The EU product passport, 19 July 2026, what applies, and for whom first?

On 19 July 2026 the EU's central register for digital product passports goes live, a key milestone in the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). A product passport is a structured, machine-readable companion to the product, carrying data on origin, content, environmental performance and lifespan, accessible across the whole lifecycle.

Iron and steel come first, among the eleven product groups prioritised in the first working plan. More groups, such as aluminium and textiles, follow in turn, and a separate passport for larger batteries is on the way. The order says something: the materials industry actually builds from are first in line.

For asset-intensive industry, the real point is not another regulation. It is that data about a product must exist, be correct and be retrievable, across the whole lifecycle. Exactly the discipline a working handover and operations phase already demand, now written into law.

That is why digitalization and standardization go hand in hand. A Digital Product Passport is not created by filling out a form, it is created by having the right data, structured in the right way. The real work lies in making information consistent, quality-assured, and shareable.

At Bimdoc we hold documents and object data together across the whole lifecycle, the same foundation a trustworthy product passport rests on. We follow the developments and share what we learn here as the requirements take effect.