What does the product passport mean if I sell steel via an online marketplace?

Responsibility does not shift to the platform

The product passport remains fundamentally a matter between the manufacturer or importer and the market — that does not change because steel is sold via a marketplace. An online marketplace does receive its own role under the ESPR: according to Article 35 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the marketplace operator must act if a product without the mandatory passport is offered. Those who themselves act as sellers on such a platform usually fall under the rules for distributors and traders in Articles 30 and 31: these require that a product with the required passport is placed on the market, and that the trader verifies this before the product is offered. The marketplace itself does not need to create the passport — that remains the responsibility of the party that originally placed the product on the market.

Who this applies to and who it does not

Article 35 is directed at the operator of the online marketplace or search engine itself — the company that operates the platform, not the individual seller using it. For that seller, if they resell steel within the EU, the obligations for distributors and traders under Articles 30 and 31 apply. This particularly concerns prior verification: is there a passport, is the QR link correct, has nothing been altered. This does not apply to those who are themselves manufacturers or importers and were already required to provide the product with a passport — that party is subject to different, more extensive obligations not covered here. It also does not apply to product groups for which no delegated act establishing a passport requirement has yet been adopted: without such an act, no passport obligation exists for that steel group to verify. And it does not apply to sales outside the EU market, where the ESPR does not apply.

No fixed date for steel yet

There is no established entry date for the product passport for iron and steel. The ESPR itself is in force, but the concrete obligation arises only per product group through a delegated act. According to the European Commission's work plan for 2025-2030, the first delegated act is expected in 2026, with obligations taking effect at a later point. As long as such an act for steel has not been published, there is no legal obligation for marketplaces or sellers to verify a passport for steel products — Articles 30, 31 and 35 apply only once the underlying passport requirement for that product group exists. Until then, nothing changes for sales via a marketplace compared to what is stated above; it is a matter of preparing, not complying.

What this means in practice

Anyone selling steel via a marketplace or planning to do so would be well advised to first check whether their own product will fall under a delegated act — this will become clear through official publication, not through the marketplace itself. If that is the case, the next step is to check whether a passport from the manufacturer or importer has already been supplied with the product being resold; without that passport, a trader will not be able to lawfully offer the product in future. Subsequently, it is important to retain the information that belongs with the product and not to change it when transferring it to a marketplace listing, because Articles 30 and 31 require that the trader keeps the passport intact. For those who operate the marketplace themselves rather than selling on it, a separate set of obligations under Article 35 applies to respond to reports of missing passports; this is a different position from that of the individual seller and deserves its own detailed treatment once the underlying passport requirement is in place. For now, the practical sequence is: check scope, request passport from source, and arrange your own sales channels — marketplace or otherwise — accordingly once the date is set.

Where this derives from: Articles 30, 31 and 35 ESPR

The obligations for distributors and traders to check for the presence of a passport are laid down in Articles 30 and 31 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR). The separate role of online marketplace providers and search engines, with the obligation to take action in case of missing passports, is set out in Article 35 of the same regulation. Both provisions only apply to a specific product group once a delegated act with a passport requirement has been adopted and entered into force.

If you are already selling steel via a marketplace, you do not yet need to arrange anything for this — but you can already map out which products in your own catalogue will fall under the passport requirement and from which supplier the passport will need to be requested in future, so that the transition runs smoothly once the date becomes known in the official publication.

What this is based on

The regulation itself can be found on EUR-Lex. We provide references for each statement; you do not have to take our word for it.

What you must concretely do

Selling steel via an online marketplace is now just as common as selling via your own webshop or showroom. The ESPR makes a distinction here: whoever sells (the trader) has different obligations than the platform on which the sale takes place. For a steel trader who is present both on its own site and on a marketplace, it is important to keep both roles clear — that of the trader's own business, and that of the platform.

What is expected of you

The trader remains responsible for the product passport

The obligations of Articles 30 and 31 of the ESPR apply to the trader itself, regardless of which channel is used to sell. A marketplace does not change this: offering steel on a third-party platform is a sale, and the trader who places the product on the platform is the one who must be able to demonstrate that a product passport is associated with the product before it is offered. For a company with 10 to 100 employees that sells both through its own channels and via a marketplace, this means that the same check for the presence of the passport must be performed, regardless of where the order comes in. What this precisely entails in practice is described on the page about what obligations a distributor or trader of steel has.

