Learning notes · open share Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 · Art. 77 · Annex XIII Public information only

The document that travels with the cell

Every batterygets apassport

From 18 February 2027, an EV, LMT or industrial battery above 2 kWh cannot be placed on the EU market unless it carries its own digital record. Not the car. Not the phone. The battery.

Applies from
18 Feb 2027
Unit of compliance
One individual battery
Who is liable
Operator placing it on the market
Ends when
The battery is recycled
Add 18 Feb 2027 to calendar Counting down to 18 Feb 2027
Note 01 — how to read this

Notes, not a checklist

This is a study page. The purpose is to see what is already almost fine in today's way of working, where the gaps probably sit, and what a detailed action plan with owners and dates would have to contain. No conclusions are drawn here — only the breakdown, and then the breakdown of the breakdown.

Everything below is built from public regulation text and from ordinary supply-chain understanding. Nothing confidential. Where a real question came up — the kind that only shows up when you actually try to collect the data — it is kept as an open question rather than smoothed away. Those questions are the most useful part; take them to the raw source text and dig.

Accuracy caution. Several dates in this regulation are anchored to delegated and implementing acts that were still moving in 2025–2026. Any item marked pending act or check OJ must be re-verified in the Official Journal before it goes into a plan. Treat this page as a map, not as legal advice.

Note 02 — definition

What the passport actually is

An electronic record, unique to one physical battery, reachable from a QR code printed or engraved on that battery, carrying a defined set of data in a machine-readable, interoperable, open-standard form.

It is created by Article 77 and filled by Annex XIII. Three things about it change how a company must work:

It sits inside a wider family: the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 brings digital product passports to many other products later. The battery is the pilot the rest of industry will be measured against.

You cannot back-fill the carbon footprint of a cell after it is built. Whatever is not measured at production time is simply gone.
Note 03 — scope

Phone? PC? Car? Or the battery

The most common misreading. The passport attaches to a battery category, not to a finished product. A mobile phone and a laptop never get a battery passport — their cells are portable batteries, outside Article 77 (though other duties still land on them, including user-replaceability from the same February 2027 date).

EV traction batteryPassport required · 18 Feb 2027Also carbon footprint declaration, due diligence, CE + EU declaration of conformity.
Industrial battery > 2 kWh (ESS, forklift, telecom)Passport required · 18 Feb 2027Threshold is capacity — check every model variant against 2 kWh, including modular systems.
LMT battery (e-bike, e-scooter, e-moped)Passport required · 18 Feb 2027Often the least prepared segment; long tail of importers and brand owners.
Mobile phone / laptop / power tool batteryNo passportPortable category. But: removable and replaceable by the end user from 18 Feb 2027, plus labelling, QR, CE, EPR.
SLI battery (12 V starter)No passportSeparate category with its own labelling, recycled-content and EPR duties.
The vehicle / the appliance itselfNever gets a battery passportThe battery inside it does. The brand may still end up as the responsible operator — see Note 05.

So the practical scoping question for a brand company is not "are we a battery company" but: does any product we place on the EU market contain a battery in one of the three passport categories, and who legally places that battery on the market?

Note 04 — timeline

The dates, and which ones move

17 Aug 2023 in force

Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 enters into force

Replaces Directive 2006/66/EC. A regulation, not a directive — it applies directly, no national transposition to wait for.

18 Feb 2024 in force

Main body of obligations applies

Sustainability, safety, labelling framework, conformity assessment structure, waste rules.

18 Aug 2025 check OJ

Supply-chain due diligence (Art. 48–53)

Original application date for operators above the turnover threshold. A 2025 simplification package proposed postponing this by two years, to 18 Aug 2027. Verify the final amending act before planning to either date — the underlying work (supplier mapping, risk assessment, third-party verification) takes longer than the delay.

Keyed to delegated act pending act

Carbon footprint declaration — EV batteries first

The regulation says 18 Feb 2025 or 12 months after the relevant delegated act, whichever is later. The methodology act slipped, so the real date follows it. Industrial > 2 kWh and LMT follow in later waves.

18 Aug 2026 commission deadline

Labelling applies · implementing act on the passport due

Article 77 requires the Commission to adopt the implementing act on the passport's technical design, access rights and interoperability. Everything a company builds before that act lands carries design risk — build the data, keep the plumbing abstract.

18 Feb 2027 anchor date

Battery passport applies · QR data carrier · portable removability

No passport, no lawful placing on the market. Same date for the end-user replaceability rule on portable batteries — two different programmes, one deadline.

