If you sell clothing or textiles in multiple EU countries, you may wonder who will check whether the digital product passport is in order. The answer: each member state appoints its own market surveillance authority, and it monitors products offered on its own market, not only companies established there. If you sell via a web shop to customers in Germany, France or Belgium, the supervisory authority of that country can check your product, even if your company is based in the Netherlands.
The regulation itself prescribes the requirements for the passport EU-wide, but leaves implementation and enforcement to the member states. This means that the authority, the method of checking and the manner of action may differ per country, while the content of the passport and the data carrier itself remain the same everywhere.
One regulation, national implementation
This pattern is not new and is not specific to textiles either. The same principle applies to product safety, CE marking and other EU product rules: the rules are laid down in a regulation that has direct effect in all member states, but supervision of it is organised by the member states themselves. The Netherlands appoints a competent supervisory authority for this, other countries do so for their own market. Which authority that is exactly and how it operates is set out in that country's national implementation rules; for this, the supervisory authority itself is the first source, not a general assumption.
What remains the same, where the difference lies
The data that must be included in the passport, the form of the QR data carrier and the period for which the passport must remain accessible are part of the regulation and therefore apply the same everywhere. What differs is the practice of supervision: one supervisory authority works with sample checks at importers, another responds mainly to complaints from consumers or competitors. The way an infringement is handled and which sanctions are associated with it are also filled in at national level within the framework provided by the regulation. For those who want to find out on a subject-by-subject basis what is fixed at EU level and what is left to the member states, that overview can be found in the knowledge base with supervision and enforcement by subject.
Cross-border sales and cooperation between countries
If you sell to customers in multiple member states, what matters is not only where your company is registered, but also where the product is offered. Supervisory authorities in the EU exchange signals about product groups and risks with each other, precisely because web shops and marketplaces do not respect national borders. A notification received in one country can therefore also prompt a question from another country where the same item is sold. For companies that doubt whether their sales method falls within this scope, it is useful to first see in a few questions whether this is relevant for your situation.
What this means for your administration
Because the content of the passport is the same EU-wide, you do not need to rebuild it for each country. One complete and traceable file, linked to the QR code on the product, generally meets the requirements of any supervisory authority in the EU, regardless of which country the product is checked in. Where we get what goes into the passport from, and how that is recorded once for use in every EU country, we explain on the page about how the information is compiled. This does not mean that a supervisory authority in a specific country cannot ask for something that fits its own working method, for example a language in which certain information must be available.
What you can practically do with it
For most SMEs, it is still too early to regulate this in detail: the delegated act with the precise obligations is not expected before 2027 at the earliest, with clothing of eighty percent or more textile fibres as the first category. However, it is useful to know now that enforcement is a national matter and where you can check for yourself what that means for your markets. If you are in doubt about a specific situation, the supervisory authority of the country concerned, or a lawyer, is the right place to verify that; we describe how the system works, not how it will work out in your specific case.
If you would first like a general overview before investigating further, please see the frequently asked questions about enforcement and the date or take the free quick-scan to see which topics are relevant for your business.