Which products in the mattress industry fall under the ESPR?

What you concretely must do

What is expected of you

The ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) is a framework regulation. This means that Article 1 sketches a broad scope of application — almost all physical products placed on the market can in principle fall under it — but the regulation itself does not lay down per product group what exactly must happen. That specification comes per product group in a delegated act. For mattresses, it does not yet exist. What is thus "expected of you" at this moment is mainly: to know whether your product will later fall under such a delegated act, and to be able to apply the definitions from Article 2 to what you actually sell.

Ascertaining whether the product falls within the definition of Article 2

Article 2 of the ESPR works with a broad definition of "product": a physical object that is manufactured and placed on the market. A mattress fits there at first glance without much discussion. For a company of 10 to 100 employees, this means in practice that it makes no sense to wait until doubt arises about loose components — the core question "does my mattress fall under this" can already be reasonably answered with the current text, even without a delegated act. It becomes more difficult with composite products or accessories; see for that the situations below. A first check on this can be found on the page Does the digital product passport apply to my mattresses?.

Making a distinction between the main product and accessories

A mattress manufacturer often does not sell only a mattress, but also covers, toppers, and in the case of box springs a complete assembled bed. Article 2 provides definitions that help to establish what counts as a separate product and what as part of a larger product. For the practice of a mid-sized company, this means that the product line-up must be properly broken down: which items are sold separately, which only as a set. That distinction is relevant to the question of whether a mattress topper or cover needs its own passport, as elaborated on the page does a mattress topper or cover also need its own product passport, and to the question of how a box spring is treated as a composite product, see Does a boxspring get one product passport or multiple?.

Monitoring which delegated act applies to mattresses

Because Article 1 opens the scope of application but the concrete obligations only arise via a delegated act, monitoring that act is practically the most important action for now. For a company of this size, that is not a heavy burden — it comes down to keeping track of publications — but it is something that someone within the organisation must take on as a task, otherwise it gets lost among other priorities. Background on what a delegated act exactly is and why it determines what must happen, is found on What is a delegated act and why does it determine what I must do?.

Assessing whether company size changes anything about applicability

Article 1 and Article 2 make no distinction by company size in determining whether a product falls under the regulation. That is a different question from whether lighter obligations apply to smaller companies — the latter is regulated elsewhere and does not belong to "what falls under it". For clarity, that distinction is elaborated separately on Does the product passport also apply to small businesses?.

Where things go wrong in practice

Confusion between mattress and box spring as one item. Companies that sell box springs often treat them internally as one product number, whereas mattress and base may for the purposes of the regulation be seen as separate products. Anyone who starts thinking about this only when a customer or buyer asks about it is too late.

Hotel purchasing that asks different questions than retail. When supplying to hotels, additional documentation is often requested, and buyers sometimes wrongly assume that business supply is an exception to the regulation. That is a misunderstanding that deserves separate attention, see Does the product passport also apply to mattresses supplied to hotels?.

Assumption that secondhand or private sales remain out of sight. Bedding retailers who also sell second-hand items, or private individuals who have their old mattress resold through a shop, sometimes assume this automatically falls outside any regulation. This assumption is not tenable in all situations and warrants a separate check, see do I need a product passport if I sell used mattresses en do I need a product passport if I sell my own mattress to a consumer.

Do not conflate "the ESPR applies" with "the digital product passport is already mandatory". A common mistake is to think that because a product falls within the scope of Article 1, a passport is now required. Scope and obligation are two different points in time; when the obligation takes effect in practice depends on the delegated act, see When will the product passport become mandatory for mattresses?.

Purchasing loose components without an overview. Manufacturers who source foam cores, covers and suspension systems from different suppliers sometimes lack a central overview of which composition leads to which end product. Without that overview, it is difficult to reconstruct later which article is precisely what, let alone whether it falls under the definition in Article 2.

What you can record

• A current product list showing for each article: is it a mattress, a box spring, a topper, a cover, or an assembled product.
• A brief note per product line on whether and why it falls within the definition of "product" in Article 2 of the ESPR.
• Agreements with suppliers on which components (foam, suspension, cover) are purchased separately and whether data on origin and composition are already available for those.
• An internal contact point that tracks publications on the delegated act for mattresses, with a fixed review moment (for example, every quarter).
• An overview of sales channels (retail, hotel procurement, private sales, second-hand) with a note per channel on whether purchasers have raised specific questions about the digital product passport.
• Background material on what the passport contains and which data go into it, so that this file is ready to hand once the obligation takes effect in practice — see What is a digital product passport for mattresses? en What data goes into the product passport for mattresses?.