The EU battery passport: what it requires, who benefits, who pays

Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 entered into force on 17 August 2023 and has applied since 18 February 2024.

It replaces the 2006 Batteries Directive and governs the whole life of a battery: what goes into it, how much carbon it carries, where the raw materials came from, and what happens when it dies. Its obligations arrive in stages through 2036. The battery-passport obligation lands in February 2027.

From 18 February 2027, every EV battery, every light means-of-transport battery, and every industrial battery above 2 kWh placed on the EU market or put into service must carry a QR code linked to an electronic record.

That record is the battery passport, created by Article 77.

Batteries are the first product category with a mandatory digital product passport under EU law. Iron and steel, aluminum, textiles, furniture, and tires are among the priority categories expected to follow under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, whose 2025 to 2030 working plan was adopted in April 2025.

Scope

The passport applies to:

• Electric vehicle batteries
• Light means of transport batteries (e-bikes, e-scooters)
• Industrial batteries above 2 kWh

Portable batteries and SLI (starting, lighting, and ignition) batteries fall outside it.

The 2 kWh threshold captures grid storage batteries and the larger off-highway and commercial vehicle packs, which is the line that matters for industrial suppliers.

What the passport has to carry

Annex XIII organizes the content by who can see it.

In practice, it splits into information provided at the model level and information that tracks the individual unit.

Model-level and initial information:

• Battery identity, manufacturer, chemistry, and material composition
• Carbon footprint information, where that obligation applies
• Recycled content information, where that obligation applies
• The public due diligence report, where that obligation applies
• Technical, performance, and durability parameters
• Dismantling, repair, and recycling information

Individual-battery information, updated during use:

• State of health and battery status
• Cycle count and state of charge
• Accidents, operating conditions, and other use data listed in Annex XIII

The individual-unit data is the harder half.

The record must remain accurate throughout the battery’s life, and industrial packs remain in the field long after the manufacturer has moved on. The regulation stops short of mandating a continuous BMS feed, and the Commission has indicated that the update frequency should be determined by the nature of the information and proportionality.

Somebody still has to build the system that carries it. Repurposing or remanufacturing creates a new passport linked to the original, and the record ceases to exist only once the battery is recycled.

Who sees what

Access is divided by dataset:

• The public gets most model-level information
• Persons with a legitimate interest get restricted model-level information and data specific to individual batteries
• Notified bodies, market surveillance authorities, and the Commission get compliance test reports, and the Commission also gets restricted model-level information

The Commission must adopt the implementing act defining legitimate-interest access by 18 August 2026. As of 7 July, it had not been finalized: stakeholder and Member State consultations were continuing, and the Commission said a formal draft would be published for public and WTO consultation in the coming months.

The obligations underneath it

The passport is the interface.

Three compliance regimes feed specific information into it.

Carbon footprint, which runs in 3 stages:

• Declaration, per battery model per plant, expressed as kg CO2e per kWh delivered over service life. Carbon offsets cannot reduce the declared figure.
• Performance classes, which assign batteries to categories using thresholds set through a delegated act.
• Maximum thresholds, above which a battery cannot legally be sold in the EU.

Supply chain due diligence:

• Covers cobalt, natural graphite, lithium, and nickel.
• Demands a formal policy, supplier risk mapping, a grievance mechanism, third-party verification by a notified body, and public reporting.
• Postponed by 2 years to 18 August 2027 by Regulation (EU) 2025/1561, adopted on 18 July 2025.
• Commission guidance is now due by 26 July 2026, having missed its original 18 February 2025 deadline.
• Exempts operators with net turnover below €40 million in the financial year before last, provided they are not part of a group that exceeds it on a consolidated basis.

Recycled content, under Article 8:

• Documentation required from 18 August 2028, or 24 months after the methodology act enters into force, whichever is later. It covers EV, SLI, and industrial batteries with capacities above 2 kWh, except those used exclusively for external energy storage.
• LMT batteries enter the documentation regime from 18 August 2033.
• Minimum shares become binding from 18 August 2031, or 18 months after the relevant delegated act enters into force, whichever is later: 16% cobalt, 85% lead, 6% lithium, 6% nickel.
• From 18 August 2036, the shares rise to 26% cobalt, 85% lead, 12% lithium, 15% nickel, and LMT batteries join the regime.

