Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 treats repurposing and remanufacturing as operations that place a "new" battery on the market. The economic operator that carries out the repurposing or remanufacturing takes on the producer responsibilities for the resulting battery, including the digital passport. So a second-life operator is not merely updating an old passport — they are responsible for a passport for the repurposed battery.
A new linked passport, not an overwrite
The regulation requires the lineage to be traceable. The passport of the repurposed battery has to reference the original battery it derives from. In practice this means repurposing forks a new passport that is linked to the original passport, so the history — original manufacture, first life, repurposing event — remains auditable. The original passport is not discarded.
| Lifecycle event | Passport effect |
|---|---|
| Original placing on market | Passport created for the battery |
| Repurposing / remanufacturing | New linked passport forked, referencing the original |
| Recycling (end of life) | Passport ceases to be available; resolver returns gone (410) |
The new passport carries the repurposing operator as the responsible economic operator and records the state of health and other data relevant to the second-life use, while keeping the link to the original battery identity. Access tiers under Annex XIII continue to apply.
Frequently asked
Do I update the original passport or create a new one?
You create a new passport for the repurposed battery, linked to the original. The repurposing operator becomes the responsible economic operator, and the lineage between the new passport and the original must remain traceable.
What happens to a passport when a battery is finally recycled?
At end of life the battery ceases to exist as a product on the market, so its passport is no longer maintained as live; the resolver returns a gone status rather than serving current data.