2028 onward pending act

Recycled-content declaration, carbon-footprint performance classes

Declaration of recycled cobalt, lithium, nickel and lead; later, footprint classes and eventually maximum thresholds. Each step is keyed to its own act.

18 Aug 2031 · then 2036

Minimum recycled-content shares become binding

First step around 16% cobalt, 85% lead, 6% lithium, 6% nickel; a materially higher step follows in 2036. This is a sourcing decision made years before, not a reporting task.

Note 05 — content

What has to be inside

Annex XIII splits the content into three access layers. Roughly ninety discrete attributes once you decompose them — and a large share of them originate two to five tiers upstream of whoever signs the declaration of conformity.

Layer A

Public — anyone with the QR

  • Manufacturer identity, battery category, model, place and date of manufacture
  • Weight, rated capacity, voltage, chemistry
  • Critical raw materials present; hazardous substances other than mercury, cadmium, lead
  • Carbon footprint and, when applicable, performance class
  • Recycled content shares; renewable content
  • Expected lifetime, cycle life, extinguishing agent, collection and recycling information
Layer B

Notified bodies, market surveillance, Commission

  • Evidence behind the declared values — test reports, calculation files
  • Conformity documentation and, where relevant, the due-diligence report
  • Everything an inspector would ask you to prove on a Tuesday morning
Layer C

Persons with a legitimate interest

  • Detailed composition, including cathode, anode and electrolyte materials
  • Part numbers, dismantling and safe-disassembly information, sources for spares
  • Performance and durability parameters over life: certified energy, remaining capacity, capacity fade, round-trip efficiency, evolution of internal resistance, cycle count, actual cold-cycle history

Two structural consequences worth naming early. First, Layer C is a telemetry problem, not a documentation problem — those values live in the BMS and in fleet data, so the passport becomes a live interface between engineering, aftersales and the record. Second, Layer C is competitively sensitive: cell composition and part numbers are what your competitors would like to read. The access-control design deserves the same attention as the data collection.

Note 06 — mapping

Final product down to the mine

Each tier below carries a checkpoint, the data and evidence it must hand over, and what it produces for the tier below it. Read it downward for accountability, upward for data flow.

Tier 0 · final product

Brand company / OEM

Vehicle maker · e-bike brand · ESS integrator · machine builder

Checkpoint

  • Decide, per product line, whether you place the battery on the EU market — if yes, the passport obligation is yours, not your supplier's
  • QR present, readable and durable on the installed battery; readable in service conditions
  • Product serial ↔ battery serial link maintained for the whole life, including replacements

Data & evidence in

  • Product BOM and full battery model list, with capacity per variant
  • Legal role analysis (manufacturer / importer / authorised representative) per EU entity
  • Telematics or service-tool path for state-of-health values
  • Spare part, warranty and end-of-life flows

Output

  • Documented role decision per product line
  • Product ↔ battery identifier map
  • Public QR landing behaviour and language coverage
  • Contractual SoH data feed; second-life handover procedure
Tier 1 · pack

Battery pack / system manufacturer

Usually the operator that places the battery on the market — CE and EU DoC signatory

Checkpoint

  • Annex XIII completeness at pack level, all three layers
  • Technical file, conformity assessment route chosen and executed
  • Passport record created at end of line, before shipment
  • Data carrier applied, tested for permanence over the declared lifetime

Data & evidence in

  • Cell datasheets, lot data and test reports from Tier 2
  • Pack BOM with hazardous substances and critical raw materials
  • Pack-level LCA model and energy data
  • Safety test evidence for the applicable category
  • BMS parameter dictionary and SoH definitions
  • Serialisation plan: pack → module → cell genealogy

Output

  • Unique product identifier per physical battery
  • Published passport record with the three access layers separated
  • EU declaration of conformity and technical documentation
  • Data-carrier drawing plus durability test report
Tier 2 · cell

Cell manufacturer

Where most of the footprint and most of the composition data is actually created

Checkpoint

  • Per-lot data package with a defined delivery format and cadence
  • Site energy consumption and electricity mix, per plant, per period
  • Recycled content accounting — segregated or mass balance, stated openly
  • Declared chemistry and hazardous substance list kept in sync with any process change

Data & evidence in

  • Cell BOM with CAS-level substance data
  • Metered site energy plus supply contracts / guarantees of origin
  • CAM, anode, electrolyte, separator and foil supplier declarations
  • Cell test reports (e.g. IEC 62660 series, UN 38.3 transport)
  • Lot traceability and cell identifier records

