what fine or sanction do I receive if I do not have a product passport

What you concretely have to do

What is expected of you

The sanctions regime for the product passport is not yet detailed at this time. The ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) requires countries to provide effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions for infringement, but the concrete amounts and forms are worked out at national level. This means that a company cannot currently check which amount corresponds to which infringement — that information does not yet exist in final form. What is already established is which behaviour the legislator wants to prevent and who is responsible for it.

Ensure the passport is in place before the product comes on the market

Article 27 of the ESPR sets out the obligations of manufacturers, including ensuring that a product is accompanied by the required product passport at the moment it is placed on the market. For a company with 10 to 100 employees, this practically means that the passport cannot be an afterthought but becomes part of the process before dispatch or delivery. If a company does not organise that process, it risks products already being in transit to customers or distributors while the passport is still missing.

Know who in your own supply chain bears that obligation

Not every company in the supply chain has the same role, and the obligation to provide the passport does not automatically lie with everyone. Who is responsible for the product passport for furniture? describes how that division works in practice. For companies that do not themselves manufacture but do place products on the market, the distinction between roles is relevant to determine who bears which part of the sanction-sensitive obligations — see also Am I an importer or a manufacturer according to the ESPR?

Do not circumvent or deteriorate performance

Article 40 of the ESPR is aimed at preventing circumvention and deterioration of performance. This article is not only about the absence of a passport, but also situations where a company formally complies with the requirements but in practice hollows out their effect — for example by allowing data to become outdated or by adapting a product in such a way that the original passport data no longer match. For a medium-sized company, this means that changes to a product, even minor ones, can have consequences for the validity of a previously issued passport.

Taking market surveillance into account

Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 governs how market surveillance authorities check whether products comply with applicable requirements and what powers they have to do so. That surveillance is not theoretical: it concerns authorities that can request and check products, documentation and records. For a company, this means that the presence of a passport is not only an obligation towards the customer, but also something that a supervisor can check.

Where things go wrong in practice

A number of situations regularly occur in practice as a source of problems related to the passport:

A company launches a new product line and assumes that the passport will "come later", while the products are already with the customer.

An importer takes data from a manufacturer outside the EU without verification, and only discovers during a sample check that data is incomplete or incorrect — the question of who is responsible for this is not always immediately clear; see who is liable for incorrect data from a supplier in the passport.

A furniture brand has an existing product modified — a different frame, a different mechanism — without asking whether this modification makes the company itself a manufacturer with its own passport obligation; this is addressed in do I become a manufacturer if I have an existing piece of furniture modified or refined.

A private label seller assumes that the underlying manufacturer will arrange the passport without this ever being explicitly agreed — see who must provide the passport data for private label furniture.

A company selling via an online marketplace thinks that the platform takes on the obligation, while the own responsibility remains; this is covered in What does the product passport mean if I sell furniture via an online marketplace?

In all these situations, the problem does not arise from unwillingness, but from the absence of a documented agreement about who does what and at what time.

What you can put in order now

Even while the exact sanction levels are still unknown, there is already much that can be established now that will provide support later during an inspection or a discussion within the chain:

• An overview of which products already fall under the passport obligation and which do not yet, also with regard to the question of whether existing stock or furniture previously placed on the market fall under the scheme — see does the product passport also apply to furniture that I am already bringing to market
• A written agreement with suppliers or manufacturers about who provides which data and at what time, including what happens if the product is modified
• An internal check before shipment that confirms that the passport is present and linked to the correct QR data carrier
• A file with the role that your own company takes in the chain (manufacturer, importer, distributor or brand owner), so that in case of doubt it is clear which obligation lies where — relevant for questions such as those described in What obligations does a distributor or trader of furniture have? and I sell furniture under my own brand — what obligations do I get?
• Agreements with a manufacturer outside the EU about who actually compiles and hosts the passport, especially when that manufacturer itself is not bound by EU regulations — see My manufacturer is outside the EU — who arranges the product passport then?
• A retention period agreement for documentation relating to spare parts, to the extent that this is relevant for the lifespan data in the passport — see How long must I keep spare parts for furniture available?

Anyone who already has this kind of agreements and overviews in order will be better positioned when national sanction schemes are finally established — and can then quickly assess what that concretely means for their own position in the chain. For a broader picture of the consequences of a missing passport, apart from the sanction issue, is What happens if I don't have a digital product passport for my furniture? a logical follow-up.