Who is responsible for the product passport for electronics?

What you must concretely do

What is expected of you

The ESPR places responsibility for the digital product passport primarily with the manufacturer. Article 27 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) describes the obligations that come with it. In practice, who qualifies as a "manufacturer" is not always the entity that physically produces the product — a company that places electronics on the market under its own name can also fall under that definition. Uncertainty about this is precisely where many companies with 10 to 100 employees run into problems, and this is elaborated on the page about who qualifies as an importer or manufacturer under the ESPR.

Having the passport drawn up and kept up to date

Article 9 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) describes what a digital product passport must contain and how it must be accessible via a data carrier, such as a QR code. The obligation for that passport to exist rests with the manufacturer. For a company of this size, that primarily means: gathering the correct product data (materials, origin, repair information, conformity data) and providing it to the party that technically hosts the passport and links the QR code. The content remains the responsibility of the manufacturer, even if hosting is outsourced.

Ensuring that the passport follows the product

A product passport belongs to a specific product or a specific product group, not to a brand in general. This means that with each execution, each revision or each new model, it must be determined again which data belongs to which QR code. For companies that have products manufactured under their own brand, this is a point where things often go wrong: the question of who supplies which part of the data is addressed on the page about the obligations when selling under your own brand.

Ensuring that the data is correct

The manufacturer remains accountable for the accuracy of the data in the passport, even when parts of the supply chain have provided that data. This is an obligation that is not limited to the moment of launch: data must be correct as long as the passport is active. Who in a company ultimately signs off on that accuracy — and what that practically means for the organization of quality control — is described on the page about who signs off on conformity.

Dealing with a manufacturer outside the EU

Not every company that places electronics on the EU market is itself the manufacturer within the meaning of the regulation. When production takes place outside the EU, part of the responsibility shifts towards the importer, without the manufacturer outside the EU being completely out of the picture. This shift, and who then takes care of which part of the passport, is elaborated on the page about a manufacturer located outside the European Union.

Where things go wrong in practice

A common situation is the private label relationship: a company has electronics manufactured at an external factory and sells them under its own brand name. Both parties then sometimes assume that "the other" will handle the passport, while ultimately nobody brings the data together. This ambiguity is one of the most common causes of an empty or incomplete passport, and is further explained on the page about private label obligations.

A second situation: a distributor or trader sells electronics on, without realizing that there is also a role for them once certain actions — such as repackaging or adjusting a label — are carried out. What a distributor or trader does and does not need to do is described on the page about the obligations of a distributor or trader.

A third situation arises when selling via a marketplace. The product passport does not change the question of who is a manufacturer or importer, but the visibility of the passport to the consumer runs through the platform. What that concretely means is explained on the page about selling via an online marketplace.

A fourth situation: a company purchases electronics from a supplier in another EU country and resells those products in the Netherlands, assuming that the passport is already complete because the product was already placed on the market in the EU. Whether that is correct depends on who in that chain is identified as the manufacturer or importer — this scenario is elaborated on the page on products resold within the EU.

A fifth, often underestimated situation: an error occurs in the data — for example an incorrect material percentage — after the passport is already live, and no one has recorded who is allowed to correct that or who is accountable for it. This question recurs on the page on liability for incorrect data.

What you can document

• An overview of each product group or each model that is sold, together with who the manufacturer, importer or brand holder is for that specific product.
• A written agreement with the production partner or supplier about who supplies which data for the passport, and at what point in the production process this takes place.
• A contact point within your own organisation that is responsible for keeping passport data current throughout the product's lifetime.
• A procedure for correcting incorrect data, including who may approve a correction and how it is documented.
• Documentation on the origin of material and composition data, so that when a supervisory authority makes an inquiry, it can be shown what the passport is based on.
• An overview of WEEE registration obligations alongside the digital product passport obligation, because these two are separate; see the page on WEEE registration.
• Agreements on spare parts and the period in which they remain available, since this relates to the repair information that can be included in the passport; see the page on the availability of spare parts.