Who Actually Checks Whether I Comply with Digital Product Passport Rules?
There’s one objection I hear all the time, and I understand it: “The rules are all well and good, but in practice, who’s actually going to check? It’ll be the same as always—where there’s a law, there’s a loophole.”
The short answer is that Digital Product Passport compliance is being checked, and more extensively than most people realize. More importantly, the strictest scrutiny now often comes from the market itself, even before regulators step in. And that process has already begun.
Public Enforcement Exists, and Digitalization Makes It Much Easier
Let’s start with traditional enforcement. Market surveillance authorities and customs agencies are responsible for verifying that products comply with the applicable rules. There’s nothing new about that.
What is new is that the Digital Product Passport makes these checks far easier. A paper file stored in a drawer must be requested, retrieved, and reviewed. A Digital Product Passport, by contrast, is machine-readable: a code that anyone can scan, containing structured data that can be verified automatically and on a scale. Making information transparent and instantly accessible means making non-compliance visible. And what is visible is, sooner or later, inspected.
Customs is one of these key checkpoints. Under the ESPR, customs authorities may verify that products entering the European market have a Digital Product Passport in place and that it is accessible. If the passport is missing, the goods may be stopped at the border. This is not just an occasional spot check—it is a gateway control at the point of entry.
Today, However, the Real Enforcement Comes from the Market
This is the point that overturns the objection. You no longer have to wait for an inspector. Major marketplaces and large retailers have already started carrying out many of these checks themselves, because responsibility increasingly extends to them as well.
Take Amazon, for example. In several European countries, sellers are already required to provide their Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) registration numbers. Without them, product listings can be suspended. And this goes far beyond online marketplaces. Large retail chains are raising the bar by requiring suppliers to disclose information about materials, product origin, and environmental footprint as a condition for remaining on their shelves. Buyers who must meet their own sustainability obligations are increasingly screening suppliers based on exactly this kind of information.
There is also a clear technical reason behind this growing pressure. If your customer is also subject to EU requirements, they must complete their own Digital Product Passport using data provided by their suppliers, in other words, by you. They are not requesting this information out of diligence; they need it to remain compliant themselves. That is how the obligation moves down the value chain, one link at a time, long before it formally applies to your business.
This is not a future scenario; it is already happening. And it works quietly: no fines, no warning letters. Companies that fail to comply simply stop receiving orders, often without anyone explicitly telling them why.
What Does This Mean for You?
It means that the idea of “let’s wait, no one is checking anyway” is the most dangerous approach of all. The two enforcement forces reinforce each other: public authorities make non-compliance visible and verifiable, while the market makes it immediately costly. Staying passive exposes your business on both fronts.
Someone is already checking—and the real question is whether you are ready to respond. That answer must be implemented now, not on the day you receive the request.
Digital Product Passport checks are not a distant possibility: public authorities are making them easier to perform, and the market is already enforcing them today. Do not wait for an inspection before becoming compliant, because the market may have already made its judgment. Start building solid and verifiable product data now: it is the only way to avoid being unprepared when scrutiny arrives, regardless of the form it takes.
