The short answer
The turnaround time to get a digital product passport for a mattress ready is determined in practice not by the regulation, but by the state of your own product data. If you already have material composition, origin and test reports structured and organised, a passport per mattress model is typically assembled within a few weeks. If that data is still missing, or scattered across suppliers, spreadsheets and old PDFs, that process quickly extends to several months per product line.
The reason is simple: the passport itself is not a form you fill in one afternoon. It is a collection of data that should already exist somewhere — with you, with your fabric supplier, with the factory that supplies the foam — but which has often never been brought together. The delay is therefore rarely in the passport, but in the gathering.
What determines turnaround time in practice
Three factors keep coming up. First, the number of product lines: a manufacturer with five mattress models has a different trajectory than an importer with thirty variants in different sizes and firmness grades. Second, the length of the supply chain: the more parties between raw material and end product, the more links you need to contact for, for example, material origin or chemical composition. Third, the question of whether there is already a system in place for maintaining product data, or whether everything is still separate.
Companies that underestimate this process often assume the passport is "added" somewhere at the end of the production process, like a sticker. In practice, it works the other way around: the earlier data is structured and recorded, the shorter the process at the end. With a few questions you can see where your company stands now it quickly gives an indication of how much work remains before data is passport-ready.
The steps that take the most time
The process consists roughly of three phases: gathering data, checking data and having the passport created and linked to a QR datacarrier. Of these three, the first phase, gathering, takes by far the most time. This is also the phase where things go wrong: suppliers respond slowly, test reports turn out to be outdated, or a component of the mattress comes from a party with which there has been no direct contact for years.
The checking phase — verifying that the supplied data is correct and complete — takes less time, but is often skipped under time pressure. This is risky, because a passport that is once linked to a QR code and hosted for ten years is not something you adjust daily. Errors that slip in during preparation remain visible to anyone who scans the code.
The third phase, actually having the passport created and linked, is usually the fastest step once the data is complete and checked. The knowledge base sets out per item what data is required for this; going through the knowledge base by topic gives a good picture of what you specifically need to submit.
Where the process often gets stuck
In practice, the process usually does not stall within your own organisation, but with third parties. A supplier who is not used to being asked for material data, an importer who does not know themselves where a raw material comes from, or a test laboratory whose report no longer matches the current composition of the mattress. These are not legal obstacles, but practical ones, and they are also the reason why companies that start early typically experience less delay than companies that wait until the obligation becomes concrete.
The choice of software supplier or service provider also plays a role. Some parties supply only a template and leave the compilation work entirely to you; others take the compilation and hosting of the product passport off your hands. What is done in detail and where the data comes from is explained on the page about how the process works.
The relationship with the mandatory date
The timeframe for your own preparation is separate from the date on which the digital product passport for mattresses becomes legally mandatory. That date is not yet fixed: within the ESPR Regulation work plan, a delegated act for mattresses is expected in 2028, with an expected obligation around 2030. Once that act is published, it will be added here. For your own planning, that distinction is relevant: anyone who waits until the legal date is set before starting data collection will have considerably less time to complete the process carefully than someone who starts now.
Frequently asked questions on this subject, including how a process looks in practice for a small or medium-sized enterprise, are collected on the frequently asked questions page.
Getting a picture yourself
Would you like to know how much work is still ahead for your own mattresses before the data is passport-ready? The free quick-scan provides an indication within a few minutes, without requiring an account.