Regulatory reference
EU battery passport
From 18 February 2027 a battery passport is mandatory for electric-vehicle batteries, LMT batteries, industrial batteries and home storage batteries placed on the EU market. Most published summaries describe a passport carrying carbon footprint, responsible sourcing and recycled content from day one. The Commission's own data-point guidance says otherwise, and the difference changes what you should be building this year.
What the passport is, and which law creates it
The battery passport is created by Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 — the Batteries Regulation — at Article 77, with its content set by Annex XIII. It is not an ecodesign delegated act. It is a self-standing obligation in sectoral law that plugs into the shared infrastructure built by the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/1781.
The Commission states the relationship plainly:
"The battery passport is established under the EU Batteries Regulation (2023/1542) and relies on the technical system created by the Ecodesign Regulation (2024/1781)."
That matters practically: the registry, the unique product identifier and the data-carrier standards all come from ESPR, while what must go in the passport comes from the Batteries Regulation.
The dates, with one discrepancy stated rather than hidden
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| 19 July 2026 | ESPR Article 13's legal deadline for the Commission to establish the DPP Registry |
| 20 July 2026 | The date the Commission's own DPP pages give for the registry becoming operational |
| 18 February 2027 | Battery passport becomes mandatory |
Those first two are one day apart and come from different Commission sources — ESPR Article 13 says "by 19 July 2026", while the DPP web pages say 20 July 2026. Nothing turns on it, but it is the kind of small inconsistency worth knowing about before you quote a date to a regulator.
Which batteries are in scope
The Commission lists the categories as electric vehicle batteries, batteries for e-bikes, e-mopeds and e-scooters, home storage batteries and industrial batteries.
The Commission's data-point guidance splits applicability three ways — EV, LMT (light means of transport: the e-bike, e-moped and e-scooter category) and Industrial — and a given data point can be mandatory for one and optional or inapplicable for another. There is no single passport specification covering all batteries; there are three overlapping ones.
A consumer AA cell is out of scope. A home storage battery is in. The dividing lines are drawn by category and, for industrial batteries, by capacity — several of the heavier obligations attach at greater than 2 kWh.
The finding most summaries get wrong
The three data categories that dominate published commentary — carbon footprint, responsible sourcing, recycled content — are the three that are explicitly deferred on 18 February 2027.
The Commission's Guidance Document: Digital Batteries Passport — data points by category (version 2.0, 15 August 2026) lists 71 data points and marks each as mandatory, optional, applicable in specific circumstances, or not required. Against the sustainability rows it says:
| # | Data point | Status at 18 Feb 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| 17 | The carbon footprint declaration | "Not to be filled/displayed as of February 2027 — format still to be specified in the upcoming implementing act" |
| 19 | Responsible sourcing information (Art. 52(3) report) | "Not to be filled/displayed as of February 2027 — as provided in Article 48(1), required from August 2027" |
| 20–23 | Recycled content: cobalt, lithium, nickel, lead | "Not to be filled/displayed as of February 2027 — to be applied in line with Article 8" |
What that does and does not mean. It does not mean the obligations go away — they arrive on their own schedules, which are later. It means the passport on day one is largely an identification and composition document, and the sustainability data switches on as the underlying articles become applicable.
The practical consequence: build your supplier data programme to the 2027–2031 obligations, not to the February 2027 passport fields. A programme scoped to what the passport displays in February will be short by the time the deferred fields turn on, and the data it needs takes longer to collect than the passport takes to populate.
On the "71 data points" figure
The number is real and traceable to that Commission guidance, which numbers its rows 1 to 71. Two caveats worth carrying: the document states it "should not be considered as representative of the European Commission's official position" and does not "extend in any way the rights and obligations deriving from applicable legislation"; and 71 is a Commission consolidation drawn from Annex XIII plus other articles, not a figure that appears in the Regulation itself.
Who is legally responsible
The Commission is unambiguous, and this is the sentence to show anyone who assumes their cell supplier will handle it:
"The obligation to create and maintain the battery passport lies with the economic operator placing the finished battery on the market, rather than suppliers of individual components or modules."
In practice that is the EU manufacturer or the importer. Under the Batteries Regulation an importer is "any natural or legal person established within the Union who places on the market a battery from a third country" — so importing a finished battery makes you the responsible operator, and pointing at the foreign manufacturer does not discharge it.
