If you sell furniture outside the Netherlands, the shortest conclusion is: the content of the digital product passport itself does not vary by country. The obligation comes from one European regulation that applies directly in each Member State, without a country having to first make its own law from it. What can vary by country is who conducts the checks, and which other, already existing rules around furniture remain alongside the passport.
That distinction is the most important thing for an entrepreneur who exports to be clear about. You do not need to create a separate French, German or Belgian passport; the passport you have drawn up is usable throughout the Union. But the way a country organises supervision, and the rules that have existed there longer alongside the passport, can certainly differ.
One regulation, no national transposition
The rules for the digital product passport are laid down in a European regulation, which is a different type of legislation from a directive. A directive must first be transposed by each Member State into its own national legislation, and this often gives rise to small differences. A regulation works differently: it applies from the moment it becomes applicable, literally and in the same wording, in all Member States at the same time. For the furniture passport, this means that the description of what must be included in it, who is considered a supplier, and for how long the data must remain available, is not filled in again per country.
What a regulation does not regulate is implementation on the ground: who comes to check, with what frequency, and via what procedure an infringement is established. That remains national work, and that is precisely the point where countries can diverge.
What remains the same everywhere in the EU
The core of the passport, the data that a supplier must provide, the link with a QR data carrier on the product, and the period in which the passport must be accessible, is one European standard. A piece of furniture produced in the Netherlands and sold in Spain does not need to receive two different passports. That is also why a platform like furnipas.eu draws up the passport once and hosts it for ten years: the content does not change per sales market. If you want to find out for your own assortment what data that concretely involves, you will find that overview in the knowledge base with topics per situation.
What can vary by country: supervision
Each Member State designates its own market surveillance authority for products. This is already the case for most European product rules, and does not change with the arrival of the furniture passport. For a company that only sells in the Netherlands, this means in practice one point of contact. For a company that supplies via multiple Member States, it can mean that different authorities, with their own methods and their own priorities, can look at the same passport. Which authority that is precisely and how it operates is something the official text and the surveillance authority itself provide the most up-to-date information about; we deliberately make no prediction about this.
What can vary by country: existing rules alongside the passport
In a number of EU countries, there has long been a separate obligation regarding producer responsibility specifically for furniture, separate from the product passport. Such a scheme usually concerns the waste phase, with its own registration and its own contribution, and in other countries it is not arranged separately for furniture. A company exporting to such a country thus not only has to deal with the European passport, but also with a national scheme that already existed there before the passport and remains separate from it. This is not part of the regulation itself, but it is something to keep in mind when exporting.
What is not yet established
The delegated act that further elaborates the details for furniture is expected around 2028 according to the Commission's work plan, with an expected entry into force of the obligation around 2030. Only in that delegated act will matters such as language requirements for the information on the passport be definitively established. Until then, it is premature to state that a passport must be available in a particular language, and we therefore deliberately leave this open.
What this means for an exporting company
For most companies that already supply furniture abroad, the passport itself will change little in existing export practice: the data you provide remains the same, regardless of the country of destination. The point is the distinction between what is regulated at European level and what already existed per country. If you are unsure whether a specific national regulation in addition to the passport applies to your products, that is a question for a lawyer or the competent authority in the country of destination, not something that can be answered in general terms.
If you want to get an impression of where your company stands before delving into country-specific details, you can get a first indication in a few questions. Curious how furnipas.eu collects the data for the passport and where it comes from, then check the explanation of how the information is compiled. And if your question is not among them, there is also the collection of frequently asked questions.