Output

  • Cell carbon-footprint dataset aligned to the methodology once fixed
  • Cell-level recycled-content declaration with its accounting basis
  • Cell identifier scheme feeding pack genealogy
  • Change-notification commitment for any BOM or process change
Tier 3 · components & active materials

CAM, anode, electrolyte, separator, foils, BMS electronics

First tier where your commercial leverage usually stops

Checkpoint

  • Full material declarations obtained, not summaries
  • Supplier LCA datasets with stated boundaries and reference year
  • Recycled-input evidence traceable to a certificate, not a statement
  • Sub-tier reach clause written into purchase contracts

Data & evidence in

  • Full material declarations in a structured exchange format
  • EPDs or primary LCA datasets; energy mix at the producing site
  • Mass-balance certificates for recycled input
  • REACH / SVHC statements; country-of-origin declarations

Output

  • Verified material dataset per part number
  • Recycled content per material, with method stated
  • Due-diligence flow-down acknowledged in writing by the supplier
Tier 4 · refining & precursors

pCAM, Li / Ni / Co / Mn chemicals, graphite, smelters

The chain-of-custody layer — where "where did it come from" is decided

Checkpoint

  • Chain-of-custody model named per material: segregated, controlled blending, or mass balance
  • Refiner audit status under a recognised assurance scheme
  • Energy mix and transport legs captured for the footprint model

Data & evidence in

  • Refinery / smelter audit reports and validity dates
  • Chain-of-custody certificates and volume reconciliations
  • Site energy mix; transport mode and distance per leg
  • Grievance-mechanism records and corrective-action history

Output

  • Origin and chain-of-custody evidence pack
  • Refinery-level footprint parameters
  • Audit trail usable by a notified body without further translation
Tier 5 · mine & recycler

Mine sites, black-mass recyclers

Four to six contractual steps from the brand — reachable only by design

Checkpoint

  • Country and, where possible, site of origin identified per material stream
  • Risk assessment against conflict-affected and high-risk area criteria
  • Recycler input quality, yield and mass-balance discipline

Data & evidence in

  • Mine site list with third-party assurance status
  • OECD-aligned risk assessment and mitigation plan
  • Recycler mass-balance records; waste-shipment documentation

Output

  • Origin declaration feeding the public layer
  • Risk register with mitigation and review dates
  • Recycled-content chain evidence that survives an audit
Note 07 — workflow

The loop, end to end

Scope and role

Which batteries, which category, which legal entity places each one on the market. Everything downstream inherits this answer, so it is written down and approved, not assumed.

Attribute register

Annex XIII decomposed into individual fields. Each field gets: source system or supplier, owner, format, unit, refresh frequency, access layer, retention period.

Source and contract

Supplier data clauses, formats and cadence agreed. This is the long pole — it moves at the speed of contract renewals, not of projects.

Verify

Internal data quality first, then the external verification the regulation requires for specific declarations. Findings must be traceable back to the source record.

Serialise and carry

Unique identifier per battery; QR printed or engraved on the battery itself, or on packaging and documents where the surface makes it impossible. Genealogy pack → module → cell held in the plant systems.

Publish

Record made available in machine-readable form via open standards, with the public layer free of charge and the restricted layers behind controlled access. Availability is now a product property.

Maintain

State-of-health and status data updated through life; ownership and responsibility transfer handled on repurposing or remanufacturing.

Close

The passport ends with recycling. Which means the recycler is part of your compliance chain, not an afterthought.

Note 08 — assurance

Who signs what

There is no single "battery passport certificate". Different claims inside the passport carry different assurance regimes, and the passport itself sits under the operator's own accuracy duty plus market surveillance.

Safety, performance, labelling
Internal production control

Manufacturer's own conformity assessment, supported by test reports and a technical file. Documentation retained for the statutory period.

Carbon footprint declaration
Notified body — supervised verification

Calculation follows the delegated methodology once published; a notified body verifies the calculation and its supporting data. Company-specific versus secondary data assumptions must be defensible.

Recycled content declaration
Notified body — supervised verification

Verification of the calculation and its documentation once the methodology act applies. Accounting basis — segregated or mass balance — is the crux.

Due-diligence policy
Third-party verification, reviewed periodically

Policy, risk management, verification and a public report. Built on OECD-aligned expectations; it is a management system, not a document.

Passport data itself
Operator duty + market surveillance

The economic operator must ensure the information is accurate, complete and up to date. No certificate shelters you — internal data governance is the control.

