What the digital product passport means for companies selling in Germany
The digital product passport comes from the EU Ecodesign Regulation ESPR (EU) 2024/1781. As a regulation, it applies directly in every member state, so it works the same way in Germany as in Poland or the Czech Republic, with no separate national law. Delegated acts from the European Commission set which data becomes mandatory for which product group and from when. The first ESPR working plan includes textiles, furniture, tyres, mattresses, and iron, steel and aluminium. Batteries have their own rules: the Battery Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 requires a battery passport from 18 February 2027 for electric vehicle batteries, batteries for light means of transport and industrial batteries over 2 kWh.
German trade partners expect structured product data
Regardless of the deadlines, retailers, marketplaces and large customers in Germany already ask for complete product information: material composition, origin, certificates, declarations of conformity, instructions and safety information. Assembling this data in a separate spreadsheet for every partner costs time and risks contradictory details. A digital product passport brings the information together in one record per product that everyone involved can use.
For manufacturers in Poland, the Czech Republic and other EU countries supplying Germany
Many products sold in Germany come from manufacturers in neighboring countries. DPPC is built for exactly this situation: your team works in the application in Polish, Czech, English or German, and the public product passport page is available to your German customers in German. Materials, documents and certificates live in one shared record, so your sales team in Germany and your production team at the plant work from the same information.
Which industries should prepare first
The pressure is highest in industries with many variants and a lot of evidence: furniture, textiles and footwear, electronics, batteries, packaging, construction materials, and iron, steel and aluminium. For each of these industries, DPPC defines its own required and optional fields, such as wood type and FSC certification for furniture. The industry pages describe which data and documents typically come together in each case.
How DPPC supports the product passport day to day
Every product in DPPC has a record with identification, materials, suppliers, documents and certificates. Documents and certificates go through a review with a deadline, and automated pre-checks flag missing information, date errors and duplicates. A product can only be published once its readiness score reaches 100 percent. It then gets a public page with a QR code in SVG format, and German trade partners can pull the data through the REST API or receive webhook notifications when something changes.
Keeping product information in German
The product passport page interface is available in German, Polish, English and Czech, and visitors choose their own language. Content such as product descriptions, documents and instructions appears exactly as you enter it. If you mainly supply the German market, maintain this content in German and upload German versions of instructions and declarations as public documents.
How to get started with the digital product passport for the German market
Pick the product group you ship to Germany most often and import products, materials and suppliers using the CSV templates. Add certificates and German documents, have them reviewed, and check the readiness score: it shows what each product is still missing. Once published, pass the QR codes on to your label design and share the links with your German trade partners. In the demo, we walk through this process with an example product from your industry.