Which Battery Passport Data Is Public, Restricted or Limited to Legitimate-Interest Users?

What is the Battery Passport and when does it apply?

From 18 February 2027, each:

• light means of transport (LMT) battery
• industrial battery with a capacity greater than 2 kWh
• electric-vehicle (EV) battery

placed on the EU market or put into service must have an electronic battery passport.¹

The passport combines information relating to the battery model with information specific to the individual battery, including information resulting from its use. That hybrid model is central to understanding access rights because different information territories have different users and different reasons for access.¹

The Battery Passport is accessed through a QR code linked to a unique identifier. The QR code is the data carrier. It is not the passport itself, and the unique identifier is not automatically synonymous with a GTIN.¹

Why is not all Battery Passport information public?

The Battery Passport has to serve several different jobs at once.

A consumer may need product identity, manufacturer, chemistry, capacity, durability and end-of-life information. A market-surveillance authority may need conformity evidence. A repairer or remanufacturer may need detailed dismantling, safety and component information. A purchaser or energy-market participant may need individual-battery performance information for a specific permitted purpose.

The Regulation therefore does not treat every data point as if it belongs to the same audience.

Article 77(2) expressly separates access into three routes:

1. information accessible to the general public
2. information accessible to notified bodies, market-surveillance authorities and the Commission
3. information accessible to natural or legal persons with a legitimate interest, for purposes specified by the Regulation.¹

Article 78 then requires access to be provided free of charge in accordance with those access rights and controls who can introduce, modify or update information.¹

The consequence is important for product-data design:

A piece of information can be required in the Battery Passport without being public to every person who scans the carrier.

"Required in the passport" and "publicly visible" are different questions.

The Battery Passport access model

The table below is an original explanatory matrix of the adopted legal architecture. It does not reproduce Annex XIII verbatim.

The matrix is a passport-access map, not a statement that other EU or national laws could never give a competent authority separate investigative or information-gathering powers.

What Battery Passport information is public?

Annex XIII point 1 is the public information territory. It combines information directly listed in Annex XIII with information incorporated by reference from other provisions of the Batteries Regulation.¹

Public territories include, where applicable, information such as:

• manufacturer and battery identification information
• battery category and identifying characteristics
• place of manufacture
• month and year of manufacture
• battery weight
• battery capacity
• battery chemistry
• specified hazardous-substance information
• critical raw materials above the relevant threshold
• carbon-footprint information where the underlying Article 7 requirements apply
• the responsible-sourcing report where the underlying duty applies
• recycled-content information where Article 8 applies
• renewable-content information
• rated capacity, voltage and power information
• expected battery lifetime and cycle information
• relevant warranty, efficiency and resistance information
• required marking information
• the EU declaration of conformity
• waste-prevention and waste-management information.¹³

The important qualifier is where applicable. Article 77 says the information is included only to the extent applicable to the battery category or subcategory concerned.¹

That prevents two opposite errors:

• treating a conditional public requirement as if it were optional when its trigger is met
• inventing or forcing a value into a field where the requirement does not apply.

What can a consumer see?

A consumer scanning a covered Battery Passport should be able to access the information placed in the public class for that battery, subject to the applicable requirements and timing.¹

That does not mean the consumer receives the complete backend evidence repository, the compliance test reports, detailed dismantling information or every item of lifecycle telemetry.

Public passport data and the evidence used to substantiate those data are not necessarily the same object.

What information is restricted under Annex XIII point 2?

Annex XIII point 2 contains model-level information that is not part of the general-public tier. It includes territories such as:

• more detailed battery composition information, including cathode, anode and electrolyte composition
• part numbers for components and contact details for sources of replacement spares
• dismantling information, including sequences, fasteners and tools
• safety measures.¹

The actor logic here requires care.

Regulatory actors

Article 77(2)(b) gives notified bodies, market-surveillance authorities and the Commission access in accordance with Annex XIII points 2 and 3.¹

So point 2 is not simply a "repairer data" bucket. It is also part of the specified regulatory-access architecture.

