TracePass
Battery Regulation · (EU) 2023/1542

The EU Battery Regulation, handled as a data task

Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 makes a digital battery passport mandatory from 18 February 2027 — the mandatory fields per battery, from chemistry and carbon footprint to supply-chain due diligence. TracePass reads your datasheets, fills what it can, requests the rest from suppliers, and publishes a GS1 Digital Link passport per unit. The regulation becomes a structured-data problem, not a compliance scramble.

What the EU Battery Regulation requires

From 18 February 2027, every LMT, industrial (>2 kWh), and EV battery placed on the EU market must carry a digital battery passport with the mandatory data fields — reachable from a QR code on the battery and resolvable through a unique GS1 Digital Link identifier. This obligation comes from Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, which replaced the 2006 Battery Directive with directly-applicable rules across every EU Member State, meaning the same passport requirements take effect on the same dates everywhere in the Union without any national transposition needed.

The software

How TracePass fills the battery passport

Fill the mandatory fields from your datasheets

TracePass reads cell datasheets, safety data sheets, and test certificates and fills chemistry, capacity, voltage, weight, and safety data automatically — you review, you don't re-type.

Carbon-footprint defaults you can replace later

When you don't yet have a verified LCA, defaults from the Battery Pass Consortium / EU PEF fill the CO₂e/kWh field so the passport is complete — swap in your measured figure later without losing the passport.

Request supplier-only data automatically

Scope-1 emissions, exact cobalt provenance, due-diligence attestations — when only the cell maker holds a value, TracePass emails them from a token-linked portal and writes the answer back into the field.

Reference-database prefill for known cells

Known cell models (Panasonic NCR18650B, Samsung, LG, CATL) prefill dozens of fields in seconds from reference-database lookups — you start from a populated passport, not a blank form.

Batch passports for the production line

Batch-create up to 500 passports per run, with auto-generated serial numbers and per-unit QR codes ready for the line — importers can build the passport they're legally responsible for from a single OEM datasheet.

Every field carries source, confidence, and an audit trail

Auto-extracted values are suggestions with a source and a confidence score, queued for explicit human review before publishing — so your QA signs off on the passport, and the audit trail shows where every value came from.

Who it's for

Cell manufacturers, pack assemblers, EV / e-bike / industrial-battery brands, and importers compiling battery passports — including for cells they don't manufacture themselves.

Looking for the Annex XIII battery passport capability itself? See the battery DPP page.

EU Battery Regulation — frequently asked

When does the EU battery passport become mandatory?
From 18 February 2027, under Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, every LMT, industrial (>2 kWh), and EV battery placed on the EU market must carry a digital battery passport reachable via a QR code. The data model needs to be in place ahead of that date, not after it.
How many fields does the battery passport require?
The passport must carry the mandatory fields per Annex XIII of Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, covering identity, chemistry, carbon footprint, recycled content, supply-chain due diligence, performance, and end-of-life. TracePass structures them all: many populate automatically from datasheets and reference databases; the rest are requested from suppliers or entered once and reused across the batch.
Is this different from the EU Battery Directive?
Yes. Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 replaced the 2006 Battery Directive. As a regulation it applies directly in every Member State without national transposition — so the obligations, including the battery passport, land on the same dates across the EU. The older term "Batterierichtlinie" refers to the superseded directive.
We import cells we don't manufacture. Can we still produce the passport?
Yes — as the importer the passport obligation is yours, and TracePass is built for it: upload the OEM datasheet, the platform extracts what it can and requests the supplier-only values through a token-linked portal, so you can compile a compliant passport even when the manufacturer abroad hasn't produced one.
What are the risks of getting the EU Battery Regulation wrong?
The commonest risk is not a missing passport but a misplaced one: Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 imposes three legally distinct information obligations that are easy to conflate. Article 13 is physical marking ON the battery — the separate-collection symbol has applied since 18 August 2025, and the Cd/Pb chemical symbols under Article 13(5). Annex VIII is technical documentation supporting conformity assessment, held and produced on request. Only Article 77 with Annex XIII is the passport itself, mandatory from 18 February 2027. A complete passport behind a missing or undersized label is still a labelling failure. Article 77(4) also puts accuracy, completeness and being up to date on the economic operator placing the battery on the market — a duty that does not transfer to a software vendor, though it may be delegated in writing.
How long must the battery passport stay available?
There is no year count, and quoting one is a common error — the ten-year retention in the Battery Regulation belongs to technical documentation and conformity records (Articles 38, 41 and 51), not to the passport. The passport's rule is event-bound. Article 77(8): a battery passport “shall cease to exist after the battery has been recycled” — recycling is the only terminus. Article 78(e) requires that it “remain available after the economic operator … ceases to exist or ceases its activity in the Union”. So the window runs from placing on the market until the battery is recycled, and it must survive the company that created it. That survivorship requirement is also why ESPR Article 10(4) obliges an operator to lodge a back-up copy with a digital product passport service provider.
What does battery passport compliance actually cost?
The two biggest variable costs are the PEF (Product Environmental Footprint) study — €8K–€25K via an external assessor, 2–6 weeks — and GS1 membership for a Digital Link resolver at €500–€1,500/year. Internal compliance-team time runs 240–400 person-hours for the first DPP, dropping to 40–80 hours per repeat model once supplier relationships are in place. Software costs are a small fraction: TracePass plans start at €49/month for manual entry and €350/month for AI-assisted extraction at mid volume. The PEF and GS1 setup are the long-lead items — both should start before the data-collection sprint.

Be passport-ready before 18 February 2027

Start from your existing datasheets. TracePass fills all mandatory fields, requests the rest from suppliers, and publishes a GS1 Digital Link passport per battery.

Reviewed by Malin Ivanov, Managing Directoron