How does RoHS relate to the digital product passport?

What you must concretely do

What is expected of you

RoHS and the digital product passport are two separate obligations that will continue to exist side by side. RoHS (Directive 2011/65/EU) regulates which hazardous substances must not, or only up to a certain threshold value, be present in electrical and electronic equipment. The product passport, as elaborated in the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781), regulates how information about a product is recorded and made accessible. The passport does not replace RoHS and RoHS compliance does not automatically result in a correct passport. For a company, this means that both tracks require separate attention, even if they often come together in the same technical documentation in practice.

RoHS compliance remains a separate obligation

The obligation to test equipment against RoHS threshold values for substances such as lead, cadmium and certain brominated flame retardants stands on its own and does not change with the introduction of the passport. For a company with 10 to 100 employees, this means that the existing process of obtaining material declarations from suppliers, retaining test reports and substantiating the CE marking simply continues to run as it does now. There is no new substance test added by the passport; however, the information already collected for RoHS can in part be reused.

The passport requires different, additional information

Where RoHS asks "is there something in it that is not allowed, or must not exceed the limit", the passport asks much more broadly: something about origin, composition insofar as relevant for circularity, repair, software support and more. Article 7 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) describes which information requirements can be established for a product category. For a mid-sized company, this means that the department that now manages the RoHS files is probably not the same department that will later supply all passport data — procurement, engineering and compliance will need to work together to determine who supplies what. Which data exactly end up in the passport for electronics varies by product group; an overview of that can be found at which data goes into the digital product passport for electronics.

Both files must be mutually consistent

A device that complies with the substance restriction according to the RoHS file, but shows a different material composition in the passport, raises questions — even though formally they are two separate documents. For a company, this means that it is advisable to check when drawing up the passport whether the data are not inconsistent with what is already in the RoHS file and the EC declaration of conformity. This is not a legal link that follows from the text of both regulations, but a practical consistency that an importer or manufacturer maintains themselves.

The data must remain current and traceable

Both RoHS information and passport data have a shelf life: a change in a supply chain, a different supplier of a component, or an amended formulation can affect both files. How often the data in the passport must be updated precisely can be read at how often must I update the data in the product passport. For a company of this size, this means that a change in the supply chain must not only be reported to the quality department for RoHS, but also to whoever manages the passport.

Where things go wrong in practice

A common situation is that a company thinks that the RoHS test report can also serve as substantiation for the passport, while the passport requests other data that are not found anywhere in that report — such as repair data or information about critical raw materials.

A second situation arises when RoHS documentation is managed by the quality department and the passport by another department, without coordination between them. The result is that a material change is implemented in one file but not in the other.

A third situation is that a company places the substances information from the RoHS file one-to-one in the passport without checking whether that level of detail is permitted to be disclosed. Not every item of information that is internally relevant is intended for a public passport; what should and should not be included in it is set out at must I disclose commercially sensitive information about my electronics.

A fourth situation is that an importer from outside the EU assumes that the manufacturer's RoHS declaration in the country of origin automatically also forms the basis for the passport, while the importer itself may be responsible for providing the passport data to the platform.

A fifth situation is that a product modification — for example a different printed circuit board supplier — is reported for RoHS compliance but does not lead to an update of the passport, causing the two files to diverge without anyone noticing.

What you can document

• An overview of which department or function is responsible for the RoHS file and which for the passport, with a fixed moment at which both are compared for mutual consistency.
• An internal process in which a change in the supply chain (new supplier, different component, different formulation) automatically triggers a check of both the RoHS file and the passport.
• A list of which data from the RoHS documentation can be reused for the passport and which additional data must be collected separately — for example via the overview of properties per product group, to be found at which data must I fill in exactly for my type of device.
• A fixed procedure for the event that an error or discrepancy between the two files is discovered, including who corrects it and how; an approach to this is set out at I found an error in the product passport what now.
• A repository in which RoHS test reports, material declarations and passport data linked to each other can be found, so that during an inspection both files can quickly be placed side by side.