My manufacturer is outside the EU — who arranges the product passport then?

What you must concretely do

What is expected of you

A manufacturer outside the EU does not automatically fall outside the scope of the ESPR. The regulation specifically addresses this situation by determining who is accountable in the EU and who must ensure that the product passport is created and correct. For a company with 10 to 100 employees that imports electronics from outside the EU or has them manufactured there, this concretely means: there must be someone who bears responsibility within the EU, and that person is usually you.

The role of the importer

Whoever places a manufacturer's products from outside the EU on the EU market acquires, under Article 29 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781), its own set of obligations. This is not the same role as "reseller" — an importer must verify whether the product is accompanied by the required product passport and whether the data in it complies with what the regulation prescribes for that product category. In practical terms, for a company that purchases electronics from a factory in Asia or the US: there must be someone within the organisation who checks the supplied passport data before the product reaches the EU market, not afterwards. Whether a company holds this role is an initial question that must be answered — see Am I an importer or manufacturer according to the ESPR? for the distinction between those two roles.

The authorised representative

Article 28 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) describes a different figure: the authorised representative. This is a party within the EU that the manufacturer outside the EU authorises in writing to perform certain tasks on its behalf, including tasks related to the product passport. This is a different role from that of importer — an importer places the product on the market itself, an authorised representative acts on behalf of the manufacturer. For a mid-sized company this becomes relevant once consideration is given to fulfilling this role itself, for example for a foreign sister company or a manufacturer with whom there has been a longer-standing relationship. The authorisation must be documented in writing and the tasks that the representative is allowed or required to perform must be specified in it.

Determining who holds which role

With a manufacturer outside the EU, a chain of three to four parties quickly emerges in practice: the manufacturer itself, possibly an authorised representative, the importer, and possibly also a distributor or platform further down the chain. Different obligations apply to each of those roles. A company that has products manufactured under its own brand by a manufacturer outside the EU, for example, finds itself in a different position than a company that imports finished products — see Selling under your own brand — what obligations do I have? for that distinction. A company that merely purchases and resells without its own brand falls more readily under the obligations for distributors and traders, described on What obligations does a distributor or trader of electronics have?

Where things go wrong in practice

No one feels responsible. The manufacturer outside the EU refers to the importer, the importer assumes the manufacturer will supply the passport, and meanwhile nothing happens. Without a written agreement on who supplies and checks which part of the passport, this remains unresolved.

An authorised representative without a clear mandate. An EU party is named as representative, but there is no document stating which tasks that representative is to perform. Upon inspection, it becomes impossible to prove who performed which step in the passport process.

Passport data that do not match the product actually imported. The manufacturer supplies generic product data that applies to an entire product line, while the importer places a specific variant on the market. The importer's obligation under Article 29 specifically requires checking whether the passport fits the imported product — this fails when that check is skipped because "the manufacturer must have got it right".

Lack of clarity regarding intermediaries within the EU. A company does not import directly from outside the EU itself, but purchases from an intermediary that does. Who then has which role — and whether the company's own obligations are those of an importer or those of a party that resells within the EU — is not immediately clear. See for that situation I purchase electronics in another EU country and resell them

No documentation of who is responsible for the accuracy. If it later turns out that there is an error in the product passport data, there will be discussion about who was responsible for it: the manufacturer that provided the data, or the importer that submitted it. Without an agreement on this, it is difficult to trace back. Anyone who wants to delve deeper into this can read further on Who is liable if there is an error in the product passport

What you can document

• The authorisation of an authorised representative, in writing and with a description of the tasks that this representative performs on behalf of the manufacturer (Article 28, ESPR).
• An internal agreement or checklist on who within the organisation checks the supplied passport data before the product is placed on the EU market.
• Correspondence with the manufacturer outside the EU on which product data are to be supplied, in what format and at what time.
• An overview of the company's own role per product line — manufacturer, importer, authorised representative or distributor — especially when a company fulfils different roles for different products. A first orientation on this is provided on Who is responsible for the product passport for electronics?
• Documentation of the checks performed on the passport upon the product's arrival in the EU, including the date and who performed the check.
• For private label purchases: agreements with the manufacturer on who compiles which part of the passport, in addition to what can be found on I sell private label electronics, what are my obligations

For subscribers to elektropas.com, these agreements and checklists will be made available as a template once the delegated act for the relevant product category has been published; the precise content of the passport follows from that act, not from the ESPR itself.