Within a few years most physical products sold in the European Union will carry a QR code that opens a record of what they are made of, where they came from, how to repair them and how to recycle them. That record is the digital product passport, or DPP. This article sets out the timetable as it stands, what the code has to point to, and what it means for anyone who prints codes on products.
Where the idea comes from
The legal base is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, ESPR, Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. It replaces the old Ecodesign Directive that covered energy use in appliances and extends the idea to almost every physical product, adding durability, repairability, recycled content and the passport as tools (European Commission).
ESPR is a framework. It does not itself say what a passport for a T-shirt or a steel beam contains. Those details come in delegated acts, one per product group, each followed by a transition period of at least 18 months before the rules bite (European Commission). That is why the timetable below is a sequence of dates rather than one.
The timetable
| When | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 20 July 2026 | The EU DPP registry, where every passport’s identifier is recorded, becomes operational | European Commission |
| Q4 2026 | Iron and steel, first ESPR product group | European Commission |
| 18 February 2027 | Battery passport mandatory for EV, light-transport and industrial batteries over 2 kWh, under Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 | Circularise |
| 18 August 2027 | Battery due-diligence obligations, after a delay by Regulation 2025/1561 | Circularise |
| Q3 to Q4 2027 | Textiles, aluminium, tyres | European Commission |
| 2028 | Furniture | European Commission |
| 2029 | Mattresses and ICT products | European Commission |
The battery passport is the pilot for everything else. It has a fixed date in a regulation that is already law, so whatever works and fails for batteries in 2027 will shape the textile and electronics acts. Our news post on the battery passport has the practical points for manufacturers.
Note
Delegated acts and their dates move. The table reflects the Commission’s page as read on 7 September 2026. Check the Official Journal before making a compliance decision.
What the passport contains
The Commission’s description is deliberately broad: information on a product’s “safety, origin, materials, repairability, environmental performance, reuse and recycling, among others”, with the exact list set per product group (European Commission). Three examples of what that will mean in practice:
- A battery pack. Chemistry, carbon footprint of manufacture, state of health, expected lifetime, and disassembly instructions for a recycler. Some fields visible to anyone, some only to authorities or repairers.
- A jacket. Fibre composition, country of manufacture, care and repair information, and where the garment can be returned for recycling.
- A steel beam. Grade, recycled content, mill of origin and test certificates, aimed at the construction trade rather than consumers.
What the QR code must do
ESPR requires a “digital data carrier, such as a QR code” to link the physical product to its passport (European Commission). Reading between the lines of that phrase and the battery rules, the code on a product has to satisfy four demands that an ordinary marketing code does not.
It must resolve for the life of the product. A washing machine lasts a decade. A steel beam lasts a century. The link cannot depend on a marketing agency’s subscription. Use a domain you control and a redirect you can move. The static versus dynamic article explains the mechanics; a DPP code is effectively a dynamic code with a very long contract.
It must identify the individual item, or at least the batch. Passports are about this product, not this product type, so the code carries a serial or batch alongside the model. The GS1 Digital Link format, which puts product number, batch and serial into a URL, is the obvious carrier and is what many manufacturers are expected to use. The retail article shows the URL structure.
It must survive the product. Engraved, laser-marked or on a durable plate, not an inkjet sticker. On a battery casing that means level H error correction, a module size a technician’s phone can read from arm’s length, and contrast that does not depend on a coating that will wear. Etched grey on grey metal fails.
It must be readable by everyone who needs it. A consumer with a phone, a recycler with an industrial scanner, a customs officer with a tablet. A plain QR code that opens a URL is the only carrier all three already have.
Raw payload
https://dpp.example.com/01/09506000134352/21/BAT2027-000418
-
https://dpp.example.comA domain the manufacturer controls, pointing at its passport resolver. -
01/09506000134352GTIN of the product model. -
21/BAT2027-000418Serial number of this individual unit. The passport is about this one.
Who this affects
If you make products for the EU market in one of the listed groups, this is your compliance project. If you print codes for such a manufacturer, the durability and size rules above are your specification. If you run a small brand outside those groups, nothing is required yet, but the direction is clear: within a few years a shopper will expect the code on a product to open a page about that product, and a code that only opens a brand video will look thin.
Do this
A laser-etched level H code on a battery casing, 3 cm wide, linking to a URL on the manufacturer's own domain that carries the serial number.
Not this
An inkjet sticker with a third-party short link, 1 cm wide, on the removable outer packaging.
▸Where the registry fits
The DPP registry that went live on 20 July 2026 does not hold the passports. It holds the unique identifiers and the pointers, so that authorities can check that a product placed on the market has a passport and where it lives. The passport data itself stays with the manufacturer or its service provider, which is why the resolver behind the QR code matters so much: the registry can tell you a passport exists, but only the link on the product takes you to it. Standards for the data formats and access control are being written by CEN and CENELEC under a Commission mandate; when they publish, we will link them here.
Try it yourself
Upload a photo of a code etched or printed on a hard surface and see how much of the error-correction budget is already spent. A DPP code should decode with most of its budget intact.