Digital Product Passport Timeline: What Applies When?

The date types that matter

This matters most for developing categories such as textiles, tyres, iron and steel and aluminium. A planned delegated-act date tells you when a regulatory decision may be made. It doesn't by itself tell you when businesses must comply.

What this timeline does not track

This timeline covers Digital Product Passport dates, not every EU product rule that can affect the same product before its DPP arrives. For current packaging, claims, unsold-stock, repair, EUDR and producer-responsibility actions, use the EU Product Regulation Action Radar.

The same applies outside DPP: an implementing-act deadline isn't automatically the business application date, and an indicative work-plan date isn't an obligation. Products with no passport regime have no row here: see why food supplements carry no DPP date.

Two adjacent digital-carrier rules matter while a category DPP is still pending: why PPWR can share a carrier with product information without becoming a packaging DPP and when CRMA magnet information must reuse another Union product passport.

The cross-category DPP timeline

Every date in this table is also in the DPP obligations dataset as CSV and JSON. The scope of each product category is set out further down this page.

Vehicle DCVP milestones

The vehicle-passport regime has its own legal clock under Regulation (EU) 2026/1738:

• 13 August 2026: Regulation (EU) 2026/1738 entered into force.
• 14 September 2026: the Commission's Article 13(6) implementing-act provision applies from this date. This is a technical implementation trigger, not the start of the vehicle DCVP duty.
• 14 August 2030: deadline for the Commission to adopt the Article 13(6) DCVP technical implementing acts.
• 1 September 2032: DCVP obligation begins for vehicles within Article 13 scope.

The core vehicle audience is ordinary in-scope M1 passenger cars and N1 light commercial vehicles, not every vehicle class. See EU Digital Circularity Vehicle Passport (DCVP): What Changes for Cars and Vans from 2032?

Which products each date reaches

Each category's scope, as its own page states it. Nine of the eleven carry at least one date of their own. Food supplements and ICT and electronics carry none, and that is the answer for them rather than a gap.

• Batteries. Light means of transport batteries, industrial batteries above 2 kWh and electric-vehicle batteries placed on the EU market or put into service. Everything on batteries
• Detergents. Detergents and end-user surfactants placed on the Union market, rather than every surfactant upstream of them. Everything on detergents
• Toys. Products designed or intended for use in play by children under 14, subject to the exclusions in Annex I to the Toy Safety Regulation. Everything on toys
• Iron and steel. Not drawn yet. The Working Plan treats iron and steel as an intermediate-product priority rather than as one final consumer-product category. Everything on iron and steel
• Construction products. Products within the scope the Construction Products Regulation sets in Article 2, less those exempt under Article 14. Everything on construction products
• Aluminium. Not drawn yet. The Working Plan prioritises aluminium as an intermediate-product category, which is not the same as every product containing aluminium. Everything on aluminium
• Tyres. C1 tyres for passenger cars, C2 for light commercial vehicles and C3 for heavy-duty vehicles under existing tyre information law, which is not a future passport scope. Everything on tyres
• Textiles and apparel. Not drawn yet. Textiles and apparel are a priority group and the adopted measure will set the legal product scope. Everything on textiles and apparel
• Food supplements. Ordinary food supplements marketed as food, which sit outside the ESPR. A product presented or functioning as a medicinal product is a different classification question. No dated obligation is stated for this category. That is not the same as none existing, and it is not a reason to wait. Everything on food supplements
• Footwear. Footwear, which the Working Plan treats as a separate product category from textiles and apparel. Everything on footwear
• ICT and electronics. No single group. ICT and electronics reach the Working Plan through horizontal repairability work and horizontal recycled-content and recyclability work for electrical and electronic equipment. No dated obligation is stated for this category. That is not the same as none existing, and it is not a reason to wait. Everything on ICT and electronics

What this page will not do. It will not add the framework's minimum transition period to an indicative adoption date and publish the answer as a deadline. The minimum runs from entry into force. An act nobody has adopted has no entry into force, and the provision that sets the minimum allows less than it in duly justified cases. A category with nothing dated says so.

Is there one DPP deadline?

No.

The phrase “the DPP deadline” is usually too imprecise to be useful.