Legitimate-interest actors

Article 77(2)(c) also provides a route for natural or legal persons with a legitimate interest to access information in accordance with Annex XIII points 2 and 4, for the purposes specified in Article 77.¹

That overlap is important. The same information territory can be available to different actor classes under different legal routes.

What can notified bodies, market-surveillance authorities and the Commission see?

Within the Battery Passport access architecture, Article 77(2)(b) specifically routes these actors to Annex XIII points 2 and 3.¹

Point 2 contains the detailed model information described above.

Point 3 contains results of test reports proving compliance with the requirements of the Batteries Regulation.¹

That gives the specified regulatory/conformity actors a deeper view than the general public.

It should not be paraphrased as "regulators can see everything". Article 77 creates defined passport access classes. Other powers may exist elsewhere in law, but those should not be invented or collapsed into this page's Battery Passport access matrix.

What does "legitimate interest" mean in the Battery Passport?

It does not mean that any company with a commercial interest can simply claim access to restricted Battery Passport information.

The Regulation establishes a narrower architecture.

Article 77(2) links legitimate-interest access to defined purposes. These include access to information necessary for activities around dismantling and safety for actors such as:

• repairers
• remanufacturers
• second-life operators
• recyclers.¹

It also covers individual-battery information needed by a purchaser, or parties acting on the purchaser's behalf, for making the battery available to:

• independent energy aggregators
• energy-market participants.¹

But those examples do not by themselves complete the operational entitlement test.

Article 77(9) requires a further implementing act to specify:

• which persons are to be considered persons with a legitimate interest
• which information in Annex XIII points 2 and 4 they may access
• under what conditions, and to what extent, they may download, share, publish or reuse that information.¹

The implementing act must take account of criteria including the need to access information to assess residual value and capability for further use and the need to access information to prepare batteries for reuse, repurposing, remanufacturing or recycling. It must also ensure that commercially sensitive information is limited to what is strictly necessary.¹

So the correct public explanation is:

The Batteries Regulation establishes a legitimate-interest access route and its purposes, but "legitimate interest" is not a self-certifying universal permission. The detailed qualification and information-use rules remain dependent on the Article 77(9) implementing act.

Can repairers, remanufacturers, second-life operators and recyclers access more information?

The Regulation is designed to provide a legitimate-interest route for information needed for those downstream activities, but the detailed access rules are not yet final as of 1 September 2026.¹²

It is safe to say that Article 77 expressly identifies these activities and actors in explaining the purpose of legitimate-interest access.

It is not safe, before the Article 77(9) implementing act is adopted, to invent:

• a universal authentication method
• a fixed credential that proves legitimate interest
• an unrestricted right to all Annex XIII point 2 or point 4 information
• a right to republish commercially sensitive information
• a single entitlement rule that applies identically to every downstream actor.

The system therefore needs enough flexibility to implement the final entitlement rules without re-architecting the underlying data model.

What individual-battery information is restricted?

Annex XIII point 4 contains information linked to the individual battery and its lifecycle rather than merely the static battery model.¹

It covers information territories including:

• performance and durability parameters
• state of health
• battery status, such as original, repurposed, reused, remanufactured or waste
• charging and discharging-cycle information where applicable
• negative events such as accidents where applicable
• periodically recorded operating-environment information, including temperature where applicable
• state of charge where applicable.¹³

This is the clearest reason a Battery Passport access architecture should not be designed as a public PDF or a single static page.

Some of the most useful circularity and second-life data are dynamic, serialised and permission-sensitive.

Article 77(9): has the access-rights implementation issue been resolved?

No. As of 1 September 2026, the issue remains implementation-pending.

The adopted Regulation says the Commission shall adopt the Article 77(9) implementing act by 18 August 2026.¹

That date has passed.

