DPP · TIMELINE
Digital Product Passport: Timeline & Deadlines 2026–2030 — Which Industry, When
The digital product passport (DPP) sounds like a single big deadline somewhere in the future. It is exactly not that. The DPP arrives in stages by product group — iron and steel first, textiles and furniture next, other industries later. And for each group, a separate delegated act decides when it gets serious.
That is the real message of this article: if you know when your product group is up, and you structure your product data cleanly early on, compliance becomes a competitive advantage instead of a burden. Wait until the act is finally published in the Official Journal, and you typically have only around 18 months left — and then you have to scramble to close data gaps that have been building up for years.
Below you will find a dated timeline table (product group → delegated act → expected compliance deadline), sorted by who has to deliver first. One thing up front, because this is exactly where it often goes wrong: the timeline is volatile. The first acts were originally planned for the end of 2025 and are now expected in mid to late 2026. That is why every row below is marked “expected” and dated as of July 2026.
As of July 2026. The ESPR timeline is volatile. All year and date figures below are framed as “expected”; only the battery passport (18 February 2027) has a fixed deadline. Check the current status before making important decisions.
What the digital product passport actually is
The DPP is a machine-readable data record about a product, made accessible via a data carrier — usually a QR code. It bundles information on origin, material composition, repairability, recycled content, carbon footprint and other sustainability attributes across the entire lifecycle.
The legal basis is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) — Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, in force since 18 July 2024. But the ESPR is only the framework. It does not define which data fields your specific product needs. That is set only by the delegated acts — one per product group. This is exactly why there is no single “DPP deadline”, but a wave of deadlines.
One special case up front: batteries do not fall under the ESPR, but under the separate EU Battery Regulation (2023/1542). The battery passport therefore has its own, fixed deadline — more on that below, and in detail in the article Battery Passport 2027.
The DPP timeline 2026–2030 by product group
Currency note: As of July 2026. The ESPR working plan (COM(2025) 187, adopted on 16 April 2025) names the product groups and indicative years; the exact dates of the delegated acts keep shifting. All figures are “expected”. Rule of thumb: the compliance deadline usually falls around 18 months after adoption of the respective act.
| Product group | Delegated act (expected) | DPP compliance (expected) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron & steel (intermediate product) | 2026 (mid/Q4) | ~2028 | First group in the working plan; originally planned for end of 2025, pushed back |
| Textiles & clothing (final product) | 2027 | ~end 2028 / 2029 | Priority; footwear initially excluded (further assessment) |
| Tyres | 2027 | ~2029 | Final product |
| Aluminium (intermediate product) | 2027 | ~2029 | Intermediate product, analogous to steel |
| Furniture | 2028 | ~2029 / 2030 | Final-product group |
| Mattresses | 2029 | ~2030 / 2031 | Listed separately in the ESPR working plan; delegated act later than furniture |
| Electronics & displays | 2028–2029 | ~2029 / 2030 | Partly prepared via existing ecodesign measures |
| Toys | separate legal framework (Toy Regulation) | ~2030 (1 August 2030) | Runs via the new Toy Regulation, not the ESPR working plan |
| Batteries (>2 kWh, EV, LV) | own EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542 | 18 February 2027 (fixed deadline) | Not ESPR — separate, already fixed date |
Additional milestone: A mid-term review of the working plan is scheduled for 2028 — it may still shift the order and dates of the second wave. Another reason to steer by data maturity rather than by a single date.
Who is up first — and what that means in practice
Iron and steel go first. As an intermediate product, this affects not just steel mills but the entire chain downstream: anyone who uses or further processes steel will need origin and material data at a depth that simply does not exist in many systems today. The act is expected in 2026, compliance around 2028 — those are not comfortable lead times for data projects.
Textiles are the first big final-product wave. For fashion brands, material, origin, care and recycled content will have to be documentable and mandatory. The act is expected in 2027, compliance around end of 2028 to 2029. We go deeper on the industry specifics in the article on the Digital Product Passport for Textiles (appears 04 Nov 2026).
Batteries have the most concrete deadline of all — 18 February 2027 is fixed, because it does not come from a still-open act but directly from the Battery Regulation. Anyone placing batteries over 2 kWh, EV or LV batteries on the market faces the hardest and nearest deadline here.
The pattern is the same everywhere: only around 18 months lie between “act finalised” and “compliance obligation”. In that time you have to define data fields, fill gaps, collect supplier data and make everything verifiable. That is exactly why the timeline is no reason to wait, but a reason to start.
What “DPP-ready” concretely means
At its core, the DPP is not a compliance topic but a data-quality topic. The QR code at the end is trivial — the work lies in actually having the required information available in full, consistent and up to date. For us at apollon, “DPP-ready” means:
- A single place for product data. Scattered Excel sheets and isolated solutions are the opposite of passport-ready. A clean data hub — a PIM/MDM approach — is the prerequisite. Why the foundation matters above all else is shown in the article on Master Data Management.
- Attributes that match the upcoming fields. Origin, material shares, recycling rate, repairability — different per product group, but modellable early.
- Collect supplier data in a structured way. Much of what the DPP requires does not sit with you at all, but with your upstream suppliers. Building that chain takes the longest.
- Validation and currency. A product passport with outdated or contradictory data is a liability risk, not proof of compliance.
Lay this foundation early and you ultimately meet the DPP practically at the push of a button instead of as an emergency project — and you reuse the same structured data for better product pages, marketplaces and AI visibility. Sustainability and clean data management mesh here, as shown in the article Sustainability in E-Commerce. We have summarised the basics and data fields of the passport itself in the pillar article Digital Product Passport (DPP).
FAQ on the DPP timeline
When does the digital product passport apply?
Not all at once. The ESPR has been in force since July 2024, but the concrete obligations arrive in stages via delegated acts per product group. The first act (iron & steel) is expected in 2026, with the corresponding compliance around 2028. Batteries have the first fixed deadline with 18 February 2027 (separate Battery Regulation, not ESPR).
Which industry is affected first?
Under the ESPR working plan, iron & steel go first (act expected 2026), followed by textiles, tyres and aluminium (acts expected 2027). Independently of that, the 18 February 2027 deadline applies to batteries.
Why do the DPP deadlines keep shifting?
Because the actual obligations sit in delegated acts that are developed and adopted individually. The first ones were planned for end of 2025 and are now expected in mid to late 2026. That is why this timeline is dated as of July 2026 — check the current status before making important decisions.
How much time do I have after the delegated act?
Usually around 18 months until the compliance obligation. That sounds comfortable, but it is not: building the data model, collecting supplier data and validating it often takes longer than that window.
Does the battery passport also fall under the ESPR?
No. The battery passport is based on the EU Battery Regulation (2023/1542) and becomes mandatory from 18 February 2027 for EV, LV and industrial batteries over 2 kWh. Details in the article Battery Passport 2027.
What exactly should I do now?
Locate your product group in the timeline, roughly model the expected data fields, and consolidate your product data in a central data foundation. Tackle this early and you turn the obligation into a head start.
Further reading
Ready to make your product data DPP-ready?
Want to know how OMN delivers your DPP as a central data foundation — instead of chasing every deadline? With a clean, central product-data foundation you locate your product group in the timeline and meet the obligation at the push of a button when your deadline arrives. See how that works with our platform.