What is mainly changing this year is preparation at EU level, not in the supervision itself. The European Commission is working within the ESPR Work Programme 2025-2030 towards a delegated act specifically for furniture, expected to be published in 2028. Only after that will it become clear how member states will coordinate with each other in supervising the furniture passport. So for you, nothing concrete changes this year in terms of an obligation, but the status of developments you can follow does change.
This is relevant for companies that sell furniture in multiple EU countries, or that source from a manufacturer outside the Netherlands. How supervision between member states is coordinated determines whether you will later deal with one set of questions or with differences per country. This distinction is different from the question of who will supervise within the Netherlands itself; you can read about that in another article in this knowledge base.
How supervision works at EU level
The regulation on ecodesign (ESPR) is a European regulation, but supervision of compliance lies with the member states themselves. Each country appoints its own market surveillance authority. To prevent those authorities from working completely independently of each other, there is already a long-standing structure within the EU for the exchange of information between supervisors, based on the existing market surveillance regulation. For product groups that will fall under the digital product passport, the expectation is that this exchange will be expanded, so that data from the passport will also be usable for a supervisor in a country other than where the product is manufactured or sold.
This expansion is not yet fixed specifically for furniture. It depends on the delegated act that the Commission must adopt for this product group, and on the implementing rules that follow. Until that act is in place, you can best view this as an ongoing process, not as a rule you can already anticipate.
What actually happens concretely this year
What does happen this year is that the Commission is working on the content of the delegated act: which data must go into the passport, and in what form. This also indirectly affects supervision, because supervisors can only check what is unambiguously recorded. The more specific the requirements for the passport become, the more concrete the basis on which a supervisor can later assess. For you, this mainly means that the substantive requirements for the passport are crystallising further this year, while the enforcement side is still largely open.
Companies that are already thinking about their supply chain would do well to keep this distinction clear: the question of which data you must later provide is different from the question of who will check that and how. There is already concrete information available for the first question; not yet for the second.
For whom this matters
This development is particularly relevant for companies that operate across borders within the EU: manufacturers that export, importers that source from a party in another member state, and project managers that supply furniture to customers in multiple countries. For a company that only sources and sells within the Netherlands, the coordination between member states plays a smaller role, although the question of who supervises within the Netherlands itself remains relevant of course.
To determine whether your situation falls under the first or second category, it helps to first be clear about what role your company plays in the chain. in a few questions see which role fits your company gives you a first indication of that, without needing an account right away.
What is not yet established
It is important to keep clear what is and is not established at this moment. What is established: a delegated act for furniture will be issued, and it is expected to be published in 2028. What is not established: how supervision between member states will look exactly, which authority in the Netherlands will receive which powers, and whether additional arrangements will be made on information exchange specifically for furniture. As soon as the Commission publishes on this, we will work it out based on the official text.
For the underlying sources and the way we maintain them, you can read where our information comes from. This way you can see for yourself which state of affairs is drawn from which publication, instead of having to rely on our summary.
Follow this without having to keep up with it yourself
The fastest way to see what is relevant for your company is a brief overview of your situation. In the knowledge base with topics arranged by situation you will find the individual building blocks: what a role in the chain means, what the passport entails in practice, and what is and is not yet established about supervision and enforcement.
Do you want to know where your company currently stands in relation to the furniture passport? Take the free quick-scan or browse through the topics in the knowledge base; for your own situation, a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority remains the appropriate point of contact.