What Is the Digital Product Passport (DPP) in Textiles? What We Know Heading into 2027

The Digital Product Passport is an approach that aims to make certain information about a product's description, content and life cycle accessible through a digital record. The goal is for product-related information to be passed along the supply chain, and where necessary to consumers, authorities or recyclers, in a more orderly and comparable way.

As for how this information would be accessed, a data carrier placed on the product, such as a QR code, is among the options frequently mentioned. However, which carrier will be used for textiles, in what format and with what information has not yet been set out in final rules.

The ESPR is the European Union's ecodesign framework, aimed at having products designed to be more sustainable. Within this framework, the DPP is positioned as one of the tools that will enable product information to be shared.

The key point here is this: the ESPR provides a general framework, and the information to be required for each product group is planned to be determined through separate rules specific to that product group. For textiles, these product-group-specific rules have not yet been published. Readers who would like to explore the general framework in more detail can find the Commission's DPP page in the Sources section below.

The European Commission lists textiles and apparel among the priority product groups for the DPP. This approach is also seen as linked to the EU's strategy for sustainable and circular textiles.

The structure of the sector makes this priority easier to understand. Behind a garment there is often a multi-stage chain involving different companies, covering steps such as yarn production, weaving or knitting, dyeing and finishing, garment making and distribution. Product information is spread across these stages. Blended compositions make it important to know what a product is made of during repair and recycling processes. The DPP is seen as a tool aimed at making this scattered information more traceable.

Based on publicly available information as of 28 September 2026, the picture can be summarised as follows:

For this reason, statements such as “the DPP will be mandatory from date X” or “data Y will definitely be required” should be approached with caution. Until the official rules are published, the most reliable source of information is the Commission's current web pages.

On the Commission's textiles and apparel DPP page, the information fields that could be included in a textile passport are referred to under general headings. These may include the following:

• Product description and characteristics: Information that identifies the product and describes its key attributes.
• Fibre composition: Which fibres the product is made of, and in what proportions. To see how composition affects product behaviour, you can refer to our fabric composition guide.
• Origin: Information on where the product or its components were made.
• Economic operator information: Information on the companies that place the product on the market or are involved in the chain.
• Circularity, repair and recycling information: Information on the product's repairability, reuse and recycling.

This list is not a definitive data set. Which fields will be mandatory, how much detail will be required and which company in the chain will provide the information have not yet been determined.

Although, once the DPP rules are finalised, the requirements will directly concern companies placing products on the EU market, a significant share of the information may need to come from earlier links in the supply chain. An apparel brand can only verify composition or origin information through the documents it receives from its fabric and yarn suppliers.

This makes it sensible for companies that do not sell directly to the EU, but supply fabric or contract manufacturing to customers that do, to follow the topic as well. Information requests from customers may arise even ahead of the official rules.

Investing in a specific system or format before the rules are finalised may be premature. On the other hand, setting up a basic record-keeping routine that will be useful whatever rules emerge is good general practice:

• Keeping composition information for each fabric quality in writing and up to date
• Archiving documents from yarn and raw material suppliers, matched to the relevant quality code
• Recording which document the origin information is based on
• Using product and quality codes consistently across all correspondence and documents
• Managing the technical information sent to customers from a single source, with version control

These steps are not a guarantee of compliance; they simply help you be better prepared for information requests that may come in the future. You can find general information about our approach to fabrics and contract manufacturing on our production page.

• Updates on the European Commission's textiles and apparel DPP page
• Publication of the draft and final texts of the textile-specific rules
• Possible changes to the timeline
• Data fields as they are finalised, and decisions on the data carrier
• Requests for information and documents from customers in the EU

You can find our other content about fabrics and production on our guides page. To learn about Arkadaş Tekstil's history in the industry since 1992, visit our about page.