Who is responsible for the product passport for mattresses?

What you concretely must do

What is expected of you

The ESPR places responsibility for the digital product passport primarily with the manufacturer. Article 27 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) describes the obligations of manufacturers, and article 9 of the ESPR describes what the product passport itself must contain. For a mattress manufacturer, an importer, or a brand owner who has mattresses made, this means in practice a number of concrete tasks.

Ensure that the passport exists and is correct

The party that qualifies as a manufacturer bears responsibility for a product passport existing for a mattress and for the data in it to correspond with the actual product: materials, composition, origin and the other elements that are established for mattresses. For a company of 10 to 100 employees, this usually means that someone — often in the quality or product department — supplies and checks the source data before a passport is published. Who precisely qualifies as a manufacturer is not self-evident in every situation; Am I an importer or manufacturer according to the ESPR? goes into this further.

Link the passport to the product

Article 9 of the ESPR describes that the passport must be connected to the product via a data carrier — in practice a QR code. For a mattress producer, this means an adjustment in the production process: there must be a fixed point at which the QR code is applied to the mattress label or packaging, and that point must be linked to the correct passport per model or batch.

Keep the passport up to date

A product passport is not a snapshot at launch. When the composition of a mattress changes — a different type of foam, a different filling — that may have consequences for the content of the passport. Must I adjust the product passport if I change the foam or filling describes what is involved in that. For a company with an ongoing production process, this means that changes in procurement or formulation must also reach the person responsible for the passport, and not remain confined to production or procurement.

Keeping and making available records

The passport must remain accessible for a specified period, even if a model is phased out or a company changes hosting partner. For a smaller organization, this is often the practical bottleneck: someone must be responsible for continuity, also in the long term, and not only for the first publication.

Where things go wrong in practice

In practice, confusion over "who is responsible" usually arises at a few recognizable points.

A first situation: a brand has its mattresses produced by a third party, but has not established who of the two supplies the data for the passport and keeps it up to date. Both parties then assume that the other will handle it. Who is responsible for the passport if I have mattresses made under my own brand addresses this relationship specifically.

A second situation: a company sells mattresses under its own brand, while the mattress is produced elsewhere. The question of who in that case acts as a manufacturer within the meaning of the ESPR is often only raised after something has already gone wrong. I sell mattresses under my own brand — what obligations do I have? describes how this role is filled.

A third situation: the manufacturer is located outside the EU, and the European party importing the mattresses assumes that the passport remains a matter for the foreign manufacturer. My manufacturer is outside the EU — who arranges the digital product passport then? shows that this assumption does not necessarily hold.

A fourth situation: a distributor or specialist retailer sells a mattress on and assumes that responsibility for the passport remains entirely with the manufacturer, while there can also be a role for the trader. What obligations does a distributor or trader of mattresses have? goes into this.

A fifth situation: mattresses are sold via an online marketplace, and it is unclear whether the platform, the seller on the platform, or the manufacturer bears responsibility for the data carrier and the content. What does the digital product passport mean if I sell mattresses via an online marketplace? describes this issue.

What you can record

A number of agreements and documents help make responsibility for the product passport clear, including within a chain of multiple parties:

• A written agreement between brand owner and production partner about who supplies the source data, who checks it, and who manages the publication.
• An overview per mattress model of the materials used and composition, so that changes in foam or filling can quickly be traced back to the corresponding passport.
• A fixed process for applying the QR data carrier in the production line, including a check that the code refers to the correct passport.
• A contact point within the organisation responsible for keeping the passport up to date during the hosting period.
• An agreement with any importers, distributors or marketplaces about who supplies or checks which part of the information.

Those who do not document these agreements run not only the risk that the data in the passport is incorrect — who is liable if there is incorrect information in the product passport of a mattress describes what the consequences of that can be — but also that, when a passport becomes mandatory, no one can be identified to take on the task. Matrapas.eu provides templates for these agreements and overviews, so that responsibility within a production or sales chain is assigned in advance rather than sorted out afterwards.