A data carrier on the product
Usually a QR code. Scanning it resolves a unique product identifier to the passport record — no app required, and it has to stay reachable well after the sale.
ESPR in force · delegated acts landing product group by product group
The Digital Product Passport, explained for PrestaShop
The EU is attaching a structured data record to physical products — reachable by QR code, readable by customers, repairers, recyclers and market surveillance authorities. This site is the reference for PrestaShop merchants: which of your products are affected, what data you have to collect, when each deadline actually lands, and where that data lives in your store.
Sourced from EUR-Lex & the European Commission
PrestaShop 1.7.7 → 9.x
Every claim dated and cited
Updated as delegated acts land
What a Digital Product Passport actually is
Not a label, and not a certificate. A structured, machine-readable data record tied to a specific product and reachable from a data carrier on it.
A defined set of fields
Durability, repairability, recycled content, substances of concern, carbon footprint. The exact list is fixed per product group by a delegated act — not chosen by the seller.
Different views per audience
Consumers, repairers, recyclers and authorities each get the slice relevant to them. Some fields are public; others are restricted to specific actors.
Longer read: What is a Digital Product Passport? · Which data fields are required
The question merchants ask first
Does this land on me, or on my supplier?
The passport obligation sits with whoever places the product on the EU market. If you resell goods a manufacturer or importer already placed on the market, the record is largely their job — but your duties are not zero.
It flips if you import from outside the EU yourself, sell under your own brand, or modify a product substantially. Then you are on the hook for the whole record.
- Reselling EU-sourced goods → verify the passport exists and stays reachable
- Importing into the EU → you carry manufacturer-equivalent obligations
- Own-brand or white label → you are treated as the manufacturer
- Selling remotely into the EU → the passport must be reachable before purchase
The distance-selling clause merchants miss
Where a product is offered for sale online, the consumer-facing passport information has to be accessible before the customer buys — not printed on a box that arrives three days later.
In practice the passport, or a link to it, belongs on the product page. That is a storefront problem, which is how it becomes your problem even when you did not author the data.
Find your product group
The DPP does not arrive everywhere at once. Each product group gets its own delegated act, its own data fields and its own date. Start from what you sell.
Batteries
The only product group with a binding passport date already set. LMT, EV and industrial batteries above 2 kWh, from 18 February 2027.
In force · deadline 18 Feb 2027
Textiles & apparel
First named priority under ESPR, and already subject to the unsold-goods destruction ban that took effect in July 2026.
Delegated act indicative 2027
Tyres
A priority group with an indicative 2027 act, and one that already carries mandatory EU labelling.
Delegated act indicative 2027
Electronics & appliances
Not one group but many. Electronics come in through energy-related products and horizontal rules, on a schedule running from 2026 to 2030.
Staggered 2026 → 2030
Then work out where the data lives in PrestaShop
A passport is a data problem before it is a compliance problem. PrestaShop gives you several places to put it, each with real trade-offs.
Product features & attributes
Native, no code, visible in the back office. Fine for a dozen fields on a small catalogue; painful past that, and weakly typed.
A dedicated module with its own tables
Proper schema, validation, bulk import, versioning and a public passport route. The realistic answer for a catalogue of any size.
An external DPP service
The record lives with a provider; PrestaShop stores an identifier and renders a link. Less control, but identifier resolution stops being your problem.
The dates that matter
Abridged. The full map, with a source for every entry, is on the deadlines page.
- 18 July 2024 ESPR — Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 — enters into force. The framework that creates the Digital Product Passport. It repeals the old Ecodesign Directive from the same date, though parts of the Directive survive for 19 named product groups until 31 December 2026.
- 16 April 2025 First ESPR working plan adopted (COM(2025) 187), covering 2025–2030 with a mid-term review in 2028. It names the priority product groups — and drops several that the ESPR framework had listed as candidates.
