Does the product passport also apply to small businesses?

What you must concretely do

What is expected of you

Article 22 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) specifically addresses small and medium-sized enterprises. The essence of it is that the obligations under the ESPR apply in principle also to small businesses — there is no general exemption for businesses below a certain size. What Article 22 does regulate is that attention is paid to the position of smaller market participants, for example in the form of supporting measures. This is a different approach than "you do not need to do anything if you are small". For a business with 10 to 100 employees, this means a number of things.

The obligation to have a product passport applies in principle to you as well.

Whether a product passport becomes mandatory depends on the product category in which a business operates and on the delegated act established for it — not on the number of employees or turnover. A business that imports or places on the market electronics falling under a sub-category for which a passport is mandatory will have to deal with it, regardless of business size. What this concretely entails for a specific device is described on the page about which products in the electronics sector fall under the ESPRPractical terms this means that there is no point in waiting for clarity on "exceptions for SMEs" — that general exception is not in the text.

Supporting measures can ease the burden, but do not replace the obligation.

Article 22 refers to measures that the Commission and Member States can take to support small and medium-sized enterprises in meeting the requirements. Think of guidance, provision of information or other forms of support. For a business with 10 to 100 employees, the practical consequence is that tools may become available, but the substantive obligation — a correct and up-to-date passport for the relevant product category — does not thereby lapse. It is therefore not a matter of "waiting for exemption", but of "preparing, with the knowledge that support may be available".

The timing of obligations runs through delegated acts, not through business size.

When a product passport becomes exactly mandatory for a specific category of electronics is not laid down in the ESPR itself but is determined per sub-category in a delegated act. How that process works and why that determines what a business must do is explained on the page about what a delegated act is. For a smaller business, this means that the planning of its own preparation is not linked to its own size, but to the category in which the product falls and to the date that is determined for that category. An overview of what is already known about this can be found on the page about when the product passport becomes mandatory.

The content of the passport does not change because a business is small.

The data that must be included in a passport are determined by the product category and the associated delegated act — not by the number of employees of the party having the passport drawn up. A smaller business placing electronics on the market will therefore in principle be faced with the same set of data as a large business in the same category. What exactly is requested in this is described on the page about which data will be in the passport for electronics.

Where things go wrong in practice

A number of situations recur regularly among smaller businesses preparing for this.

The assumption that "small" is equivalent to "exempted". It is often assumed that a business with a handful of employees is automatically outside the scope of the ESPR. Article 22 is about support, not exemption, and that difference is regularly confused in practice.

Waiting for clarity that does not yet exist. Because delegated acts per sub-category are still to follow, some businesses are postponing preparation entirely. That is understandable given the uncertainty about dates, but the risk is that little time remains once an act is published.

Underestimation of one's own role in the supply chain. A small company that imports products or sells them under its own brand thereby becomes the party responsible for the product passport — even if the actual manufacturing takes place elsewhere. This division of roles is sometimes overlooked, even though it is decisive for who must provide the data.

Failure to distinguish between battery obligations and device obligations. For devices with an integrated battery, confusion arises about which rules exactly apply and whether multiple product passports must be used. This issue is explained separately on the page about a device with a battery in it.

Insufficient visibility into what must and must not be shared. Especially smaller suppliers are concerned that a product passport makes commercially sensitive information public. This concern is in itself worth investigating, but it is not always made concrete on the basis of the rules that exist for this purpose.

What you can document

• An overview of the product categories in which the company's own assortment falls, linked to the status of the delegated act per category.
• An internal note on the role that the company fulfils in the supply chain (manufacturer, importer, distributor) per product line, because this role determines who is responsible for the product passport.
• An inventory of which data are already available from suppliers or manufacturers abroad, and which data must be collected in-house.
• An overview of any supporting schemes or tools that will become available for smaller companies, so that they can be used as soon as they are published.
• Agreements with suppliers on the provision of product data, especially when components such as a battery come from another party.
• A file with the considerations regarding commercially sensitive data, so that in case of doubt it is clear which information is and is not included in the product passport — see also the explanation about commercially sensitive data.