The role you take on determines who is responsible
The regulation for digital product passports distinguishes between different roles in the chain: the manufacturer, the importer, the authorised representative and the distributor. Each role comes with different obligations. If someone calls themselves a manufacturer while they are in fact importing from a country outside the EU, they may impose obligations on themselves that actually belong to someone else in the chain, or vice versa. The regulation itself states that responsibility flows from the actual situation, not from the name a company gives itself.
What actually happens if that assessment is wrong depends on the situation and will ultimately be judged by the competent supervisory authority or, in case of a dispute, by a court. This article describes what the regulation says about this and where you can check which role applies to your company yourself; it is not an assessment of your own situation, for that we refer you to a lawyer or the supervisory authority.
Why the role in the chain matters
The digital product passport is not a standalone document that someone creates somewhere. The regulation links the obligation to have the passport drawn up, hosted and kept accessible to a specific party in the chain. Usually that is the manufacturer, but for products imported from outside the EU, certain obligations shift to the importer or the authorised representative. A distributor has a different, more limited role again.
That distinction is not meant to be administrative. It determines who is the point of contact when a supervisory authority asks questions, who is responsible for the accuracy of the data in the passport, and who must ensure that the QR data carrier on the product is present and readable. If you are not yet clear on the concepts, you can read the explanation per role at your leisure before making decisions about who in the company will take this on.
What the regulation says about a wrong assessment
The regulation itself does not name a separate chapter titled "consequences of incorrect role determination". What it does say is that obligations are linked to the role that a party actually performs, regardless of what that party calls itself in contracts or on its website. This means that a company that calls itself a distributor but in fact acts as an importer because it is the first party in the EU to place a product from a third country on the market is also treated as an importer for the associated obligations.
The practical consequence is that the obligation to have a product passport drawn up does not disappear because a company assumed that another link in the chain would arrange this. Supervisory authorities look at the actual role during an inspection, not at the assumption a company had about it. What this means in an individual case depends on the circumstances and is for the supervisory authority or, if in doubt beforehand, a lawyer to assess.
Where this goes wrong in practice
In practice, confusion often arises among companies that operate in multiple capacities: a wholesaler that both resells products from European manufacturers and imports from Asia, for example. For one product, that company is a distributor; for another, an importer, and the obligations differ per product line. It also happens that a manufacturer assumes that the software provider that technically hosts the passport is also responsible for the accuracy of the data. That is a misunderstanding: the host handles the technical side, responsibility for the content remains with the party that fulfils the role in the supply chain.
To see how this kind of distinction is made in other companies, it can help to answers to similar questions from other entrepreneurs to review. That does not replace legal advice, but it does give a picture of what companies encounter in practice.
Getting your own role clear
The role that a company has follows from facts: who brings the product to the European market first, who is on the packaging, who has the relationship with the manufacturer outside the EU. Those facts are often already established in existing documentation, such as purchase contracts, customs documents and the CE marking. It is not necessary to figure this out from scratch; it is about combining what is already there.
Anyone wanting to see where their own situation roughly comes out, can get a first indication in a few questions. That is a starting point, not a final decision. For the definitive determination of the role, and the obligations that come with it, the text of the regulation itself and the opinion of a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority remain authoritative. If you want to know where the information on this platform comes from, you can read that via the explanation of our working method.
If you do not yet have a clear picture of your role in the supply chain, a good starting point is the free quick-scan or a careful look in the knowledge base, where the concepts are explained one by one.