What EU importers must do before the July 2026 DPP registry goes live by Ileana Sofronie

A new EU resolution is making the Commission move faster on tracking products. This is what it means in simple terms if you bring goods into the EU.

Ileana Sofronie | Founder & CEO | PassportLab.io

The European Parliament passed a resolution in April 2026 about unfair competition from imports that don't come from the EU. On the surface, it's a trade policy document, but Point 10 (Resolution B10-0185/2026) says something that should hit hard for anyone who buys goods outside the EU and sells them inside it. The Parliament tells the Commission to put the Digital Product Passport into effect right away, with textiles, footwear, electronics, and children's products as the top categories, especially for goods sold online.

That's not a suggestion. That's political pressure on a timeline that is already moving. And it tells you something important: the time for "we'll figure this out later" is running out faster than most importers think.

I've been doing this for two years. Most of the time, importers don't ask me, "What do I need to do?" They ask, "Does this really apply to me?" So, let me answer that first.

Who this has an effect on

This applies to you directly if you bring products into the EU, whether you make them yourself or get them under your own brand. This includes things like clothes, electronics, batteries, and furniture.

The EU is working on a system that will require a digital record to be attached to every item in these categories. This record will include information about where it was made, what it's made of, how to fix or recycle it, and who is legally responsible for it on the EU market. That record needs to be able to be read by a machine, scanned with a QR code, and added to a central EU database. Regulation EU 2024/1781 (Art. 13/1) says that the database will be available to the public on 19 July 2026. After that, there are deadlines for when your products need to meet the rules in each sector. But the clock is already ticking.

A growing number of goods imported into the EU through e-commerce channels fail to comply with EU safety, environmental or labour standards, causing economic harm, distorting fair competition and undermining trust in the single market, to the particular detriment of compliant EU businesses, notably SMEs that invest in quality, safety and sustainability.

Source: Recital H | Resolution B10-0185/2026

What the Parliament's resolution really says, in Resolution B10-0185/2026 is long, but there are five points in it that are very important for importers and are worth explaining without the legalese:

Five signals from Resolution B10-0185/2026:

1. EU SMEs are bearing the cost of non-compliance by others.

The Parliament is explicit: small businesses invest in meeting EU safety and sustainability requirements, while non-EU sellers routinely bypass those same obligations. The Digital Product Passport is framed as the mechanism that closes this gap, it turns compliance into something verifiable, not just declarable.

2. The legal definitions of "manufacturer" and "importer" are being tightened.

The resolution calls for stricter definitions under EU product law. In practice, this means: if your brand name is on the label, or if you are the entity placing the product on the EU market, the compliance obligation sits with you — regardless of where it was produced. The Digital Product Passport is the document that makes that responsibility traceable.

3. Online platforms may soon be treated as importers too.

The Parliament supports the concept of "deemed importer" — making platforms legally responsible for non-compliant goods sold through them. For private-label brands sourcing outside the EU, this changes the risk picture significantly: your platform can't absorb your compliance obligation.

4. Not knowing where a product comes from is now a fair competition issue, not just a consumer one.

The Parliament notes there is no mandatory origin labelling for non-food products in the EU, and frames this as both a consumer rights problem and a market distortion. Non-compliant imports undercut EU businesses on price precisely because they skip the costs of meeting these standards. The product record fixes both at once.

5. Point 10 calls for swift implementation, specifically for products sold online.

This is the most direct signal in the resolution. The Parliament names textiles, footwear, electronics, and children's products as categories with high non-compliance rates and urges the Commission to act without delay. If your products are in any of these categories and sold through online channels, you are in the highest-priority group.

What you actually need to do. Five practical steps.

01. Check whether your product categories are in scope.

Textiles, electronics, batteries, and furniture are the priority sectors. If you import in any of these, assume you're affected and plan accordingly, don't wait for the secondary legislation to be finalised before you start.

02. Start asking your suppliers for data now.

The product record will require material composition, country of origin, carbon footprint estimates, and repairability information. Most suppliers can't provide this on short notice. That conversation takes months, start it early.

03. Understand what the QR code actually needs to do.

The EU system requires a structured, scannable link, not just a standard QR pointing to a webpage, but a live data endpoint connected to the EU registry. Here's the risk most people don't think about: that QR code gets printed on a physical label that stays on the product for years. If the system behind it goes down, changes, or the service provider disappears, the code returns a 404, a dead link on a product that's still on the market. The regulation anticipates this: it requires a certified third-party backup of every product passport. When evaluating how to set up your DPP, the permanence of the data behind the QR is as important as the QR itself.

04. Decide what you'll make public and what you'll keep private.

A common fear: "we'll have to expose our supplier relationships." You won't, at least not all of them. The system allows you to control which information is visible to consumers, which goes only to regulators, and which stays internal. Build that structure deliberately from the start.

05. Give someone internal ownership of this.

In most import businesses I speak with, this topic falls in a gap between legal, operations, and marketing. It needs one person with supplier access and product knowledge to own it. An external consultant at the last minute won't substitute for that.

The honest picture

When the EU registry opens, July 2026, that’s the moment when the destruction of the unsold textiles will become illegal for large companies. Of course, the product-specific DPP compliance deadlines will follow sector by sector, with one notable exception: the DPP for batteries is mandatory from February 2027. That sounds like time. But the data work, the supplier meetings, and the technical setup take longer than most people would expect. Starting now to audit data sources and set up technology to handle the new requirements isn’t about panic, it’s about testing and not being last in line when the rules land on your category.

Not sure whether your products are eligible or where to start? PassportLab can generate your first Digital Product Passport free of charge, there's no need to wait for approval, and you don't need a credit card. Try it at http://PassportLab.io/.

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NOTE: this is a sponsored article by an external contributor.