Separate rules govern the end of life.

By 31 December 2027, recyclers must recover 90% of cobalt, copper, lead and nickel, and 50% of lithium. By 31 December 2031, 95% and 80%.

Recycling efficiency for lithium-based batteries climbs from 65% by weight at end-2025 to 70% by end-2030. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/606, applicable as of 24 July 2025, sets out how it must all be calculated and verified.

The rules are not finished

Most carbon-footprint deadlines are conditional.

For EV batteries, the declaration applies from the later of 18 February 2025 or 12 months after the later relevant delegated or implementing act enters into force. For industrial and LMT batteries, the transition period is 18 months, with different fixed dates depending on the battery category.

• The draft delegated act on the EV battery carbon-footprint methodology was published for consultation on 30 April 2024. The consultation closed on 28 May 2024.
• The methodology is now more than 2 years behind the deadline set in the regulation, and the final act has not been adopted.
• The JRC published a technical report for industrial batteries in April 2025 and circulated a draft LMT report in June 2025. Both provide technical input for future legislation. Neither is binding law.

The compliance clock therefore starts late and then runs quickly: 12 months for EV batteries and 18 months for industrial and LMT batteries after the later relevant act enters into force.

Under current law, the passport date remains fixed at 18 February 2027.

Six horizontal digital product passport standards, including those covering unique identifiers, data carriers and interoperability, were published in May 2026. Two further standards covering access-rights management and data authentication were under formal vote until 16 July 2026.

Manufacturers therefore face a fixed February 2027 obligation while several access rules, secondary acts and technical elements remain unfinished.

Why recyclers gain the most

For battery recyclers, incomplete information is a practical constraint before processing begins.

A recycler receiving a pack today often does not know:

• The detailed composition, including the materials used in the cathode, anode and electrolyte
• How the pack was cycled, or how it degraded
• The dismantling sequence, or where the fasteners and joints are
• The residual state of health

The passport can narrow those gaps, but the benefit depends on the unfinished access rules. The implementing act will determine which recyclers qualify, what restricted data they may see, and how they may use it.

If recyclers receive that access, they should be able to retrieve detailed composition, dismantling, and state-of-health data before processing a pack.

That could improve sorting and second-life triage, and help recyclers work towards the 2027 and 2031 recovery targets. The result will still depend on data quality and whether individual records remain current.

The mechanism is real and is one of the better-designed elements of EU battery policy. Its value to independent recyclers depends heavily on an access rule the Commission has yet to adopt.

Where the cost lands

A substantial part of the compliance burden is fixed by the model, plant, and reporting system. A carbon footprint declaration needs site-specific primary data for every model at every plant, verified by a third party.

Due diligence needs supply chain mapping several tiers deep, an audited policy, a grievance mechanism, and public reporting. The passport adds a unit-level cost on top: a record created, hosted, and updated for every battery until it is recycled.

The fixed portion is what separates producers. A manufacturer shipping 100 GWh spreads it across an enormous denominator. A manufacturer shipping 1 GWh does not. The fixed component of compliance cost per kWh falls as volume rises.

That matters in Europe because of who the European producers are. South Korean companies operate more than three-quarters of the EU’s operational cell capacity, led by LG Energy Solution in Wrocław and Samsung SDI in Göd.

Chinese companies account for more than two-thirds of the capacity under construction.

European-owned producers hold a small share of the operating base. Several are still ramping up production.

The €40 million exemption can disappear early in a battery scale-up’s ramp.

A producer can cross the turnover threshold while its cell output remains below GWh scale, leaving relatively limited production over which to spread fixed compliance costs.

Under current law, the exemption remains €40 million. The Commission proposed raising it to €150 million, while the June 2026 provisional agreement sets it at €200 million. The amendment has not yet been formally adopted.

The battery passport should be delayed until Europe’s battery value chain has reached greater scale.

The February 2027 deadline is premature.

European producers are still ramping up and have too little output to spread the fixed cost of compliance. Introducing the passport now would raise their cost per kWh before they have reached the scale needed to compete.

Europe should keep the passport and move the date.