Whole battery
CE marking + EU declaration of conformity

One signature covering the set. Which is exactly why the role question in Note 03 must be settled first.

Note 09 — plan

Back-cast from February 2027

Working backwards from the anchor date, with an owner and an evidence test for each item. Owners are shown as functions, not names — the point is that every line has exactly one.

Phase 1 — Know what you are

Now → 12 months before
Regulatory
Determine, per product line and per EU legal entity, who places the battery on the market
Evidence signed role memo, one per product line, referenced in the technical file
Regulatory
Scope every battery variant against the three passport categories and the 2 kWh threshold
Evidence variant list with capacity, category and in/out decision
Sustainability
Build the Annex XIII attribute register — every field, its source, its owner
Evidence register with no field left owner-less; count of externally sourced fields
Purchasing
Map the chain per battery model to Tier 3 by name, and identify which Tier 4/5 nodes are even knowable today
Evidence tier map with named companies and named blind spots
Quality
Gap assessment: what already exists in current documents, what is partially there, what does not exist at all
Evidence three-state gap sheet against the attribute register

Phase 2 — Secure the data at source

12 → 8 months before
Purchasing
Draft and issue data clauses: content, format, cadence, change notification, audit right, sub-tier flow-down, data continuity on insolvency
Evidence clause text agreed by legal; issue log per supplier
Sustainability
Stand up the LCA model and collect primary site energy data from cell and material plants
Evidence metered energy per site per period, with supply contract references
Product / BMS
Define the state-of-health parameter set and how it leaves the vehicle or system
Evidence parameter dictionary, sampling rate, and a working data path from one field unit
Regulatory
Engage a notified body early on footprint and due-diligence routes; capacity will be scarce close to the date
Evidence scoping meeting minutes and an indicative slot

Phase 3 — Build and prove one

8 → 4 months before
IT / PLM
Choose the identifier and carrier scheme; connect PLM, ERP and MES so the record is created at end of line
Evidence one passport generated automatically from production data, not by hand
IT / PLM
Implement the three access layers with real role-based control and an access log
Evidence access matrix test: public sees only public; a legitimate-interest role sees layer C
Manufacturing
Serialisation and genealogy at cell, module and pack; carrier durability tested against the product's real environment
Evidence readable QR after thermal, vibration and cleaning exposure
Quality
End-to-end pilot on one battery model, from mine-origin claim through to a published record
Evidence pilot report listing every field that could not be filled, and why

Phase 4 — Scale and hold

4 → 0 months, then continuous
Quality
Roll out to all in-scope models; internal audit of data accuracy against source evidence
Evidence sample audit with traceability from published value back to raw record
Regulatory
Complete conformity assessment, technical file and EU declaration of conformity per model
Evidence signed DoC, verification statements, retention plan
Aftersales
Service, replacement and repurposing procedures that keep the record current and hand it over cleanly
Evidence written procedure plus one rehearsed handover to a second-life or recycling partner
All owners
Watch the pending acts and re-plan on publication — footprint methodology, recycled-content method, passport implementing act
Evidence a standing review with a named owner and a dated log
Note 10 — consequence

If readiness slips

Not an abstract compliance risk. The failure mode is commercial and it is abrupt, because the passport is a condition for placing the product on the market.

Market access stops

A battery in scope without a compliant passport cannot lawfully be placed on the EU market. For a brand, that is a shipment held, not a letter received.

Enforcement and cost

Market surveillance can require corrective action, withdrawal or recall; penalties are set by Member States and are meant to be dissuasive. Customs can refuse release for free circulation.

You cannot retrofit history

Site electricity mix, lot genealogy, origin of a specific tonne of material — these are recorded at the moment of production or not at all. Batteries built before the data flow works are permanently unpassportable.

Supplier capacity runs out

Notified body slots, LCA practitioners, audit firms and serialisation integrators are a finite pool with one shared deadline. Late entrants pay more and wait longer, if they get in at all.

You get delisted before you get fined

Customers de-risk earlier than regulators enforce. In practice the first real consequence is an OEM removing a supplier from a sourcing list because the data package is not credible.

Note 11 — open questions

Questions kept, not answered

These came up while walking the chain. Each is a place to go back to the raw text or to the supplier and dig. If you have lived one of them in real work, that experience is worth more than this page.

Q01 · role

When a Tier 1 builds the pack inside the EU under the brand's name and specification, who is the economic operator placing the battery on the market — and whose CE mark, whose passport, whose liability?

Cross-check: the contract, the labelling, and the customs entry may all point to different parties.

