends on your industry” - and, until now, too often ended right there.
So we finished the sentence. Our industries reference is live: fourteen industry pages, eleven checklists, a diagram per industry, every deadline with its place in the regulation text. Around 59,000 words in German, translated into 40 languages. This article shows what you will find there, and makes the case for publishing your passport before you have to.
What every page carries
Every industry page has the same structure, so that after the first one you find your way around every other:
- Timeline with every date the regulation sets, from entry into force to the duties of the next decade. Dates that hang on acts not yet adopted are marked as such.
- Roles and their duties: manufacturer, importer, distributor, private label, marketplace, with article numbers.
- Required data: the fields the passport of your industry carries, and where they come from.
- Official documents: the regulations, guidance and working plans, linked at their source on EUR-Lex and the Commission’s pages, with a sentence on when you need which document.
- Questions and answers: what manufacturers in that industry ask us most often, from the GTIN to registration.
- A diagram that puts the rules, the data you already hold and the passport with its reading tiers into one picture.
- Take it with you: the industry’s checklists as fillable PDFs and an Excel template with a sample row, no account needed.
Bookmark the page of your industry. We update it as soon as new regulatory information is published, so on your next visit you find the current version, not the one from launch day.
Fourteen industries at a glance
| Industry | Passport from | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Batteries | 18 February 2027 | Batteries Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 |
| Construction | After the delegated act | Construction Products Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 |
| Metals | Expected from 2028 | ESPR delegated act, working plan 2025 |
| Textiles & fashion | Expected from 2029 | ESPR delegated act, working plan 2025 |
| Furniture | Expected from 2029 | ESPR delegated act, working plan 2025 |
| Car parts & tyres | Expected from 2029 | ESPR delegated act, working plan 2025 |
| Chemicals | 23 September 2029 for detergents | Detergents Regulation; REACH and CLP apply today |
| FMCG | 23 September 2029 for detergents | Packaging Regulation since 12 August 2026, Detergents Regulation |
| Electronics | Probably 2029 | Horizontal ecodesign acts, date open |
| Toys | 1 August 2030 | Toy Safety Regulation (EU) 2025/2509 |
| Luxury goods | Not yet dated | Apparel through the textiles act |
| Cosmetics | Duties apply today, without a passport | Cosmetics Regulation (EC) 1223/2009 |
| Food | Duties apply today, without a passport | Food Information Regulation, wine e-label, EUDR; excluded from the ESPR |
| Pharmaceuticals | Duties apply today, without a passport | Falsified Medicines Directive; ePI with the pharmaceutical reform |
A date with day and month is law. A year marked “expected” is arithmetic from the Commission’s working plan and the ESPR’s 18-month period. That difference is the heart of the reference, and it deserves a section of its own.
Three kinds of law, three degrees of firmness
The dates in the table come from three different kinds of law.
Sector regulations with a passport of their own. The Batteries Regulation, the Toy Safety Regulation, the Detergents Regulation and the Construction Products Regulation write the passport into their own text, with a date. Those dates stand in the Official Journal. Where details wait for a further act, the page says so.
Product groups under the Ecodesign Regulation. The ESPR sets no date itself. It empowers delegated acts per product group, and each act gives economic operators at least 18 months (Art. 4(4)). The working plan of 16 April 2025 names textiles, iron and steel, aluminium, tyres, furniture and mattresses with indicative years. The years on those pages are therefore expectations, not deadlines, and we write them that way.
Duties that apply today without a passport. Cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals carry information duties under older law, and the ESPR excludes food, feed and medicines for good (Art. 1(2)). The passport there is a way to carry those duties where the label runs out of room. It is not a new obligation, and we do not call it one.
We could have printed one year per industry, and it would have looked firm. We would rather write next to every date where it comes from and how firm it is. That is more work, and it is the only form in which a reference is still right two years from now. How the individual deadlines fit together is set out in our article on the ESPR timeline.
Why publish now, when nothing is mandatory yet
The table above reads like an invitation to wait. Outside batteries, every deadline is two to four years away or not fixed at all. We still advise publishing your passport as soon as the data can carry it, for five reasons.
The passport is the short step; the data is the long road. Around 70 per cent of the required fields already exist in almost every company, spread across spreadsheets, PDF data sheets and supplier emails. Bringing them together and procuring the missing 30 per cent costs months, above all where a supplier has to be asked and a contract clause negotiated. Once the inventory stands, the passport is a press of a button. Whoever starts today walks the long road calmly instead of in the quarter before the deadline; the arithmetic is in why the DPP forces digitisation.
