A product that cannot explain how to fix it will soon struggle to be sold. Repair data is becoming product data. Two EU instruments converge: the ESPR, Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, empowers repairability scores and repair information requirements, and Directive (EU) 2024/1799 on common rules promoting the repair of goods gives consumers, from 31 July 2026, the right to ask the manufacturer to repair. A score nobody can act on is marketing: what the EU is building is the information chain that makes repair possible — score, spare parts, prices, instructions, repairers.

The score: what the ESPR allows, and how it is built

Repairability is a named product aspect in the ESPR: Article 5(1)(e), alongside durability and the possibility of maintenance and refurbishment. Article 5(7) allows horizontal ecodesign requirements where product groups share an aspect that can be improved in common — repairability is the textbook case. Article 7(2)(b) then defines what information requirements may carry:

  • The score itself: performance information “including a repairability score, a durability score, a carbon footprint or an environmental footprint” (point (i));
  • How to repair: information for customers and other actors on how to install, use, maintain and repair the product, and on collection for refurbishment or remanufacture (point (ii));
  • How to take it apart: information for treatment facilities on disassembly, reuse, refurbishment, recycling or disposal (point (iii)).

Article 7(4) allows those scores to be expressed as classes of performance, based on single parameters or aggregated scores. Recital 30 explains how a repairability score should be built: on a harmonised methodology for the product group, aggregating the availability and price of spare parts, the ease of disassembly and the availability of tools into a single score. And Article 5(2) closes the escape routes: products must not become prematurely obsolete for reasons that include impeded disassembly, unavailable repair information or spare parts, or software updates that are not provided.

The Commission’s first ESPR and Energy Labelling Working Plan 2025–2030 lists a horizontal measure on repairability, including scoring, with indicative adoption in 2027 — a planning signal, not a deadline: the binding date will be the application date in the act itself.

Already on a label: phones and tablets since 20 June 2025

The score is not hypothetical. Since 20 June 2025, smartphones and slate tablets placed on the EU market carry an energy label showing a repairability class from A to E, under Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1669 — the first score of its kind on an EU label. Behind the letter, Regulation (EU) 2023/1670 sets the floor: critical spare parts for professional repairers within 5 to 10 working days and until 7 years after the end of sales of the model, batteries enduring at least 800 cycles at 80% capacity, and operating system upgrades for at least 5 years. The ESPR generalises that method.

The right to ask for repair: Directive (EU) 2024/1799

The Directive was adopted on 13 June 2024 and entered into force on 30 July 2024. Member States must transpose it by 31 July 2026 and apply the measures from that date (Article 22). Its core is Article 5:

The manufacturer’s duty to repair — Article 5 at a glance

  • On request (5(1)): on the consumer’s request, the manufacturer shall repair goods for which, and to the extent that, repairability requirements are provided in the Union acts listed in Annex II — unless repair is impossible. Repair may be sub-contracted;
  • Conditions (5(2)): free of charge or for a reasonable price, within a reasonable time; the manufacturer may loan a replacement good, and, if repair is impossible, may offer a refurbished good;
  • Fallback chain (5(3)): if the manufacturer is outside the EU, the duty falls to its authorised representative, then the importer, then the distributor;
  • Parts and prices (5(4)–(5)): spare parts and tools at a reasonable price that does not deter repair, and indicative prices for typical repairs accessible on a free-access website;
  • No blocking (5(6)–(7)): no clauses or hardware/software techniques that impede repair, unless justified by legitimate and objective factors; no impeding independent repairers’ use of original, second-hand, compatible or 3D-printed parts that conform to the law; no refusal solely because a previous repair was done by someone else.

Annex II today covers, among others, washing machines and tumble dryers, dishwashers, refrigerating appliances, electronic displays, welding equipment, vacuum cleaners, servers and data storage products, mobile phones, cordless phones and slate tablets, and goods incorporating batteries for light means of transport. The list is built to grow: under Article 5(9) the Commission must update it at the latest 12 months after each new act laying down repairability requirements.

The form, the platform, and the extra year

Three mechanisms turn the duty into a market. The European Repair Information Form (Article 4, Annex I) lets a repairer state, free of charge and before the contract, the defect, the repair, the price or maximum price and the time needed — conditions that cannot change for 30 calendar days; if the consumer accepts, the repairer must repair on them. Information on repair services must be available free of charge for the whole duration of the obligation (Article 6). A European online platform for repair (Article 7) will help consumers find repairers: the Commission develops the common interface by 31 July 2027, and national sections or platforms must be operational by the same date.

Inside the legal guarantee, choosing repair pays in time: Article 16 amends Directive (EU) 2019/771 so that, where repair is the remedy to bring goods into conformity, the seller’s liability period is extended once by 12 months — and the seller must first inform the consumer of the choice between repair and replacement, and of that extension.

Where the passport carries it

None of this works if repair information lives in PDFs that expire with a model page. The Digital Product Passport is the delivery vehicle the ESPR designs for exactly this data: Article 9 requires passport data to be accurate, complete and up to date, and Article 11(b) names professional repairers, independent operators, refurbishers, remanufacturers and recyclers among the actors with free and easy access, based on their access rights. The public layer carries the score; the professional layer carries disassembly, spare-part and safety information — the tiered-access design of Articles 10 and 11, as in our ESPR timeline.

What companies should do now

  • Record the score inputs per model: disassembly steps, tools, the spare-part list, prices and availability periods — the recital 30 parameters — before any delegated act asks for them.
  • Align logistics with the duty: who repairs, in-house or sub-contracted, at which indicative prices published where, and within what times, for every Annex II line you sell.
  • Remove repair blockers: audit contracts, parts pairing and software for clauses or techniques that impede independent repair — the Directive’s explicit target.
  • Put repair data in the passport: public score, professional instructions, tiered by access rights, so the horizontal act and each Annex II update land on data that is already structured — the same discipline our EUDR analysis describes for supply chains.

How Ledger Consortium helps

Ledger Consortium aggregates your product data, anchors each record on a governed blockchain — timestamped and tamper-evident — and keeps it updated as products are repaired, refurbished and resold. Anchoring proves a record existed and has not been altered; it does not certify that the data a client supplied was true. Predictable costs, no token or crypto exposure, GDPR- and eIDAS-aligned. In Italy, the Ledger DPP is distributed by Il Sole 24 Ore (Valore24), whose channel onboards dozens of companies per month. See a working passport in our live demo and browse News.