Q02 · granularity

The passport is per battery, but state-of-health data is generated per module and per cell. If a module is replaced in service, does the identifier stay with the enclosure, the electrical system, or the original build record?

Q03 · accounting

Will mass balance be accepted for recycled-content claims, or only physical segregation? The answer changes sourcing strategy by years, not months.

Q04 · footprint data

How far will supplier-specific electricity contracts and guarantees of origin be allowed to shift a declared footprint, versus grid average? Two defensible methods can produce very different numbers on the same cell.

Q05 · confidentiality

Who exactly qualifies as a "person with a legitimate interest", and how do you satisfy them without publishing your cathode formulation to a competitor with a plausible request?

Q06 · physical carrier

An engraved QR must stay readable after years of vibration, heat, road salt or washdown. Which standard defines "durable enough", and who runs that test — the pack maker or the brand?

Q07 · second life

When a repurposer becomes responsible for the passport, how do they lawfully obtain the original data — and what happens if the original manufacturer no longer exists? Is data escrow contractually normal in your chain today?

Q08 · reach

Your contract stops at Tier 1. The mine sits four to six steps further. Which assurance schemes will your customers actually accept as evidence of origin, and are your refiners already inside them?

Q09 · scale

Millions of unique records a year, each publicly reachable and expected to remain available for the life of the battery. What is the availability commitment, who pays for it in year twelve, and what happens on platform migration?

Q10 · adjacent duty

Portable batteries get no passport, but from the same date they must be removable and replaceable by the end user. Has that design review actually been done on the phone and laptop portfolio, or is it sitting behind the battery-passport programme by mistake?

Q11 · change control

A cell supplier changes an electrolyte additive mid-year. How long before that reaches your published passport — and is there a contractual notification duty that makes it possible at all?

Note 12 — sources

Where to read it yourself

Primary law first. Always check the consolidated version and the Official Journal for amendments — this field moved several times between 2024 and 2026.

Primary laweur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1542/ojRegulation (EU) 2023/1542 on batteries and waste batteries. Article 77 = the passport; Annex XIII = the content; Annex VI = the identifiers and carrier.
Consolidated texteur-lex.europa.eu · CELEX:32023R1542Use the "consolidated versions" tab to pick up amendments, including any postponement of the due-diligence date.
Commission — policyenvironment.ec.europa.eu · batteriesOfficial overview, FAQs and links to the implementing and delegated acts as they are published.
Commission — industrysingle-market-economy.ec.europa.eu · batteriesValue-chain and raw-materials angle, including the batteries alliance material.
Draft acts & consultationsec.europa.eu · have your sayWhere the carbon-footprint delegated act and the passport implementing act appear in draft, with feedback windows. Search "batteries".
Digital product passport (wider frame)eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1781/ojEcodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation — the DPP framework the battery passport is the forerunner of.
Data model workthebatterypass.euBattery Pass consortium: content guidance and attribute-level interpretation of Annex XIII. The most practical starting point for an attribute register.
Industry pilotglobalbattery.org · battery passportGlobal Battery Alliance passport pilots and ESG indicator work — useful for seeing how supply-chain data is actually collected in practice.
Identifiers & carriersgs1.org · digital linkHow a QR resolves to different data for different audiences — directly relevant to the three access layers.
Standardisationcencenelec.euEuropean standards bodies working on digital product passport interoperability; check the DPP technical committee work programme.
Due diligencemneguidelines.oecd.org · mineralsOECD Due Diligence Guidance for responsible mineral supply chains — the reference model the regulation's due-diligence articles are built on.
Upstream assuranceresponsiblemineralsinitiative.orgRefiner and smelter audit programmes, plus reporting templates commonly requested from Tier 3 and Tier 4.
Mine-site assuranceresponsiblemining.netIRMA standard for responsible mining — one of the schemes OEMs increasingly name in origin requirements.
Notified bodiesec.europa.eu · NANDO databaseFind bodies notified under the batteries regulation once designations are published — book capacity early.
Technical backgroundpublications.jrc.ec.europa.euJoint Research Centre studies underpinning the carbon-footprint methodology for EV batteries. Search "battery carbon footprint".
Standards to cite in specsIEC 62660 series (EV cell performance and reliability), UN 38.3 (transport testing), ISO/IEC 15459 (unique identifiers), ISO/IEC 18004 (QR symbology). Purchase through your national standards body.
Shared openly for industry readiness. If you spot something here that is out of date or wrong against the current Official Journal text, that correction is worth more than the note it replaces.