What is the difference between the battery passport and the digital product passport?

What you must do concretely

What is expected of you

The battery passport and the digital product passport are often mentioned in the same breath, but they are two different instruments from two different regulations. The battery passport comes from the Battery Regulation and applies specifically to certain categories of batteries. The digital product passport comes from the ESPR — Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, Article 9 — and is a generic instrument that is filled in product group by product group via delegated acts. For a company that places both batteries and other products on the market, this means there is not one system to comply with, but potentially two alongside each other.

The battery passport follows its own regulation

The Battery Regulation stands apart from the ESPR and has its own scope, its own data requirements and its own timeline. For a company with 10 to 100 employees that imports batteries or incorporates them into devices, this means that the obligations around the battery passport do not automatically align with what will apply to other product groups under the ESPR. Anyone looking only at the ESPR will miss the battery passport; anyone looking only at the Battery Regulation will miss what is going to apply to the rest of the product range.

The ESPR is the framework, not a direct obligation in itself

Article 1 of the ESPR describes the subject matter and scope of the regulation: it is a framework within which requirements are set per product group. The ESPR itself therefore does not impose a passport obligation — that happens via a delegated act per product group. For a company, this means that the question "does the product passport apply to my product" cannot be answered with the ESPR alone; it is necessary to look at which product group has been designated and when. More information on this is available at what a delegated act is and why it determines what must happen.

Two passports can exist side by side for one product

For a product that contains a battery — an e-bike, electric tool, a device with a battery — it is possible that the product itself falls under an ESPR product group and the built-in battery falls under the Battery Regulation. In practice, this means two passports, each with their own dataset, carrier and responsible party, even though everything is in one physical product. A comparable situation — where one product is subject to multiple regulations — is set out at how many digital product passports an e-bike needs and in what it means if a product falls into multiple product groups.

The content of the data differs per system

The digital product passport under the ESPR receives its data requirements per product group, set out in the delegated act for that group. The battery passport has its own set of data, laid down in the Battery Regulation, on the composition, origin and performance of the battery. For a company that must provide both, it is therefore not possible to use one dataset for two passports — the question of which data belongs exactly where can be traced via which data are included in the product passport, with a separate process for battery data alongside it.

Where things go wrong in practice

The battery is treated as an incidental matter. A company focuses on the passport for the main product — the device, the vehicle, the tool — and forgets that the built-in battery entails its own obligation that does not automatically carry over with the product passport of the device.

One dataset is used for two purposes. Data that has been collected for the battery passport is reused without verification for the digital product passport of the end product, although the required data and the underlying regulations are not the same.

The timelines are equated. Because both instruments are called "passport", it is assumed that they become mandatory at the same time. The ESPR obligation for a product group depends on the delegated act for that group — see the order in which product groups are addressed — and that follows its own timeline, separate from the Battery Regulation.

The responsible party is not designated separately. For a composite product containing a battery, it is often assumed that one party (usually the manufacturer of the final product) is responsible for both product passports, whereas the Battery Regulation has its own allocation of responsibility that does not automatically align with that of the final product.

Applicability is being reviewed too early or too late. Companies that are uncertain whether their product falls under either of these regulations sometimes only raise this question when the data carrier needs to be ordered. Checking earlier which regulation applies — via whether the product passport applies to your own product — prevents this from having to be clarified later in the process.

What you can document

• An overview per product of which regulation applies: ESPR, Battery Regulation, or both — with the reason why.
• Per battery-containing product: which party is responsible for the battery passport and which for the product passport of the final product, including justification.
• The dataset provided for the battery passport, separately documented from the dataset for the digital product passport, so that they are not accidentally merged or confused.
• A defined moment at which it is checked again whether the product category of the final product has since received a delegated act, and whether that has implications for planning.
• Correspondence or internal notes on the question of which product category applies, in case clarification is needed later — for example based on which product category fits your own product.
• An internal framework on what the ESPR does and does not directly require, so that new employees do not assume that what changes for SMEs under the ESPR automatically also applies to the batteries in the range.