ESPR explained: the regulation behind the Digital Product Passport
ESPR is a framework. It creates almost no direct product obligations by itself — everything real arrives through delegated acts. Understanding that structure explains why nobody can tell you your requirements yet.
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation — Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 — entered into force on 18 July 2024. It replaces the 2009 Ecodesign Directive and dramatically widens its scope: where the Directive covered energy-related products, ESPR covers essentially any physical good placed on the EU market, including components and intermediate products.
Why "framework" is the important word
ESPR sets out machinery, not requirements. It defines what a Digital Product Passport is, what parameters can be regulated, who bears which obligations, and how enforcement works. It does not, by itself, tell any manufacturer what their product must achieve.
That comes from delegated acts — secondary legislation the Commission adopts per product group, setting the actual performance and information requirements. Until a delegated act covers your product, ESPR imposes almost nothing on it directly.
This is why the honest answer to "what does my DPP need to contain" is currently "nobody knows for your product", and why that answer is not evasive.
Two exceptions worth knowing. ESPR does contain directly applicable obligations. The unsold-goods regime in Chapter VI applies without any delegated act — and its destruction ban took effect on 19 July 2026. The economic operator duties in Chapter VII also apply directly, though they only bite for products a delegated act covers.
The messy repeal
ESPR repealed the Ecodesign Directive from the day it entered into force, but with long carve-outs that matter if you sell appliances.
- Nineteen named product groups continue under the old Directive until 31 December 2026 — including photovoltaic panels, vacuum cleaners, cooking appliances, computers, servers and data storage, imaging equipment, water and space heaters, air conditioners and ventilation units.
- Products under existing implementing measures can continue until 31 December 2030 where amendments are needed for technical reasons.
- A ten-year document retention duty survives for products placed under the old Directive.
The working plan, and what it dropped
The first ESPR working plan was adopted on 16 April 2025, covering 2025–2030 with a mid-term review in 2028. It names the priority product groups and their indicative delegated act years.
| Category | Group | Indicative act |
|---|---|---|
| Final products | Textiles and apparel | 2027 |
| Tyres | 2027 | |
| Furniture | 2028 | |
| Mattresses | 2029 | |
| Intermediate products | Iron and steel | 2026 |
| Aluminium | 2027 | |
| Horizontal | Repairability, including scoring | 2027 |
| Recycled content and recyclability of EEE | 2029 |
What was dropped, and why it matters
ESPR Article 18 had listed a longer candidate set. The working plan exercised the Commission's discretion and removed several:
- Detergents, paints and lubricants — dropped. Assessed as having lower impacts and lower improvement potential, with weaker consultation support.
- Footwear — separated from textiles and deferred pending a study due by the end of 2027.
- Chemicals — highly ranked but judged too complex; a scoping study was to be launched for a future working plan.
- ICT and electronics — not made a standalone group, handled instead through horizontal requirements and the energy-related products transition.
The lesson generalises: you cannot infer your obligations from the ESPR framework text. Being named as a candidate in Article 18 means very little. The working plan is where the real prioritisation happens, and it revises. If you read in 2024 that detergents were in scope, that was true of the framework and is not true of the plan.
"Indicative" means indicative
Every date in that table is indicative. None binds the Commission, and delegated acts routinely slip. As of 21 July 2026, no ESPR product-specific delegated act has been adopted, and preparatory work is confirmed under way for only two groups: textiles and steel.
Iron and steel carried an indicative 2026 date. With under six months of the year left and no draft published, that date looks unlikely to hold — which is a useful calibration for every other date on the plan.
Enforcement and penalties
Article 74 requires member states to set penalties that are effective, proportionate and dissuasive, and to ensure authorities can at minimum impose fines and time-limited exclusion from public procurement. Aggravating factors include the nature and duration of the breach, intent or negligence, financial benefit derived, and environmental damage caused.
There is no EU-wide ESPR fine schedule. Specific euro figures circulating in commentary — a maximum per claim in one member state, a percentage of turnover in another — generally come from other national product or consumer regimes, not from ESPR transposition. Treat any confidently stated "the ESPR fine is X" as unverified.
The working plan itself acknowledges that online sales enforcement is weak, describing non-compliance in e-commerce as "particularly pervasive and challenging to address", especially on non-EU platforms, and estimating around 10% of expected benefits lost to it. Expect enforcement effort to be aimed squarely at that gap.
Questions
Does ESPR apply to my products right now?
How long between a delegated act and having to comply?
Detergents were listed in the regulation. Are they in scope?
What is the difference between ESPR and the Batteries Regulation?
Sources
Keep reading
What is a DPP
The concept, in plain language — what it contains, how it is reached, and the four things people wrongly assume it is.
Required data fields
The fixed framework elements you can design against today, and the product-specific fields that do not exist yet.
Unsold goods destruction ban
In force since 19 July 2026 for large enterprises. The most immediately enforceable ESPR obligation — and it is not a passport.
Turn this into a plan for your catalogue
The readiness checklist walks your product groups one at a time and tells you what data to start collecting from suppliers now.