Maintaining a digital product passport for mattresses costs money because data does not stand still: a supplier changes, a material is modified, or a new mattress variant is added. Each change must be traceable in the passport attached to that mattress. How much that costs structurally does not depend on the regulation itself — which prescribes no tariff — but on how much changes in your assortment and what your service provider charges for it.
The regulation itself mentions no amounts for setting up or maintaining a passport. What is certain is that the data must remain current and accessible for as long as the passport exists. For mattresses, this is expected to be a period of several years; how long exactly, and under what conditions, is set out in the delegated act that has not yet been published. What that entails in practice in terms of costs is therefore primarily a question for the market, not for the legal text.
Where the initial costs end and maintenance begins
Setting up a passport is a one-time task: collecting data, linking the data carrier (usually a QR code) to the product, and publishing the whole thing. Maintenance begins as soon as something changes in what is in that passport, or in the way it must remain accessible. A supplier switching filling material, a factory relocating, or a certificate expiring — these are all reasons to update the passport. Some service providers charge this as a separate change, others include it in a fixed annual fee. Both models occur, and the choice between them is precisely the conversation you should have with a supplier.
What determines the level of maintenance costs
Number of products and variants
A manufacturer with five mattress models has a more manageable maintenance burden than a manufacturer with fifty variants in size, firmness, and ticking. Each variant that comes separately to market generally receives its own passport or its own dataset within a shared passport. More variants means more points where a change can occur, and thus more management.
Changes in the supply chain
Mattresses consist of multiple layers and materials, often from different suppliers. If one of them changes raw materials, country of origin, or certification, that shifts along in the passport. Companies working with many changing suppliers must account for a higher maintenance frequency than companies with a stable, long-term supply chain.
What the service provider includes in the tariff
Not every passport provider charges the same. Some include hosting, changes, and the QR data carrier in one tariff; others break that down. It is therefore worthwhile to explicitly ask what is and is not included in an annual price before you compare providers. An overview of how such a tariff is structured can be found on the page with prices and what is included in them.
Ten years of storage: what that practically means
A passport that is hosted must remain accessible throughout its entire term, even if the company changes ownership, switches software provider, or discontinues a particular model. That is a different type of cost item than a one-time setup: it is about continuity, not an activity you complete once. When evaluating a provider, it is therefore worthwhile to ask what happens to the passport if the provider itself stops or is taken over, and how the data is protected during that period. More on how data is recorded and stored can be found on the page on data protection and storage.
What else plays a role
The costs of maintaining the passport are not separate from other obligations that already existed, such as product safety files or data you already record for other regulations. Whoever already keeps that information structured somewhere often has less extra work than someone who has to gather everything from scratch. A first assessment of where your company stands, and which data you likely already have in-house, you can get via the free quick-scan with a few questions. For the underlying rules themselves, without legal jargon, is the knowledge bank by subject a logical starting point.
Because the delegated act for mattresses has not yet been published, the exact retention periods and obligations are not yet definitively established. For the current status and the question of what that concretely means for your company, it is advisable to consult the official text as soon as it appears, or in case of doubt to consult a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority.
Would you like to see where your company currently stands without obligations? The quick-scan provides a first indication in a few questions, and the knowledge base sets the loose topics clearly alongside each other.