The short answer
Once the obligation for your product category actually comes into force, the digital product passport is a condition for placing or keeping a product on the EU market. If the passport is missing, that can mean a product cannot (or no longer) be sold, that market surveillance authorities can intervene, and that business partners such as distributors, retailers and contracting authorities will ask for the passport before doing business with you. Which date will apply precisely for your category of electronics or ICT equipment is not yet fixed; the European Commission is working this out per subcategory in separate delegated acts, with the first expected from 2027 onwards.
This article outlines the main consequences, describing them without assessing how strict or how quickly this will apply to an individual company. What applies to your own products depends on the precise category classification and the date set for it; for that, the official text or a lawyer is the right point of reference.
Why the passport is a condition, not an extra
The regulation ties the passport to placing a product on the market. That is a different type of obligation than, for example, a reporting obligation that you can catch up on afterwards. If a passport is a condition for being allowed to sell, then the problem does not arise only at the time of an inspection, but already at the moment the product goes on the market without a passport. That distinction is the reason this subject is relevant for entrepreneurs, even if there is no concrete enforcement date yet for their subcategory.
What business partners do before a supervisor does
In practice, companies often notice such an obligation first through their own supply chain, not through a supervisor. Large buyers, retail chains and public contracting authorities include passport requirements in their purchasing conditions as soon as those requirements become law, and sometimes even earlier as preparation. An importer who cannot provide a passport at that time runs the risk that an order will be delayed or that a contract will not be renewed, even before there is any official inspection. Anyone who wants to know more about this for their own business relationships will find an explanation in the knowledge base with explanations for each situation.
Supervision and enforcement: what is and is not established
The regulation itself provides that member states designate supervisory authorities and that sanctions are possible for non-compliance. How the Dutch supervisory authority will handle this in practice, with which priorities and which approach, cannot be predicted now and is also not something this article makes a prediction about. What can be said is: the regulation is set up so that the passport is verifiable via the QR data carrier on the product, which means that in practice control is relatively easy to carry out once the obligation takes effect. Fine amounts or concrete enforcement periods are deliberately not mentioned here, because those still need to be determined or published per member state and per delegated act.
What this does not mean
The absence of a passport today does not mean a company is already doing something wrong. For electronics and ICT equipment, no delegated act has been published that makes the obligation concrete; as long as there is none, the obligation simply does not yet apply. The point of this article is not that you should act now out of caution for a date that is not yet fixed, but that it is useful to understand what emerges once that date is in place, so that you are not caught off guard the moment a customer or supervisor asks about it.
What you can do now
The preparation is mainly about having an overview: knowing which data you already have, which data is still missing, and where you will get that data from as soon as it is needed. Building that overview takes little time and saves a lot of time once the obligation for your category becomes concrete. With a few questions you immediately see an indication for your situation, and on the page that shows where our information comes from you can read how we keep that information up to date once a delegated act is published.
If you have doubts about your own position in the supply chain or about which deadline applies to you, then the competent supervisory authority or a lawyer is the right point of contact; we describe the regulations, but do not provide advice on individual situations.
Further reading
Would you like a broader picture before diving into details? Take the free quick-scan or view the most frequently asked questions about the digital product passport to see which topics are relevant for your company.