A third-country manufacturer may appoint an EU authorised representative under written mandate. But that mandate has limits: an authorised representative cannot assume obligations regarding design, manufacturing, technical documentation or due diligence.
Batteries that are remanufactured or repurposed require a new passport with a new responsible operator.
Enforcement: the customs stop
The most concrete consequence is not a fine. It is the border.
ESPR Article 15 requires anyone placing a covered product under the customs procedure "release for free circulation" to provide the unique registration identifier, and provides that customs authorities
"may release a product for free circulation only after having verified as a minimum that the unique registration identifier … corresponds to the data stored in the registry"
No valid registry entry, no release for free circulation. For an importer that is a supply-chain stoppage rather than a penalty, and it does not require a market surveillance authority to notice you first.
On penalties themselves: ESPR Article 74 requires Member State penalties to be "effective, proportionate and dissuasive", and Article 76 allows consumers to claim damages for non-compliance. Specific penalty levels are set nationally. The corresponding penalties provision in the Batteries Regulation is commonly cited by article number in secondary commentary; we could not verify it in the primary text and so do not state it here.
What to do in the five months before February
In the order that the dependencies actually run.
1 · Establish who the responsible operator is, per product line. This sounds administrative and is the step most often skipped. For imported batteries it may not be the entity people assume.
2 · Work out what you can populate from what you already hold. The day-one passport is mostly identification and composition — manufacturer details, battery model, capacity, chemistry, detailed composition of cathode, anode and electrolyte, and critical raw materials present above 0.1% by weight. Much of that exists somewhere in engineering documentation.
3 · Start the supplier data programme for the deferred fields now. Carbon footprint per life-cycle stage, recycled-content chain of custody and due-diligence evidence are the long-lead items, and they reach further up the chain than tier one. That is covered in what suppliers must provide.
4 · Register. The registry stores a minimal
registration record — the unique product identifier and links — while
the detailed passport data is hosted by you or a service provider you designate.
The identifier must be a URL, start with https://, and be at most
2,000 characters.
What not to do: wait for the access-rights implementing act. Several law firms reported during August 2026 that it had not been adopted on schedule. We could not verify that in a primary source, but the Commission's own guidance does say the carbon-footprint format is "still to be specified in the upcoming implementing act" — so at least one act is outstanding, and the February date is not contingent on it.
Common questions about EU battery passport
Does the battery passport apply to batteries already on the market?
The obligation attaches at the point a battery is placed on the market, defined in the Batteries Regulation as "the first making available of a battery on the Union market". Batteries placed on the market before the date are not retrospectively caught. Batteries that are remanufactured or repurposed, however, require a new passport with a new responsible operator.
Is the passport data stored centrally by the EU?
No, and this surprises people. The architecture is deliberately decentralised: the EU registry holds a minimal registration record with the unique identifier, while the detailed passport data is "hosted and maintained by you, the economic operator (or a service provider you designate)". You are responsible for keeping it available and accurate.
Do we need a QR code physically on the battery?
The Commission states the battery passport "will be linked to a battery through a QR code, in line with the requirements set out in the Batteries Regulation", with the standards in Article 77(3). More generally under ESPR a physical data carrier must be attached to the product, its packaging, or accompanying documentation depending on the applicable rules.
Our cell supplier says the data is commercially confidential. Can they charge us for it?
No. Article 39 of the Batteries Regulation obliges suppliers of battery cells and modules to provide the information and documentation necessary to comply with the Regulation, and states that it "shall be provided free of charge". It is a legal obligation on the supplier, not a commercial negotiation.
Does a passport need third-party verification?
Not the passport as a whole, but one input does. The Commission states that "economic operators' battery due diligence policies are verified by a notified body". Whether the carbon footprint value itself requires notified-body verification is something we could not confirm in the primary text, so treat it as open rather than settled.
The data is the hard part, not the passport
Populating a passport is a systems task. Getting plant-level carbon data, chain-of-custody evidence and due-diligence documentation out of suppliers two and three tiers up is a procurement task, and it is the one with the long lead time.
Qeluntra is supplier onboarding and evidence collection software — requesting documents from suppliers, tracking what came back and what did not, and keeping the audit trail. It does not generate passports or file them with the registry.
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This reference is published by Qeluntra, which sells procurement and supplier management software. It is not legal advice, and Qeluntra is not a compliance certifier.