Digital Product Passport for furniture

Not yet. The Ecodesign Regulation has been in force since 18 July 2024. It sets its requirements per product group through delegated acts. The act for furniture has not been adopted. The Commission expects it in 2028 and calls that indicative itself. Then it applies 18 months later at the earliest. So the passport duty is expected in 2029 or 2030. Treat that as a planning assumption. The formaldehyde limit and the deforestation statement are already fixed.

Two duties, and both arrive before any act under the Ecodesign Regulation. Since 6 August 2026 furniture releases at most 0.062 mg/m3 formaldehyde in the test chamber. From 30 December 2026 most operators file a due diligence statement for wooden furniture. It contains the geolocation of the harvest. Micro and small undertakings follow six months later. Used furniture is exempt from both duties. Whoever collects this data properly in Transpareo has already built much of the passport.

The draft on passport content of September 2026 starts from 23 use cases. From them it derives over fifty data fields in eleven groups. They include identification, producer, materials, mechanical and chemical properties and circularity. Then come recycled content, compliance, environmental footprint, instructions and the life of the individual piece. For each field it proposes a level. Mostly that is the model, for substances and adhesives also the component or batch. It also proposes a reading tier, from public through legitimate interest to the authorities. Primary materials and care and assembly instructions would be public. Joining methods and disassembly information would be open to readers with a legitimate interest. Many fields are still undecided. The study itself calls its results preliminary. It takes comments until 3 November 2026.

Yes, to all three duties. They attach to placing on the market. Whoever imports a chair from a third country owes the formaldehyde compliance, the deforestation statement and the future passport. In practice the data sits with the panel mill and the harvest, several tiers away. Settle it in the purchasing contract. A supplier who has never been asked for harvest coordinates rarely produces them within a quarter. With a supplier request in Transpareo you also reach your supplier’s own suppliers.

No. The passport describes the product you place on the market. The components sit inside it as a hierarchy. In Transpareo you maintain each component once, such as frame, foam, cover fabric and fittings. Each has its own material, its own origin and its own certificates. You reuse it in every model that contains it. So you enter the same beech plywood once for forty products. A component needs a passport of its own only where it is placed on the market separately.

No rule requires one. What is required is a persistent unique product identifier. If you have a GTIN, Transpareo turns it into a GS1 Digital Link that other systems resolve too. Without one, the passport carries a unique Transpareo identifier and your own article number. Either way the QR code leads to the passport. Contract furniture and made-to-measure kitchens often have no barcode at all. There this is the normal case.

No. The working plan lists mattresses as a product group of their own. The Commission expects their act in 2029, a year after the one for furniture. So a bed frame and the mattress on it can fall under two sets of requirements with two dates. If you sell both, plan for two data models. Expect the mattress requirements to lean harder on lifetime and waste. In Transpareo you create fields of their own for mattresses.

The act sets the reading tiers. It rules who gets which access. In Transpareo you set visibility field by field. A value is public without any login, or restricted to a tier. Readers reach that tier through logged access. Consumers get materials, care, repair and disposal. A recycler gets the disassembly detail. Test reports and supplier documents stay with authorities and the readers you name. The same QR code shows each reader what they are entitled to see.

The act sets the period. It matches at least the expected lifetime of the piece. A wardrobe outlives most software contracts. The passport stays available even after an insolvency. So the duty survives any change of provider. Before you sign, ask what happens to your passports after a cancellation. With Transpareo, published passports stay reachable at a permanent address. Once they are registered in the EU registry, Transpareo Vault archives them for ten years. Our provider checklist names further questions.

Yes, and furniture shows it clearly. The same QR code carries the disassembly notes, the care instructions, the spare-parts list and the story of the wood. Each reader sees them in their own language. Transpareo translates passport content automatically into the 24 official EU languages and 16 more. You check the result. More on this in from compliance document to marketing tool.

The member states set the fines, and they vary widely. The consequences in the market usually cost more. A piece that exceeds the formaldehyde limit may not be placed on the market. Pieces already delivered come back. A missing deforestation statement stops a container at the border. From the passport deadline, a product without a passport may not be placed on the market. For a seasonal collection that is the whole season.