ESPR Digital Product Passport framework and central registry

Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR) establishes the EU Digital Product Passport framework. Its central registry — operated by the Commission and holding products' unique identifiers and commodity codes — became operational on 19 July 2026. That date was an infrastructure milestone, not a product mandate: DPP obligations attach product family by product family through separate delegated acts, the first being the battery passport on 18 February 2027. The registry acts as a directory that resolves an identifier to the location of the passport data, which the manufacturer hosts. The DPP itself is delivered as a QR code resolvable by a native phone camera, serving a machine-readable payload rather than a PDF.