A passport that can be checked sells. Any brochure can claim sustainability. A passport makes it verifiable: every version is signed and verifies in any browser against a public key, with no callback to us. Buyers, retailers and tenders already ask for material composition, origin and repairability, and a QR code on the product that answers those questions is a sales argument you hold years before the obligation. How a passport becomes a touchpoint with customers is in from compliance document to marketing tool.
The target is fixed. Two years ago the standards and the register were still moving, and whoever built early built on drafts. That is over: six of the eight European DPP standards have been cited in the Official Journal since 15 July 2026, the EU register has been operating since 20 July 2026, and every passport, whatever the industry, shares the same plumbing - the same identifier scheme, the same technical elements, the same register. A passport you publish today is not a prototype you throw away at the deadline. The honest caveat: two standards still await citation, the registration interface is not final yet, and the entry into the register is yours to make, a service provider may not do it for you. The data for it, product identifier, passport address and fingerprint, is held ready by your passport; more in our analysis of the register regulation and in how Transpareo meets the harmonised standards.
The cheaper half of the sum. A passport costs a fraction of a container held at customs, a recall without batch reference or a Safety Gate entry with your brand on it. Whoever starts before the deadline chooses the planned scenario; whoever starts in the year of the deadline chooses the reactive one. The numbers are in what the DPP costs and what penalties cost.
One range for the EU and the rest of the world. For a manufacturer outside the EU the passport is market access, and what is structured for the European market carries into every other market with the same data. EU rules become the template for other markets; why, is explained in our article on the Brussels effect.
One condition applies throughout: real data. A verifiable passport exposes an embellished claim faster than a glossy brochure ever did. If you read that as a risk, wait. If you read it as an opportunity, you have the head start the table above promises.
An account is free, and the first template stands in minutes: start today, with the required data set of your industry as the starting point.
How the reference stays current
A reference is as good as its latest revision. We update every page as soon as an act is adopted, a draft published, a standard cited or a clarification from the EU DPP Help Desk becomes known. The changes that matter are summarised once a month in the newsletter.
And because fourteen industries demand more expertise than one team has: if you find a gap or an error in your industry, write to us. The next revision carries the correction, and the reference gets more precise with every reply.
Questions on this article
Which industries does the Digital Product Passport apply to, and from when?
A date in law exists so far for batteries (18 February 2027 under the Batteries Regulation 2023/1542), detergents (23 September 2029 under the Detergents Regulation) and toys (1 August 2030 under the Toy Safety Regulation 2025/2509); construction products follow once the delegated act under the Construction Products Regulation arrives. Textiles, iron and steel, aluminium, tyres, furniture and mattresses sit in the ecodesign working plan of 16 April 2025 with indicative years for their acts; each act then leaves at least 18 months. Cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals carry information duties under older law, without a passport. Each industry’s page lists its dates with the source.
How do I know how firm a date is?
By the kind of law it comes from. Where a sector regulation writes the passport into its own text with a date, that date is law. Where the year comes from the ecodesign working plan, it is an expectation, because the ESPR sets no date itself and instead empowers delegated acts per product group. Every page of the reference marks which of its dates hang on acts not yet adopted.
May I publish a product passport before it is mandatory?
Yes. Nothing stands in the way of a voluntary passport, and it uses the same plumbing as the later mandatory one - the EU register operating since 20 July 2026, the same identifier scheme, the same technical elements. Two things are worth knowing. The data has to be real, because a signed passport that verifies in any browser exposes an embellished claim faster than any brochure. And in industries the ESPR excludes, such as food and medicines, the passport is an extension of the label, not a product passport in the sense of the ESPR.
Are the checklists and Excel templates free?
Yes, and they need no account. Every checklist can be ticked off in the browser or downloaded as a fillable PDF; an industry’s Excel template shows one filled-in sample row with every column the Transpareo import expects, in the language of the page. Every checklist states its nature - law in force, preliminary, duties that apply today, or excluded from the ESPR.
My industry is not on the list. What does that mean?
Usually that the EU has not set a passport date for it and it is not in the first ecodesign working plan either. The ESPR allows later acts for further product groups, and we extend the reference as soon as an industry has a date or a draft. Until then, the overview of the three kinds of law on the industries page is the reliable guide, and the newsletter reports when something moves.
How often is the reference updated?
As soon as new regulatory information is published - an adopted act, a Commission draft, a cited harmonised standard, a clarification from the EU DPP Help Desk. Changes to the rules are summarised once a month in the newsletter. The pages are meant as bookmarks, not as snapshots.