The first major adopted product deadline in the current cross-category set is 18 February 2027 for the covered battery categories. It isn't the deadline for textiles, toys, detergents, construction products or every product regulated under ESPR.

A category can also have an adopted passport regime years before its application date. Detergents and toys both have adopted passport architectures, with general application dates of 23 September 2029 and 1 August 2030 respectively.³⁴

When do Battery Passports apply?

For the batteries covered by Article 77 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, the Battery Passport applies from 18 February 2027.²

The covered groups are:

• light means of transport batteries
• industrial batteries with a capacity greater than 2 kWh
• electric-vehicle batteries.

It's a legally fixed passport application date, not an indicative planning date.

The Battery regime still has implementation work around it: Article 77(9) required detailed rules for people with a legitimate interest. The statutory date for that implementing act was 18 August 2026. The Commission's current implementation roadmap instead places the access-rights implementing act in Q4 2026. That delay should be shown, not hidden by rewriting one date into the other.²⁶

See Who Can See What in a Digital Product Passport? for the access architecture.

What does the textile Q4 2027 date mean?

It means the Commission currently plans to adopt the textile ESPR delegated act in Q4 2027.⁷

It does not mean:

• every textile business must have a DPP by 1 January 2028
• the final textile DPP fields are already known
• factory data is already a mandatory textile DPP field
• carbon or recycled content are already legally fixed DPP fields
• textile passports are already known to be item-level.

The May 2026 JRC study is preparatory evidence on possible information and architecture. It isn't the final delegated act.⁸

A future adopted textile act will need to be read for its own entry-into-force and application provisions before a legal compliance date can be stated.

Two Commission pages, two textile quarters

As checked on 24 September 2026, the Commission's dedicated textile and apparel DPP page gives Q4 2027 as the planned adoption timing for the textile ESPR measure. The Commission's general DPP roadmap gives the broader window Q3-Q4 2027 for textiles, aluminium and tyres.

Neither date is a textile DPP application date. Both are official planning signals and the Commission says implementation timelines may evolve.

The public position stays:

2027 - planned adoption, indicative. The dedicated textile page currently says Q4 2027; the general roadmap currently says Q3-Q4 2027. Neither is an application date.

The May 2026 JRC/Product Bureau work on textile DPP content is preparatory evidence, not the product-specific delegated act, and it doesn't fix the final textile passport field list or application date.

For the live textile position, see Textile Digital Product Passport status.

Do not calculate a deadline the act has not set

Where the act does not yet exist, an application date can't be produced by adding eighteen months to an indicative adoption window. Article 4 of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation sets a normal minimum transition measured from entry into force, subject to the exceptions in Article 4(4). Entry into force is itself a separate event from adoption. The act sets its own application provisions.

For what each of those stages means, see how a planned rule becomes applicable.

When do detergent DPP rules apply?

Regulation (EU) 2026/405 creates an adopted DPP for detergents and end-user surfactants. The Regulation generally applies from 23 September 2029.³

The passport is model-level by default. Technical details, including detailed access allocation and carrier rules, remain subject to implementing action.

So the core obligation can be adopted while implementation detail is still pending.

When do Toy DPP rules apply?

The Toy Safety Regulation creates an adopted model-level DPP applying from 1 August 2030.⁴

The law already establishes the minimum DPP information architecture. Detailed technical and access rules can still be supplemented before application.

A separate watch milestone is Commission SME guidance, which the Regulation requires no later than 1 August 2029. That is a guidance deadline, not the Toy DPP application date.

Legacy-compliant toys placed on the market before 1 August 2030 can continue to be made available under the transition rules. Relevant EC type-examination certificates can also remain valid until 1 February 2031 unless they expire earlier.

What is happening with iron and steel?

Iron and steel is the nearest major ESPR product-specific act on the current Commission roadmap.

The Commission currently indicates Q4 2026 for adoption of the delegated act and expressly describes the timetable as indicative.⁹

Official material discusses possible areas such as product identity and classification, technical and material information, circularity and recycled content, sustainability and compliance/traceability. The exact information requirements are left to the delegated act.

The correct public wording:

The Commission currently plans the iron and steel delegated act for Q4 2026. The exact DPP requirements and application timing are not final until the act is adopted.

What dates matter for tyres and aluminium?

