Digital Product Passport for Textiles: Data Requirements

Pick up a hoodie in a shop. What does the brand actually know about it?

Usually less than you would think. The fibre split, maybe, and a factory country. But which farm or recycler the cotton came from, how long the garment is built to last, whether the dye contains a substance of concern, how to recycle the mixed-fibre cuff: that data is scattered across a supply chain, or it was never captured at all.

The digital product passport asks the brand to pull all of it into one place, per style, and stand behind it. That is why the passport is a data problem long before it is a design problem.

This guide covers the data a textile digital product passport is expected to hold, how it is reached, who sees what, and who has to assemble it.

First, the honest caveat on "requirements"

The exact field list for a textile passport is set by a delegated act for textiles under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR, Regulation (EU) 2024/1781), and that act has not been adopted yet.

So anyone selling you a definitive, final "textile DPP data template" today is guessing at the edges. What is not a guess is the direction of travel: the ESPR and its working plan already make clear the categories the passport will carry. Build around those and you will be close, whatever the final act pins down.

For the bigger picture of what the passport is, see what a textile digital product passport is; for the dates, see the textile DPP timeline.

The data a textile passport is expected to hold

Group the expected fields into five buckets. Each answers a different question a shopper, a repairer, or a recycler will ask of the garment.

• Product identity. A unique identifier for the item or model, the anchor everything else hangs off.
• Fibre composition and materials. What the garment is actually made of, down to the components, not just the headline "80% cotton" on the care label.
• Care and repair information. How to wash, maintain and repair it, so it stays in use longer.
• Durability and recyclability. How long it is built to last and how to recycle it at end of life.
• Compliance data. Evidence that the product meets the rules that apply to it, including substance restrictions.

The thread through all five is the EU's real goal: keep the garment in use, then recycle it cleanly. The passport is just the container that puts each fact where the right person can reach it.

It is assessed on the components, not the finished garment

Here is the detail that makes textile data hard. A garment is not one material. It is a shell, a lining, a thread, a zip, a print, a coating.

Recyclability and material claims are judged on those parts, not on the finished item as a single thing. A jacket that looks recyclable can fail because of a bonded membrane or a mixed-fibre trim. So the passport data has to reach component level, which is exactly where most brands have the least visibility, because that data lives with mills and trim suppliers several tiers down.

This is the same logic as a PPWR declaration of conformity, where recyclability is assessed on the adhesives, inks and coatings rather than the finished box.

How the data is reached, and who sees what

Every garment carries a data carrier, a QR code, NFC or RFID tag, built to survive washing and still resolve years after the sale. One scan opens the passport.

What opens is not the same for everyone. The ESPR provides for access tiers: a public view for shoppers, and wider views for recyclers and market authorities. A consumer sees care and composition; a recycler sees what it needs to sort and process the item; an authority sees the compliance evidence.

The content itself stays with the brand or its passport service provider. The EU's central DPP Registry only records each product's unique identifier. A scan resolves to the brand's data, not to an EU server.

Who assembles it

The economic operator that places the product on the EU market, usually the manufacturer or importer, owes the passport and its data. The operator may appoint a passport service provider to build and maintain it, but the accountability for the data staying accurate does not move.

And because scope is set by product category rather than company size, a small brand carries the same data burden per style as a large one. The difference is that a large brand has a compliance team and a small one does not, which is why the data-gathering is the part worth starting early.

How Bindu handles the passport data

Assembling component-level data across a supply chain, holding the evidence behind each claim, and keeping it ready to publish is precisely the work Bindu is built to carry.

Bindu is the trade-compliance OS. Drop in a supplier document and it reads the parties, materials and origins into structured records, then keeps the evidence attached to the right product, so a claim in the passport always has proof standing behind it. Each supplier keeps its own data in its own workspace and grants you access, so you pull what you need without anyone handing over a copy.

The textile passport is still awaiting its delegated act, so Bindu does not yet publish a finished textile DPP. What it does today is the durable part of the job: assemble the product data and hold the evidence, so the file exists before the format is finalised. That is the same discipline behind every strand of trade compliance. See the textile passport breakdown.

FAQ

What data does a textile digital product passport need? The exact list is set by the forthcoming ESPR delegated act for textiles, but it is expected to cover product identity, fibre composition and materials, care and repair information, durability and recyclability, and compliance data, all reachable from a code on the garment.

Is there a final textile DPP data template yet? No. The delegated act for textiles under the ESPR has not been adopted, so the precise fields are not final. The categories above are already signalled by the ESPR and its working plan, so brands can build around them now.

Why does the passport data need to reach component level? Because recyclability and material claims are judged on a garment's parts, the shell, lining, thread, zip, print and coating, not on the finished item as one material. That component data usually sits with mills and trim suppliers, which is the hardest part to gather.

How do shoppers and recyclers see different data? Through access tiers. One scan of the garment's data carrier opens a public view for shoppers, while recyclers and market authorities reach wider views with the data each needs. The content stays with the brand, not on an EU server.

Who is responsible for the passport data? The economic operator placing the product on the EU market, usually the manufacturer or importer. It can appoint a passport service provider to build and maintain the passport, but the legal responsibility for the data stays with the operator, whatever the company's size.