The Commission's current Digital Product Passport roadmap, however, lists the Implementing Act for Batteries (Access Rights) for Q4 2026.²

The frozen ActivateDigital Battery evidence already preserved this conflict rather than treating the statutory deadline as proof that the act existed. Current verification therefore confirms the frozen position rather than overturning it.

The practical status on 1 September 2026 is:

This is not a reason to delay data preparation. It is a reason to separate data readiness from permission-policy finalisation.

Are detailed supply-chain or commercially sensitive data public?

Do not assume that the phrase "Battery Passport" means every commercially sensitive fact becomes public.

The Regulation itself separates access classes, and Article 77(9) specifically requires the implementing rules to ensure that commercially sensitive information available to legitimate-interest users is limited to the minimum necessary.¹

At the same time, some information a company may consider operationally sensitive is expressly placed in the public territory by adopted law. For example, Annex XIII incorporates manufacturer and manufacturing information, including the place of manufacture, into the public model-information layer.¹

So the correct test is not:

Is this commercially sensitive to us?

It is:

Which legal information class does this fact belong to, does the underlying requirement apply and which access route does the Regulation assign to it?

That is why permission logic has to be driven by the legal classification of each information territory, not by a blanket "public" or "private" label applied to the whole passport.

Can competitors see Battery Passport data?

A competitor can see public Battery Passport information in the same way as another member of the public.

The Regulation does not create a general rule saying that a competitor, merely because it competes in the same market, is entitled to restricted Annex XIII point 2 or point 4 data.¹

Whether a particular natural or legal person qualifies for legitimate-interest access, which restricted information that person can access and what they may do with it are precisely the matters Article 77(9) requires the implementing act to specify.¹

So "competitors can see everything in your Battery Passport" is not an accurate description of the adopted access model.

What role does the EU DPP Registry play in Battery access?

The Registry should not be confused with the complete Battery Passport or with a central database containing every passport field.

The EU Digital Product Passport Registry became operational on 20 July 2026. The Commission describes the DPP architecture as decentralised: complete product information is maintained by the responsible economic operator or a Digital Product Passport service provider, while the Registry stores unique identifiers and mandatory registration information needed for the system's registration, discovery and enforcement functions.²⁴⁵

For batteries, Article 77 also requires the unique identifier to be uploaded to the Registry.¹

That distinction matters for access design:

• Registry access is not the same thing as access to all passport content
• the data carrier is not the Registry
• the passport data store is not automatically the Registry
• the access rules in Article 77 and Annex XIII still govern the relevant Battery Passport information classes.¹²

For the wider architecture, see EU DPP Registry: Where Passport Data Actually Lives.

What should Battery Passport implementation teams build now?

The legal architecture supports a clear implementation principle:

Separate the information model from the permission model.

1. Classify data at field or information-territory level

For each relevant Battery Passport data point, retain metadata such as:

• legal basis
• battery category
• model or individual-battery level
• applicable / conditional / not applicable status
• public / regulatory / legitimate-interest access class
• lifecycle update requirement
• provenance and evidence source.

The Commission's 71-point guidance is useful for organising this work, but it does not itself create 71 new legal obligations. See What Are the 71 Battery Passport Data Points, and Which Are Actually Required?.

2. Do not publish the backend evidence store

A passport value may be public while its supporting evidence, test material or internal provenance is governed separately.

For example, Annex XIII point 3 specifically treats compliance test-report results as a restricted information class.¹

3. Build explicit role and purpose controls

Your architecture should be able to distinguish at least:

• public access
• the notified-body / market-surveillance / Commission route established by Article 77
• legitimate-interest access once the detailed rules are final
• data-maintenance rights under Article 78.¹

Do not invent additional legal actor classes merely because they are technically convenient.

4. Keep legitimate-interest policy configurable

The final Article 77(9) act may define qualification, access scope and information-use conditions more precisely. Those rules should be capable of changing without changing the underlying battery data itself.

