Topic hub
The EU battery passport
Maintained by Y. Lietzke, editor · 4 issues in this hub
In short
The EU battery passport is the first Digital Product Passport obligation to bite in practice: from 18 February 2027, batteries in scope placed on the EU market must carry a data carrier resolving to a defined, maintained data set. The obligation sits with the economic operator placing the battery on the market, which makes importers as exposed as manufacturers. Most of the required data lives with cell suppliers, recyclers, and test partners, so readiness is a data-governance programme rather than a labelling one.
What is the eu battery passport, and why does it matter?
The Battery Regulation created the first working example of a Digital Product Passport, and it is the one every other product group is now studied against. It requires per-battery information — chemistry and materials, carbon footprint, recycled content, performance and durability, due-diligence data — published through a data carrier and kept accurate over the battery's life.
This hub collects our coverage of that regime: who is obligated, what the data model actually looks like, how carriers and identifiers should be chosen, and what market surveillance authorities check in the field. The recurring finding across every issue is the same — internal build work is measured in weeks, supplier data in quarters.
What do you need to get right?
- Who is obligated
- The economic operator placing the battery on the EU market — manufacturer, importer, or authorised representative, whoever that is for the shipment in question.
- What must be published
- A defined set of product, material, performance, and due-diligence fields per battery, reachable through a data carrier with differentiated access rights.
- The date that matters
- 18 February 2027 for batteries in scope; the practical deadline is your supplier contract renewal calendar.
- Where programmes fail
- Platform-first sequencing, no named owner per data field, and no change-control trigger that republishes the passport when the product changes.
Which issues cover this topic?
No. 014 ·
The battery passport is a data-ownership problem, not a labelling problem
Why battery-passport programmes stall when they are run as labelling projects, and the data governance they actually require.
No. 012 ·
The supplier data clause that decides your DPP timeline
Why Digital Product Passport programmes slip on supplier response time, and the contract language that fixes it at renewal.
No. 011 ·
How market surveillance authorities will actually check a product passport
What an authority sees when it scans a data carrier, and the three failure modes that turn a passport check into a finding.
No. 010 ·
Choose your data carrier and identifier before you choose a platform
Why identifier and resolver decisions outlast your DPP platform choice, and how to avoid reprinting carriers later.
Which resources help most here?
- EU Battery Regulation & DPP Playbook — Be ready for the 18 Feb 2027 battery-passport deadline. (from €99)
- Supplier Data-Collection Templates — Collect supplier data once, in the format auditors accept. (from €49)
Frequently asked questions
- When does the EU battery passport apply?
- From 18 February 2027 for batteries in scope placed on the EU market, subject to confirmation against the Battery Regulation and its implementing acts.
- Who is responsible for the battery passport — the manufacturer or the importer?
- The economic operator placing the battery on the EU market. For imported batteries that is normally the importer, who is accountable for data created by a manufacturer outside the Union.
- Is the battery passport just a QR code?
- No. The carrier is the visible part; the obligation is to publish and maintain a defined data set per battery, most of which originates in suppliers' systems rather than your own.
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