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European Union · Regulation (EU) 2023/1542

EU Battery Regulation and the battery passport

The EU Batteries Regulation sets sustainability, safety, labelling and end-of-life rules for every battery on the EU market, and from 18 February 2027 requires an electronic battery passport for EV, LMT and large industrial batteries.

All regulations · Last reviewed: 2 October 2026

Passport mandatory
18 Feb 2027
Battery categories in scope of passport
EV · LMT · industrial > 2 kWh
Due diligence applies
18 Aug 2027
Minimum recycled content
From 18 Aug 2031

Summary

Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 entered into force on 17 August 2023 and has applied since 18 February 2024. It progressively replaces the Batteries Directive 2006/66/EC with a directly applicable regulation covering the full life cycle: carbon footprint, recycled content, performance and durability, labelling, supply-chain due diligence, extended producer responsibility, collection and recycling.

Article 77 makes an electronic battery passport mandatory for each light means of transport (LMT) battery, each industrial battery with a capacity above 2 kWh and each electric vehicle battery placed on the market or put into service from 18 February 2027. The passport is reached through a QR code linked to a unique identifier, and its content and access rights are set out in Annex XIII.

Several obligations depend on delegated and implementing acts that the Commission has not yet adopted, and the EU has already postponed the due-diligence obligations once. Dates below reflect the legal text as amended, with pending items marked.

Scope

Who is affected

Manufacturers, importers and distributors

The economic operator placing the battery on the market is responsible for the passport, conformity assessment, labelling and EPR registration.

Vehicle OEMs

EV batteries are placed on the market with the vehicle; OEMs must make passport data available and ensure the battery management system exposes state-of-health parameters.

Repurposers, remanufacturers and second-life operators

An operator that repurposes or remanufactures a battery takes on producer obligations; the new passport must be linked to the passport(s) of the original battery.

Waste operators and recyclers

Must meet recycling-efficiency and material-recovery targets and report on treatment of waste batteries.

Non-EU suppliers

Cell and material suppliers outside the EU are pulled in through carbon-footprint, recycled-content and due-diligence data requests from their EU customers.

Obligations

Key obligations and dates

Ordered roughly by when they apply. Status reflects the position on the review date.

  1. Regulation applies

    In force

    18 Feb 2024

    Entered into force 17 August 2023; general date of application 18 February 2024. Individual chapters phase in on later dates.

  2. Extended producer responsibility and collection

    In force

    From 18 Aug 2025 · Arts. 54–62

    Producers register in each Member State where they make batteries available, finance collection and treatment, and meet collection targets (portable batteries 63% by end-2027 and 73% by end-2030; LMT batteries 51% by end-2028 and 61% by end-2031).

  3. Carbon-footprint declaration for EV batteries

    Pending implementing act

    18 Feb 2025 or 12 months after the methodology act, whichever is later · Art. 7

    Requires a carbon-footprint declaration per battery model and manufacturing plant, calculated with the method set by a Commission delegated act. A draft was consulted on in 2024; as of our review the act had not been adopted, so the obligation is not yet operative. Performance classes and maximum thresholds follow in later steps, each tied to further delegated acts.

  4. General labelling

    In force

    18 Aug 2026 · Art. 13

    Batteries carry a label with general information (manufacturer, category, chemistry, date of manufacture, weight, capacity, hazardous substances other than Hg/Cd/Pb where applicable, separate-collection symbol).

  5. QR code and battery passport

    Upcoming

    18 Feb 2027 · Arts. 13(6), 77, 78; Annex XIII

    Each LMT, industrial (> 2 kWh) and EV battery gets an electronic passport, accessible via a QR code linked to a unique identifier. Data must be interoperable, machine-readable, structured and searchable, based on open standards, and access is tiered (public, persons with a legitimate interest, authorities).

  6. Supply-chain due diligence

    Upcoming

    18 Aug 2027 · Arts. 47–53

    Operators above the turnover threshold must adopt and implement a due-diligence policy for cobalt, natural graphite, lithium and nickel, verified by a notified body. Regulation (EU) 2025/1561 postponed application from 18 August 2025 to 18 August 2027 and moved the Commission’s guidelines to 26 July 2026.

