Digital Product Passport Standards: Getting Ready for Launch

Digital Product Passports (DPPs) continue to become more strictly defined and less conceptual as we progress through 2026.  

Six of the eight horizontal European Digital Product Passport standards underpinning the system have now passed the formal vote of the national standardisation institutes, leaving only two technical workstreams to be finalised.

Combined with parallel progress on the EU’s delegated acts and product-category rules, this marks the point at which a scheduled launch of the DPP is realistic rather than aspirational.

Recap: What Is a Digital Product Passport?

A Digital Product Passport is a structured digital record linked to a physical product, accessible via a data carrier such as a QR code, NFC tag, or RFID chip.

It consolidates verified information on a product’s composition, origin, environmental footprint, compliance documents, repair history, and end-of-life instructions.  

Established under the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), the DPP is designed to be machine-readable, interoperable across systems, and accessible to manufacturers, consumers, authorities, and recyclers throughout the product lifecycle.

What are the Six Standards That Have Passed the Formal Vote?

These horizontal standards apply to every DPP regardless of product category.  

The “prEN” prefix indicates a preliminary European Norm that has cleared the weighted majority vote of national standards bodies and is on track to become a full EN standard published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

1. prEN 18216:2025 – Data exchange protocols. Defines how DPP data moves between systems, preventing fragmentation across manufacturers.
2. prEN 18219:2025 – Unique identifiers. Specifies globally unique product IDs so a single item, not just a model, can be tracked across its lifecycle.
3. prEN 18220:2025 – Data carriers. Standardises the physical link between product and data: QR codes, NFC chips, RFID tags, and data matrix codes.
4. prEN 18221:2025 – Data storage, archiving, and data persistence. Covers retention obligations and the role of independent third-party DPP service providers holding backup copies if a manufacturer ceases trading.
5. prEN 18222:2025 – APIs for lifecycle management and searchability. Defines the programmatic interfaces that authorities, recyclers, and downstream users will rely on to query DPPs at scale.
6. prEN 18223:2025 – System interoperability. The umbrella standard ensuring the other five work together across sectors and EU member states.

Which Digital Product Passport Standards Are Still In Progress?

The remaining two standards address the most technically demanding aspects of the DPP: trust and confidentiality. Their finalisation will determine how robust the system is at launch.

prEN 18239:2025 – Access rights management, information system security, and business confidentiality. Defines tiered access (public, restricted, authority-only, proprietary) to balance transparency with the protection of trade secrets such as chemical formulations and supplier identities.

prEN 18246:2025 – Data authentication, reliability, and integrity. Specifies how DPP data is verified through digital signatures and cryptographic proofs, ensuring the passport is evidence rather than mere claim.

Why Digital Product Passports Go Beyond Sustainability

The DPP is a core instrument for several EU protection goals at once. It supports the circular economy by making materials, repairability, and recyclability transparent.  

It strengthens resource resilience by exposing dependencies on critical raw materials such as rare earths and battery metals. And it reinforces fairness in the internal market by requiring all products sold in the EU, regardless of origin, to carry verifiable documentation - closing the compliance gap that undocumented imports have historically exploited.

What’s Next for DPP Standardisation?

Alongside the technical standards, the European Commission is actively drafting the delegated acts and product-category rules required for the first product sectors defined under the ESPR working plan of 16 April 2025.  

The standards define how a DPP works; the delegated acts define who must have one and what data it must contain. Iron and Steel lead the schedule, followed by textiles, tyres, furniture, electronics, and other priority categories phased in through 2030.

With six of eight standards through their formal vote, the EU Central DPP Registry scheduled to go live on 19 July 2026, and the Battery Passport mandatory from 18 February 2027, companies should begin preparing immediately.

Consult with Provenant today to discuss your DPP implementation and get a free demo of Provenant’s robust Digital Product Passport platform.

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