5. Govern dynamic lifecycle data separately

Annex XIII point 4 is serialised, individual-battery information. It needs identity, update history, provenance and permission controls that a model-level public page alone cannot provide.¹

6. Keep Registry integration separate from content permissions

Registering the required identifiers does not mean putting the full passport dataset into a central EU database.²⁴⁵

What businesses should not assume

"Everything in the Battery Passport will be public"

Incorrect. The Regulation expressly creates different access routes.¹

"Restricted means the data is optional"

Incorrect. Access classification and whether information is legally required are separate questions.

"Legitimate interest means any B2B customer can request everything"

Not established. Article 77 defines purposes and requires an implementing act to determine qualifying persons, information scope and use rights.¹

"Repairers automatically get every restricted field"

Too strong as of 1 September 2026. The Regulation recognises repair, remanufacture, second-life and recycling purposes, but the Article 77(9) implementation detail remains pending.¹²

"Regulators simply have access to every data point through Article 77"

Too broad. The Battery Passport provision expressly routes notified bodies, market-surveillance authorities and the Commission to Annex XIII points 2 and 3. Other legal powers should be analysed separately rather than inferred.¹

"The EU Registry contains the complete Battery Passport"

Incorrect. The Commission describes a decentralised system in which the Registry stores identifiers and mandatory registration data while complete product information remains with the responsible economic operator or service provider.²⁴⁵

Direct questions

Is all Battery Passport data public?

No. Annex XIII separates public model information from restricted model information, test-report results and individual-battery lifecycle information.¹

What can consumers see?

Consumers can access the public information class in Annex XIII point 1 for the relevant battery, subject to category, applicability and timing conditions.¹

What can regulators see?

Within Article 77's passport-access architecture, notified bodies, market-surveillance authorities and the Commission receive access in accordance with Annex XIII points 2 and 3.¹

What is legitimate-interest access?

It is a legally established route for specified purposes to restricted information in Annex XIII points 2 and 4. It is not a universal commercial permission. Detailed qualification and reuse rules still depend on the Article 77(9) implementing act.¹

Can recyclers access more information than the public?

The Regulation expressly recognises recycling, repair, remanufacturing and second-life purposes within the legitimate-interest architecture. The detailed entitlement rules remain implementation-pending as of 1 September 2026.¹²

Can competitors see detailed composition and lifecycle data?

They can see public information like anyone else. The Regulation does not give competitors a blanket entitlement to restricted data merely because they compete in the market. Any legitimate-interest claim must fit the legal route and the final Article 77(9) rules.¹

Are the Battery Passport access rules final?

The core access classes are adopted law. The detailed Article 77(9) rules for legitimate-interest qualification, information scope and downloading/sharing/publishing/reuse are not yet established as adopted as of 1 September 2026.¹²

Related ActivateDigital resources

For the wider category requirement, see Battery Digital Product Passport Requirements.

For the cross-category rule that access is not universally public, see Who Can See What in a Digital Product Passport?.

For the 71-point implementation map and which rows are actually applicable, see What Are the 71 Battery Passport Data Points, and Which Are Actually Required?.

For how ActivateDigital separates adopted law, official guidance and implementation-pending material, see How ActivateDigital Determines DPP Regulatory Status and Uses Sources.

Sources and legal basis

• Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries, current consolidated text checked 1 September 2026. Articles 77 and 78; Annex XIII; Annex VI Part A. EUR-Lex

  View official source

• European Commission, Digital Product Passport, current implementation timeline checked 1 September 2026. Shows Battery Access Rights Implementing Act in Q4 2026 and the Battery Passport milestone on 18 February 2027.

  View official source

• European Commission, Guidance Document: Digital Batteries Passport – data points by category, version 2.0, 15 August 2026. Used to cross-check public/restricted data-point organisation and applicability by battery category.

  View official source

• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1778 of 16 July 2026, laying down rules for the Digital Product Passport Registry. EUR-Lex

  View official source

• European Commission, Digital Product Passport – Batteries, checked 1 September 2026. Describes the decentralised architecture, Battery Passport scope and Registry status.

  View official source