  7. Recycled-content documentation

    Pending implementing act

    18 Aug 2028 or 24 months after the methodology act, whichever is later · Art. 8(1)

    Industrial (> 2 kWh), EV and SLI batteries containing cobalt, lead, lithium or nickel in active materials must document the share recovered from waste, per model and plant.

  8. Minimum recycled content

    Upcoming

    18 Aug 2031 and 18 Aug 2036 · Art. 8(2)–(3)

    From 2031: 16% cobalt, 85% lead, 6% lithium, 6% nickel. From 2036: 26% cobalt, 85% lead, 12% lithium, 15% nickel.

  9. Recycling efficiency and material recovery

    In force

    31 Dec 2025 → 31 Dec 2031 · Art. 71; Annex XII

    Lithium-based batteries: 65% recycling efficiency by end-2025, 70% by end-2030. Material recovery: cobalt, copper, lead and nickel 90% by end-2027 and 95% by end-2031; lithium 50% by end-2027 and 80% by end-2031.

  10. Environmental Omnibus amendments

    Proposed / draft

    Proposed 10 Dec 2025

    The Commission proposed targeted simplifications (e.g. producer definition, labelling of substances of very high concern, reporting). The passport, carbon-footprint, recycled-content and due-diligence obligations were not removed by the proposal. It is still in the legislative process.

Data

What must be recorded or shared

The information an operator needs to hold, publish or report, grouped by audience.

Publicly accessible

Anyone scanning the QR code

  • General information: manufacturer, battery category, unique identifier, place and date of manufacture, weight, capacity, chemistry
  • Material composition: hazardous substances and critical raw materials present
  • Carbon-footprint information (once the delegated act applies)
  • Supply-chain due-diligence information (report summary)
  • Recycled-content and renewable-content shares
  • Performance and durability parameters: rated capacity, voltage, power capability, expected lifetime, temperature range
  • Separate-collection, prevention and end-of-life information

Persons with a legitimate interest and the Commission

e.g. repairers, repurposers, recyclers

  • Detailed composition, including materials used in cathode, anode and electrolyte
  • Part numbers for components and contact details for spare parts
  • Dismantling information, including exploded diagrams and the tools required
  • Safety measures

Notified bodies, market surveillance authorities and the Commission

Authorities only

  • Results of test reports proving compliance with the Regulation

Dynamic data over the life of the battery

  • State of health and related durability values (Art. 14, Annex VII parameters)
  • Battery status: original, repurposed, re-used, remanufactured or waste
  • Link to the new passport when a battery is repurposed or remanufactured

EVstring

How EVstring helps

An honest mapping from obligation to product capability. EVstring supports compliance work; it does not make an operator compliant on its own.

Available
Built and working in the current platform.
In development
In the committed build plan, not yet released.
Roadmap
Planned extension; not yet scheduled for release.
Obligation / needEVstring capabilityStatus
Unique identifier per battery, reachable via QR codePassport ID scheme with one on-chain token per battery; public passport page at a stable QR URLAvailable
Tiered access per Annex XIIIPublic / restricted / regulator tiers enforced by role guards in the APIAvailable
Lifecycle status and history (original → second life → waste)On-chain lifecycle state machine with actor, timestamp and transaction hash for every transitionAvailable
EPR and recovery reportingRegulator analytics by producer; material-recovery records at end of lifeAvailable
Integrity of documents (test reports, due-diligence reports)SHA-256 hashes anchored on-chain, encrypted storage for restricted documents, public verify endpointAvailable
State of health over timeTelemetry ingestion with Merkle-root anchoring and per-reading proofsAvailable
Carbon-footprint and recycled-content fieldsStructured fields on the public passport, backed by a hashed certificateAvailable
Repurposed battery gets a new passport linked to the originalToday the same passport continues with a second-life status; a linked child passport is plannedRoadmap
Interoperability with open standardsGS1 Digital Link QR payloads and mapping to the Battery Pass / DIN DKE SPEC 99100 attribute setRoadmap

Full requirement-by-requirement view: compliance mapping.

Sources

Official sources

Primary texts and regulator pages used for this guide. Last reviewed: 2 October 2026.