Textiles are the consumer category everyone watches in the Digital Product Passport rollout: named among the priorities of the first ESPR working plan adopted in April 2025, economically enormous, and notoriously opaque in exactly the ways passports target, fibre origin, chemistry and end of life. The delegated act that fixes dates and data fields is in preparation at the European Commission; brands selling into the EU should treat the direction as settled even while details move.
Why textiles were picked early
Scale and impact. Textiles are among the highest-pressure product groups on resources and waste in EU analysis, fast fashion put disposability on the political agenda, and the industry's long, subcontracted supply chains make claims hard to check, precisely the problem a passport formalizes. The category is also a test of passports at consumer scale: hundreds of thousands of SKUs, short seasons, small margins.
What compliance will look like on a garment
A data carrier on the product, in practice a QR code on the care label or hang tag, resolving to the passport record. The industry-standard way to write that code is a GS1 Digital Link carrying the GTIN your products already have, which keeps one code serving checkout, the Sunrise 2027 till, marketing and the passport. Care labels are small, so the minimum size rules bite harder here than in most categories; woven labels especially need the module arithmetic checked before committing.
The two workstreams, and which one is urgent
Data gathering is the slow one. Fibre composition you have; verified origin, chemistry and recyclability data live with suppliers and take seasons to instrument. Start pulling those fields into your PIM now, delegated act or not, because retailer scorecards already ask for much of it.
Publication is the fast one. Once a garment's data exists, putting it behind the code is a solved problem: on Onpack, passport-type fields (origin, materials, footprint, recycling) are settings on the product, served automatically to EU scans in the shopper's language, free. Print the Digital Link on the next label order and the eventual act becomes a data update, not a packaging project, the same sequencing argument as the Sunrise checklist.
Common questions
When exactly do textiles need Digital Product Passports?
The textile delegated act under ESPR is in preparation; obligations are expected to begin later this decade, with the first ESPR working plan naming textiles among the priority categories. The date firms up when the delegated act is adopted.
Does this apply to non-EU brands?
Yes, if you place products on the EU market. The obligation follows the market, not the headquarters, so exporters to the EU are squarely in scope.
What data will a textile passport need?
Expect fibre composition, origin and manufacturing information, substances of concern, durability and repairability data, and recycling guidance; the delegated act finalizes the exact fields.
What should a textile brand do before the act is final?
Put the data carrier question to bed: print GS1 Digital Link QR codes at the next artwork cycle so the passport becomes a data update, and start collecting supply-chain data now, since gathering it is the slow part.