Textile Digital Product Passport status

Five words that are not synonyms

Almost every wrong date in this subject comes from collapsing two of these into one. They are listed here first because the table below is unreadable without them.

An instrument being in force does not mean its duties apply to you today, and an instrument being adopted does not mean it is in force. A passport requirement for textiles is currently at the first of those five stages and nowhere near the fourth.

What is where, instrument by instrument

The order below starts with what is already in application and ends with what nobody has decided. Each row carries its own source, how far that source was read and the date it was last checked, because a page with one date at the top is a page that hides which of its claims is stale.

1. Applies from 19 July 2026In application

   Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296, the destruction of unsold goods

   This is the first duty adopted under the ecodesign framework that reaches the readership of this page, and it is already in application. It was adopted in February 2026, entered into force in May 2026 and has applied since 19 July 2026. Its scope covers apparel, clothing accessories and footwear.

   The obligation is graded by size. Large enterprises are bound now. Medium-sized enterprises follow from 2030, and micro and small enterprises are exempt with no sunset written into the instrument.

   That size structure is worth naming, because it is the most plausible origin of a belief this page meets constantly: that small businesses have been let off the passport. The exemption belongs to this instrument and to this duty. It says nothing about any product data rule, because no product data rule for textiles exists yet to be let off.

   ELI reg_del/2026/296Read: metadata read at the Official Journal, enacting terms not read in fullChecked 28 August 2026

2. Not read by usUnread

   The companion disclosure format instrument for unsold goods

   A second instrument governs the format in which the disclosure under that duty is made. We have not read it. One date for it is in circulation and an independent audit of our own material recorded that date as unsourced, so it is not published here and neither is anything else about the instrument. What this row carries is that the document exists and that we have not read it.

   Read: not readNo row in our source registry yetChecked 28 August 2026

3. Applies from 27 September 2026Applies from

   Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition

   From that date, displaying a sustainability label that is not based on a certification scheme and was not established by a public authority becomes a banned commercial practice. It is not a passport rule. It changes what may be printed alongside one, and it applies to us as much as to anybody.

   The gateway that keeps such a label lawful has three limbs rather than two: the EU Ecolabel, a national or regional type one scheme officially recognised in a member state, or top environmental performance in accordance with other applicable Union law. Only the third of the three requires no certification scheme at all. The position is therefore slightly less absolute than certification or silence, and an earlier record of ours understated it.

   Directive (EU) 2024/825Read: application date and the label provision read, annex numbering independently probedChecked 28 August 2026

4. In force 6 August 2026In force

   Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1778, the product passport registry

   It carries no compliance deadline of its own. That is the first thing to know about it, because it is the instrument most often used to imply that a registration clock is running for somebody. Nothing in it obliges a textile business to register anything, and the duty that would eventually do so arrives with a product act that has not been adopted.

   Its dates are facts about the instrument rather than about anybody's obligations. Adopted on 16 July 2026, published in the Official Journal the following day and in force on 6 August 2026, with the registry portal operational from 20 July 2026. Registration data is deleted ten years after registration and a proof of registration is retrievable for ninety days. Member States appoint national administrators by 18 February 2027, which is a duty on them rather than on anybody selling clothes.

   CELEX 32026R1778Read: verification, registration, responsibility, retention and administrator provisions read at article levelNo article number published: the internal numbering is unchecked against the Official Journal PDFChecked 28 August 2026

5. In forceIn force

   Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (EU) 2024/1781

   Creates the Digital Product Passport, the unique product identifier and the data carrier, and gives the Commission the power to set product requirements by delegated act. It is the machinery and not the content. It imposes no textile attribute on anybody.

   It also sets the floor between an act and its duties. A requirement applies no earlier than eighteen months from entry into force, except in duly justified cases. That floor is the load-bearing number in the next section, and it is the reason the next section produces no year.

   CELEX 02024R1781-20240628Read: consolidated text, Arts. 7 and 9 to 13 in fullApplication provision named, floor taken from it rather than quotedChecked 28 August 2026

6. Schemes to be established by April 2028In force, duties later

   Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, as amended for textile producer responsibility

   The instrument usually called the textile producer responsibility directive is an amending one. Directive (EU) 2025/1892 amends the 2008 waste framework directive, and the operative textile provisions are new articles of that amended directive rather than articles of the amending instrument. A duty cited to an article of the amending instrument is cited to the wrong document. This page carried a version of that error until this revision, which is worth saying on a page whose subject is other people's citation discipline.