The platform itself receives its own obligations under Article 35

Article 35 of the ESPR is directed at providers of online marketplaces and search engines. They have a separate role: not as a seller of the steel, but as a party that facilitates the sale. What that role precisely entails and how far it extends depends on the delegated and implementing acts for product groups such as steel that are still to follow. For the steel trader selling on a platform, the practical consequence is that the platform may request data or connection to the passport — but the obligation to have a correct passport does not shift to the platform as a result.

The division of roles remains in effect, even if the platform itself appears to "white label" the sale

Some marketplaces offer the option to sell under your own name or brand identity, or to bundle orders under a single delivery business. This does not change the question of who, according to the ESPR, acts as a trader, distributor, or possibly manufacturer. Whoever offers steel under their own brand — also via a marketplace — faces a different set of obligations than a party that merely resells; this difference is explained on the page about selling under your own brand.

In case of doubt about the trader's own role, reference to the definitions is needed, not to the platform's marketing text

Marketplaces often use their own terms such as "seller", "partner" or "supplier" that do not correspond one-to-one with the ESPR's categorization into manufacturer, importer, distributor and trader. A company that is unsure about its own position in that categorization can check this using the page about who is responsible for the product passport for steel, and for those who also purchase goods from outside the EU and resell them on a marketplace, the question of whether this makes the company an importer is relevant — see the explanation about when a company is an importer or manufacturer.

Where things go wrong in practice

A few situations regularly occur in practice when selling via a marketplace.

A trader places the same product listing on multiple marketplaces at the same time, but the link to the product passport (via the QR code or a product code) is only correctly implemented on one of those platforms. The link is missing on the other platforms, while it is identical steel.

A marketplace asks the seller to fit all product data into a fixed template of the platform. In doing so, specific fields from the passport — such as a precise alloy composition or a batch number — are omitted because the template does not have room for them. The listing on the marketplace then no longer matches the underlying passport.

A company sells via a marketplace under the platform's own brand name (private label of the marketplace), and wrongly assumes that this also shifts the ESPR obligations to the platform. This is an assumption that does not automatically hold; the role that a party actually performs in the supply chain is decisive, not the brand name on the packaging.

Inventory that is sold through multiple channels — own website, showroom, and marketplace — is dispatched from one central warehouse, but the records of which party (with which product passport) was sent to which channel are not consistently maintained. During a spot check, it is no longer possible to trace which product passport belonged to which shipment.

A trader assumes that a marketplace itself already checks whether the product passport is present, and relies on this. Article 35 imposes its own role on platforms, but this does not relieve the trader of its own obligation under Article 30 and 31 to ensure that the passport is there before the product is offered.

What you can document

For companies selling steel via one or more marketplaces, it is practical to document the following:

An overview per marketplace of how the link to the product passport is technically arranged there (QR code in the image, link in the product description, or via a separate field of the platform).
An internal checklist that is completed when creating each new product listing, so that the link to the passport does not accidentally disappear when transferring to the marketplace's template.
Documentation of the data exchanged with the platform itself (insofar as the platform requests this on the basis of Article 35), including dates and versions.
A correct assignment of one's own role (trader, distributor, importer or manufacturer) per marketplace, in case the same company acts purely as a reseller on one platform and under its own brand on another.
An inventory and dispatch record that makes it possible to trace, for each shipment of steel sent, which passport it was associated with, even if the shipment runs through a shared warehouse for multiple channels.

Anyone who, in addition to the product passport, also has to deal with CBAM reporting because steel from outside the EU is traded, can read the coordination between these two obligations on the page on combining CBAM reporting with the product passport. For most of these points, a fixed, repeatable process per marketplace yields more than ad hoc checks afterwards — especially for companies that are active on multiple platforms at the same time.

This is not legal advice. This page provides general information about the legislation that this platform deals with. We do not know your situation. If you are in doubt about your own case, consult a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority.

Written with AI based on the sources above, checked by a human on 2026-08-22. Is something not right? Let us know — corrections are given priority.