Both are on the 2027 ESPR product-measure track.⁵⁶

For tyres, existing EU tyre-label and product-database rules already structure substantial product information. That is adjacent law. Don't convert it into a final tyre DPP dataset before the product-specific act is adopted.

For aluminium, 2027 is the current regulatory-development track, not a single fixed compliance date.

For future ESPR categories, label the type of date before using it.

The 2026 evidence shows preparatory work ongoing for iron and steel, textiles and tyres, while aluminium, furniture, mattresses and ICT were recorded as not yet started at that report state. Commission planning points such as Q2 2027 for construction work or 2028/2029 for furniture and mattresses should stay labelled as planning or indicative adoption milestones, not compliance dates.

When did the EU DPP Registry become operational?

The Registry became operational on 20 July 2026.¹⁰

It's a horizontal infrastructure milestone: the EU registration layer exists before the first major Battery Passport application date.

It does not mean the Registry stores the full content of every passport. The Commission describes the wider architecture as decentralised, while the Registry stores identifiers and the mandatory registration data required for regulatory functions.¹⁰¹¹

See EU DPP Registry: Where Passport Data Actually Lives.

What is happening with DPP standards?

Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736 referenced six harmonised DPP standards in July 2026. They cover:

• data exchange protocols
• unique identifiers
• data carriers
• data storage, archiving and persistence
• APIs for passport lifecycle management and searchability
• system interoperability.¹²

The Commission's current roadmap indicates an implementing decision on the remaining two standards in September 2026.⁶

As at the last verification on 1 September 2026, this remained an upcoming current-month event rather than an adopted additional decision identified in the evidence pass.

For what is adopted, indicative or not yet established on each standard, see the DPP status pages.

Which future events should businesses monitor?

The highest-value triggers aren't every consultation date but events capable of changing a real implementation decision.

Near-term

• remaining DPP standards decision, currently indicated for September 2026
• Battery access-rights implementing act, currently indicated for Q4 2026
• iron and steel delegated act, currently indicated for Q4 2026.

2027

• Battery Passport application on 18 February 2027
• construction DPP-system delegated act
• DPP service-provider delegated rules
• textile, tyre and aluminium delegated acts
• footwear study outcome.

Later adopted dates

• detergent/surfactant Regulation generally applying 23 September 2029
• Toy Safety Regulation applying 1 August 2030.

For what to organise before those events, see What Product Data Should Businesses Prepare Now for Digital Product Passports?.

Before any of them arrives, you can work out which of these dates your data is ready for by checking what your own record can already support, which is a data check rather than a compliance statement.

Direct answers

Is 2027 the universal DPP deadline?

No. It includes the Battery Passport application date and several planned regulatory milestones, but different categories follow different laws and dates.

Is Q4 2027 the textile DPP deadline?

No. It is the Commission's current indicative timing for adoption of the textile delegated act.

Does a delegated act apply on the day it is planned or adopted?

Not necessarily. The adopted act must be read for its entry into force, transition and application provisions.

What is the first major fixed DPP application date?

In the current cross-category set, 18 February 2027 for the covered battery categories.

What does “indicative” mean?

An official planning date that can move as legislative or technical work progresses.

Primary sources

• Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR), especially Articles 9–13 and Annex III
  EU law
• Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries, Articles 77–78 and Annex XIII
  EU law
• Regulation (EU) 2026/405 on detergents and surfactants, Articles 21–25 and 37
  EU law
• Regulation (EU) 2025/2509 on toy safety, Articles 19–23, 49 and 59
  EU law
• ESPR and Energy Labelling Working Plan 2025–2030, COM(2025) 187 final
  Official guidance
• European Commission, Digital Product Passport implementation timeline
  European Commission
• European Commission, Textile apparel and the Digital Product Passport
  European Commission
• JRC/Product Bureau, Study in support of the Digital Product Passport for textiles, May 2026
  Official study
• European Commission, Digital Product Passport for Iron & Steel
  European Commission
• European Commission, The Digital Product Passport Registry is now live, 20 July 2026
  European Commission
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1778 on the DPP Registry
  Delegated or implementing act
• Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736 on harmonised DPP standards:
  Delegated or implementing act

This resource explains regulatory status and timing. It is not personalised legal advice.