   What is settled. The amendment entered into force in October 2025, it requires producer responsibility schemes to be established by April 2028, and it defines its scope by commodity codes set out in a new annex.

   Two things this row does not carry. The transposition date: one programme recorded it approximately, and it stays unpublished until it is confirmed against the instrument's own transposition provision. The start years of the national schemes that already run: markets including France and the Netherlands operated textile producer responsibility before this amendment, our own records dated the French scheme to January 2022 without explaining what that year marks, and the scheme itself is commonly dated a good deal earlier than that. Until we can say which event that year records, this row names the markets and not the years.

   CELEX 02008L0098Read: metadata and structure read at the Official Journal, 27 August 2026Transposition provision not read, transposition date withheldChecked 28 August 2026

7. 2027, indicativeIndicative only

   Adoption of the textile delegated act

   The Commission working plan names textiles as a first priority with adoption indicated for 2027. That is an indication in a programming document. It is not an adopted instrument, it is not a commitment and it is not a date anybody has to comply by. Where a year is quoted at you for textiles, it is usually this one, restated as though it were a schedule.

   COM(2025) 187Read: textile section and the scope statementsChecked 28 August 2026

8. Study indicated by the end of 2027Indicative only

   Footwear, which sits on both sides of this boundary

   Footwear is outside the textile scope of that working plan, with a study indicated by the end of 2027 rather than a product act. It is inside the scope of the unsold goods destruction prohibition that has applied since 19 July 2026. A business selling trainers is therefore already reached by one duty on this page and is not inside the scope of the one it is usually asked about.

   COM(2025) 187 and ELI reg_del/2026/296Read: working plan scope statements, delegated regulation metadataChecked 28 August 2026

9. Not yet setNot yet set

   The date textile passport requirements apply from

   Nothing sets it, because the act that would set it has not been adopted. What the framework gives is a floor rather than a schedule: requirements apply no earlier than eighteen months from entry into force, with an exception written into the same provision. A floor added to an indicative year produces an arithmetic result and not a legal one, and this page does not publish the result.

   Framework application provisionRead: provision named, floor taken from it, not quoted verbatimChecked 28 August 2026

10. Six of eight cited, July 2026Partly cited

    The European Digital Product Passport standards

    The joint technical committee produced eight standards. Six of those eight have their references published by a Commission implementing decision of July 2026, and a reference published in the Official Journal is what carries a presumption of conformity. The remaining two of the eight do not have one.

    What those two cover is the part worth reading twice. One covers access rights management and information system security. The other covers data authentication, reliability and integrity. A passport that is access tiered, that authenticates whoever is asking and that has to stay valid for years depends on precisely those two, and they are the two that currently carry no presumption of conformity.

    The limitation on this row is ours. One retrieval route to the implementing decision returned an access error, and that decision's existence and date were established through two independent secondary routes, so the count is held rather than settled and it is re-checked at the Official Journal at the next review. The standards and their citation state are worked through separately.

    Commission Implementing Decision, July 2026Read: the decision's annex read, standards texts behind a purchase and not boughtScope statements second handChecked 28 August 2026

11. Withdrawn 24 June 2026Withdrawn

    ISO 14021, self declared environmental claims

    That edition was withdrawn on 24 June 2026 and replaced by a new one. Every policy, supplier contract and technical pack still citing the withdrawn edition now cites a document that does not exist. Nothing in our own sources flagged it, and we did not find a mechanism anywhere that would have.

    This row does not describe what the new edition says, because it is behind a purchase and we have not bought it. The fact carried here is a fact about a catalogue entry rather than about a text.

    Catalogue entryRead: catalogue entry and edition state, replacement text behind a purchase and unreadChecked 28 August 2026

12. Last procedural event December 2024Blocked, not withdrawn

    The proposed directive on substantiating explicit environmental claims

    It is blocked and it has not been withdrawn. Those are different states, and the difference was established by a negative check at the primary source: the Official Journal notice of withdrawn Commission proposals of October 2025 does not contain it. The last formal procedural event recorded on the file was in December 2024.

    Not withdrawn is not the same as progressing. A proposal that is neither dead nor moving is a poor thing to build a programme against, and at least one commercial source publishes its status the other way round.

    Read: the notice of withdrawn proposals, read in fullProcedure file checked for the last formal eventNo row in our source registry yetChecked 28 August 2026

The arithmetic, and why it does not make a date

Ask what year a textile passport is required in and somebody will give you one. It is produced the same way every time: take the year the working plan indicates for adoption, add the framework's floor to it and read out the answer. Both inputs are real. The answer is not a legal date, and this page does not publish it.