- 27 May 2026 The first six European standards for the Digital Product Passport are published by CEN/CLC/JTC 24 — covering data exchange, unique identifiers, data carriers, storage and persistence, lifecycle APIs and system interoperability. EN 18219 and EN 18220 are the ones that decide what your QR code and identifier scheme have to look like.
- 19 July 2026 The ESPR ban on destroying unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear takes effect for large enterprises, together with the annual public disclosure duty for discarded unsold goods. Micro and small enterprises are out of scope; medium-sized enterprises follow on 19 July 2030. This is currently the most immediately enforceable ESPR obligation for a clothing retailer — and it is not a passport obligation at all.
- 20 July 2026 The EU Digital Product Passport Registry goes live, with a testing environment, a free semantic repository of machine-readable data models, API and UI registration, and a helpdesk. Note carefully: this was the Commission's deadline to build the registry, not a date by which anyone must register a product.
- 18 February 2027 The battery passport becomes mandatory. Every LMT battery, every industrial battery above 2 kWh and every electric vehicle battery placed on the market must carry an electronic record reachable via a QR code. Battery removability rules and the QR requirement on all batteries start the same day. This is the first hard DPP deadline for most merchants.
- During 2027 Textiles and apparel, tyres, aluminium and the horizontal repairability requirements are all indicatively scheduled for their delegated acts. Adoption of the act is not the compliance date — obligations typically follow around 18 months later.
Common questions
Do I need a Digital Product Passport for everything I sell?
No. The DPP applies product group by product group, each brought in by its own delegated act with its own data requirements and its own date. Batteries came first, through separate legislation. Most other groups follow under ESPR. Check your product group — many catalogues turn out to have only a slice in scope.
I only resell. Isn't the passport the manufacturer's job?
Mostly, yes — the obligation to create the passport sits with whoever places the product on the EU market. But you still have to verify a passport exists, avoid selling products where it is missing, and make the consumer-facing information reachable on your product page before purchase. And if you import from outside the EU yourself, or sell under your own brand, you are treated as the manufacturer and the whole record is yours. See who carries the obligation.
What actually goes in a passport?
A unique product identifier, information about the economic operators involved, and then a set of product-specific fields fixed by the delegated act for that group — typically covering durability, repairability, recycled content, substances of concern and environmental footprint. The exact list is not chosen by the seller. See required data fields.
Does it have to be a QR code?
The law says a data carrier linked to a unique product identifier, not specifically a QR code. In practice QR is what almost everyone uses, because it is cheap to print and every phone reads it without an app. Other carriers such as NFC tags are permitted where they suit the product better. See QR codes and data carriers.
Can I store passport data in PrestaShop product features?
For a small catalogue with a handful of fields, yes, and it needs no code. It stops working well once you need typed values, validation, per-value provenance, versioning, or bulk import — features are free-text and carry no metadata about where a value came from. Most catalogues of any size end up with a custom entity instead. See the PrestaShop guides.
How long does the passport have to stay online?
Longer than most merchants keep a URL structure stable — the record must remain reachable for a defined period after the product is placed on the market, which outlasts the product being listed in your store. Design the passport URL so that discontinuing or deleting a product does not break it.
What happens if we get it wrong?
Enforcement runs through national market surveillance authorities, and penalties are set by member states, so they vary. The practical risks arrive earlier than fines: products blocked at customs, a marketplace delisting a non-compliant listing, or a B2B customer requiring passport data you cannot produce. Inaccurate data is worse than absent data, because it is a documented public misstatement anyone can check.
Is there an official EU system we plug into?
ESPR provides for a Commission-run registry and a public web portal for searching and comparing passport data, so passports are not purely a private affair. But the passport data itself stays with the economic operator, not in a central EU database — you are responsible for hosting and serving your own records. See the deadline map for where the supporting infrastructure stands.
Work out your exposure before the delegated acts land
The data collection is the slow part — chasing suppliers for recycled content and substance declarations takes months, not weeks. The readiness checklist walks your catalogue group by group.