What is a delegated act and why does it determine what I must do?

What you must do concretely

What is expected of you

The ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) is a framework regulation. This means that the regulation itself primarily describes the rules: who is competent to set requirements, how that process proceeds and what must be addressed in it. The concrete requirements for a product group — what information must appear in the passport, from what point in time, for which products exactly — come in a separate act: the delegated act. For clothing and textiles, this does not yet exist. For this reason, what is currently most important is what is already established about how that act will be adopted and what it will contain.

Understanding that the regulation and the delegated act are two layers

Article 4 of the ESPR gives the European Commission the authority to set requirements per product group via delegated acts. For a company of 10 to 100 employees, this means above all that the text of the ESPR itself is not yet a work instruction. Whoever reads the regulation and looks for "which data must be on the label" or "from which date does this apply to my collection", will not find that answer in the ESPR itself but must wait for the act that specifically addresses textiles. That distinction is relevant when assessing what is already established and what is still to come — see also the explanation about what a digital product passport for clothing and textiles contains.

Knowing what a delegated act will contain

Article 8 of the ESPR describes which topics a delegated act must in any case regulate: the precise product group to which the requirements apply, the requirements on sustainability and information, and the manner in which the passport is designed and made accessible. For an entrepreneur, this means that the act for textiles will not only address the content of the passport, but will also define for which products that content applies precisely. This makes reading the final act relevant alongside the general question of whether textile products fall under it in any case — that question is addressed in which clothing and textile products fall under the ESPR.

Following when textiles are on the agenda

Article 18 of the ESPR regulates the prioritization and planning of delegated acts: the Commission draws up a work plan and determines in it the order of product groups. For clothing and textiles, a timeframe is provided for in that work plan, but the act itself must still be published. For a company, this means that planning based on an expected date always warrants a caveat: the schedule can shift, and only the published act makes a date definitive. More on how that planning relates to the expected obligation is found in when the product passport becomes mandatory for clothing and textiles.

Where things go wrong in practice

A number of situations recur with companies that are preparing for this:

• The regulation is read as the final word. A procurement or compliance team reads the ESPR, concludes that "no concrete requirements" yet apply, and files the matter away. This misses the fact that the structure of the requirements (via article 8) is already known, even though the specific text for textiles is still missing.
• An expected date is treated as a firm date. A planning document or supplier instruction mentions a year as certainty, while that year comes from a work plan that can change based on article 18.
• Assumptions about the product group definition. A brand assumes that "clothing" as a whole will be regulated, while the delegated act according to article 8 precisely determines the definition of the product group — possibly with a different categorization than standard marketing categories.
• Preparation is completely stopped until publication. Because the act has not yet been published, no step is taken, while data collection on materials and origin can now start without legal risk.
• Confusion between the ESPR and other European regulations on textiles. Obligations from the textile strategy or from producer responsibility are confused with the passport requirements from the delegated act, whereas these are separate tracks — the difference between them is explained at the distinction between the ESPR and the European textile strategy.

What you can record

Even without a published delegated act, a number of things can already be documented now, so that the transition to concrete requirements later will be less work:

• An overview of which product groups within your own assortment fall under the definition "textiles and clothing", including borderline cases such as accessories — see the explanation about digital product passport for footwear, bags and belts.
• A list of sources that are monitored for the status of the delegated act (the work plan based on Article 18, and publications in the EU Official Journal).
• An internal document explaining the distinction between the ESPR framework regulation and the delegated act yet to be published to colleagues outside compliance, so that "not yet mandatory" is not confused with "never relevant".
• A first inventory of available product data (material composition, origin, repairability) per product line, regardless of whether this is already subject to a passport obligation.
• A note on how company clothing, samples or other borderline cases in your own assortment relate to a future passport obligation — relevant for questions such as those about company clothing and uniforms or about showroom samples that are not sold.