Three things stop the sum working. The floor runs from entry into force rather than from adoption, and no entry into force exists for an act nobody has adopted. The adoption year is an indication on the face of a programming document rather than a commitment by anybody. And the provision that sets the floor allows less than the floor in duly justified cases, so even the one fixed number in the calculation is not fixed at the bottom.

What can honestly be said is the arithmetic itself, with each input labelled for what it is. The drawing below does that. It has a band at the left because the start is a range rather than a point, a minimum gap in the middle because the framework sets a floor rather than a duration, and nothing at the right hand end, because that is what is there.

Anybody quoting a textile passport year is quoting the result of that sum. It is worth asking them which of the two unknowns they resolved, and how.

Two things presented as duties that are not

Both of these arrive in the same conversation as the passport and neither is a passport duty. One is a national scheme. The other is a retailer, and what that retailer actually tells its suppliers is the opposite of what is usually reported about it.

A national environmental display scheme

Vendors describe a national environmental display scheme as having become mandatory in January 2025. The relevant government page, updated in March 2026, describes the scheme as voluntary. We have read the government page and we have not been shown the instrument the other account rests on. Until somebody produces one, voluntary is what the record says.

Read: the government page, read at its own addressNo row in our source registry yetChecked 28 August 2026

What Europe's largest fashion platform tells its suppliers

A supplier manual forming part of a binding contract tells suppliers that a Digital Product Passport is expected and not obligatory. That is the opposite of a mandate. It reads the same way in the present tense across three versions of the document over eighteen months, and the same platform's published rules describe product sustainability standards as voluntary.

This page names no retailer as requiring passport data, because nothing we have read supports it and what we have read says the reverse. The caveat is ours and it matters: the current version of that manual is unread by us. It is the document where a first genuine commercial requirement would appear, so this is the position on this page most likely to be overturned next, and saying that is better than waiting to be corrected.

Read: three earlier versions of the supplier manual, and the platform's published policiesThe current version of the manual is unreadChecked 28 August 2026

What is genuinely not set

Some of these are unknown because nobody has decided. Some are unknown because we have not looked, or have looked and not reached the bottom of it. They are different things and this page keeps them apart.

• Which attributes a textile passport must carry. Not decided. Every published list, ours included, is an anticipation.
• What a passport attaches to. Model, variation, batch or item. Not decided, and it moves the cost of a programme more than any individual field.
• When requirements apply from. Not decided, and not derivable from an indicative adoption year.
• Whether the two remaining passport standards are cited. Not established by us. We hold an indication on a Commission page that the remaining two were expected in September 2026, and an indication is not a citation.
• The transposition date of the amended waste directive. Recorded approximately by one programme and unconfirmed against the instrument itself, so it is not published here.
• What one national scheme start year in our own records refers to. Not established by us, which is why the row above names markets rather than years.
• Producer responsibility in most markets. Not researched by us. That is our gap and not a statement that those markets have nothing.

There is one thing worth saying about what this page does not contain. We previously held a finding that two Commission publications contradicted each other on the textile timeline. It did not reproduce on re-examination and it has been withdrawn in full. What looked like a contradiction was two adjacent rows read as one. It is not repeated here in a softer form, because a page whose subject is other people's date discipline is the worst possible place to publish an accusation that does not hold up.

How this page is kept current

Every row above carries the date its source was last checked and how deeply that source has been read. Those are facts about the sources. The date at the top of the page is a fact about us, and the two are never merged, because a page can be edited without being reviewed and reviewed without being edited.

The intended operating model is narrow on purpose. Automated checking watches the sources for change, a change raises a review, a person reads the diff and decides what it means, and only that decision moves anything on this page. Detection is automated. Interpretation is not, and it will not be.

ActivateDigital is responsible for this page. James reviews it every 14 days while the textile delegated act is still pending, and again whenever one of the sources above changes. A review means a person has read the sources and decided what they now say. The date at the top moves then and at no other time, so a cadence being stated here is a commitment about the future rather than a claim about the past.

Where sources disagree, this page will describe the disagreement and will not settle it. Deciding a legal question on a reader's behalf is not a service. The method behind that, and behind every not established by us on this page, is set out in how this estate decides what it knows.

Sources

Every quotation from the Official Journal on this estate is re-verified against it before it publishes. None on this page has cleared that check yet, which is why nothing here is quoted verbatim and every row says how far its source has been reviewed. Two rows rest on documents that have no row in this registry yet: the negative check on a blocked proposal, and a national government page describing a display scheme as voluntary. Both are named in the row that uses them and neither is quoted. Adding them to the registry is on the next review.

• Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, consolidated text
  Arts. 4(4), 7, 9 to 13CELEX 02024R1781-20240628In forceRelevant provisions reviewedChecked 28 August 2026

  The machinery instrument. Two propositions on this page rest on it: that it creates the passport and the identifier without imposing any textile attribute, and that a requirement applies no earlier than eighteen months from entry into force except in duly justified cases. The application provision is named and its floor is taken from it rather than quoted, and the passport articles are attributed differently by two independent reads of the same text, so no article of it is cited in the body.

  View official source

• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1778 establishing the Digital Product Passport registry
  CELEX 32026R1778In forceRelevant provisions reviewedChecked 28 August 2026

  Read at article level by one research programme in August 2026: the verification, registration, responsibility, retention and administrator designation provisions. The thing it does not contain is what leads the row that uses it, because it sets no compliance deadline of its own. No article number is published here, because the instrument's internal numbering has not been checked against the Official Journal PDF.

  View official source

• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 on the destruction of unsold goods
  ELI reg_del/2026/296In force, applying since 19 July 2026Official source confirmed, detailed review pendingChecked 28 August 2026

  Metadata read at the Official Journal: adoption, entry into force, application date, the size structure and the scope covering apparel, clothing accessories and footwear. The enacting terms were not read in full. Its companion disclosure format instrument is a separate document. That one is unread, and the row for it publishes nothing beyond that.

  View official source

• Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition
  Applies 27 September 2026Adopted, not yet applicableRelevant provisions reviewedChecked 28 August 2026

  The application date and the sustainability label provision were read, and the annex numbering was probed by an independent check. Used here for two things: the dated event, and the certification gateway, which has three limbs rather than the two an earlier record of ours gave it.

  View official source

• Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, as amended for textile extended producer responsibility
  CELEX 02008L0098In force, scheme duties laterOfficial source confirmed, detailed review pendingChecked 28 August 2026

  Metadata and structure read at the Official Journal on 27 August 2026. This row exists to carry a correction: the instrument usually named as the textile producer responsibility directive is an amending one, and the operative textile provisions are new articles of this amended directive rather than articles of the amending instrument. A transposition date recorded approximately by one programme is not published until it is confirmed against the instrument's own transposition provision.

  View official source

• Commission working plan COM(2025) 187
  COM(2025) 187IndicativeRelevant provisions reviewedChecked 28 August 2026

  A non-binding programming document, and the single most misquoted source in this subject. It carries the indicative adoption year for textiles and the footwear boundary, both of which are indications on the face of a work plan rather than dates anybody complies by.

  View official source

• Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/1736 of 14 July 2026 on harmonised standards for digital product passports drafted in support of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781
  Commission Implementing Decision, July 2026In forceReviewed in fullChecked 28 August 2026

  The decision publishing the references. Its annex is the operative content and it was read. A separate retrieval route to the same document returned an access error, and that programme established the decision's existence and its date through two independent secondary routes, so the count on this page is held rather than settled and it is re-checked at the Official Journal at the next review.

  View official source

• EN 18xxx Digital Product Passport standards and their Official Journal citation state
  Citation state held, not verified by usBehind a purchase, not bought, not readChecked 28 August 2026

  The standards themselves are purchase only and none has been bought. Every statement here about what one of them covers is second hand, which is why the two uncited standards are described by subject rather than by scope clause.

  View official source

• ISO 14021, self-declared environmental claims, edition withdrawn 24 June 2026
  Edition withdrawn 24 June 2026WithdrawnOfficial source confirmed, detailed review pendingChecked 28 August 2026

  The catalogue entry records the withdrawal and the replacement. That is a fact about the catalogue rather than about the text: the new edition is behind a purchase and unread, so nothing here describes what it contains.

• Marketplace and platform seller policy documentation
  Platform documentation about its own rulesRelevant provisions reviewedChecked 28 August 2026

  Used for one proposition only, that a platform's published rules describe product sustainability standards as voluntary. Nothing in this source supports any statement that a marketplace requires passport data, and the page says the opposite because the documents do.

• Retailer supplier manuals and onboarding requirement sets
  Supplier documentation about its own rulesRelevant provisions reviewedChecked 28 August 2026

  Three earlier versions of one supplier manual were read across eighteen months. The current version is unread by us and the row that uses this says so, because that document is where a first genuine commercial requirement would appear.