do I also need to create a product passport for test tyres or samples that I do not sell

What you must do concretely

What is expected of you

The ESPR links the obligation to a digital product passport to the placing of a product on the market. Article 1 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) describes the scope in those terms: it concerns products placed on the market or put into service. Test tyres and samples that are not sold or otherwise circulated do not fall within that description by their nature. The text of the regulation is directed at products that travel to the user or the trade — not at specimens that remain in a testing phase, a laboratory or a development trajectory.

That is the starting point. What exactly counts as "placing on the market" in practice, and where the boundary lies between a test and an initial delivery, will be further clarified via the delegated act that comes specifically for tyres. Until it exists, there is no product-category-specific text that mentions tyre test batches by name.

Test tyres that do not leave the factory

Tyres tested internally — on a test track, in a laboratory, in development work for a new tread pattern — are not offered to a customer. For a company with 10 to 100 employees that develops its own compounds or tread patterns, this means that for that internal test phase there is practically no need to compile a passport, because the product has not yet acquired the status of "being placed on the market".

Samples sent to a customer or distributor

This becomes less clear-cut. A sample sent to a potential customer — for example to be assessed before a larger order — appears at first glance to be a test, but it does leave the company and reaches a third party. Whether that counts as "placing on the market" depends on how that action is actually arranged: is it a free trial specimen without a commercial transaction, or is it an initial delivery that is already part of a sales trajectory? The regulation itself does not make that distinction in so many words for tyres specifically; that kind of practical demarcation is precisely what a delegated act is intended for, as also explained on the page on what a delegated act is and why it determines what must happen.

Test batches for type approval or homologation

Tyres produced in small quantities for type approval tests at a vehicle manufacturer occupy a middle position: they are not sold to a consumer, but are supplied to a third party for a specific purpose. Companies carrying out such deliveries would be well advised in practice to document that it concerns a test batch and not a regular delivery, until it becomes clear how the delegated act treats such cases.

Keep documentation, even without a passport

Even when a passport is (not yet) required for a test batch, it remains practically valuable to keep the data that would normally go into the passport — composition, test results, production date — available internally. Article 9 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) describes what kind of information a passport contains; for test batches this information is often already present in lab files and can later serve as a basis should a batch eventually receive a commercial destination.

Where things go wrong in practice

A first situation in which things go wrong: a sample that goes "free of charge" to a distributor is nonetheless recorded as a sale in the administration (for example at a symbolic price), whereby the status of test specimen is effectively lost without anyone noticing.

A second: test tyres that after the test phase end up in regular stock and are sold, without a passport ever having been prepared. At the moment of sale the product is no longer a test, but a regularly sold product — and then the obligation still applies, with all the data that must be gathered at that late stage.

A third situation: an importer orders a test batch from a manufacturer outside the EU for their own quality control, but the batch is subsequently partly resold as "second choice" at a lower price. That sale no longer falls under the test exemption, even if the batch started as a test.

A fourth: companies assume that "no sales to consumers" equals "no obligation", while a supply to another undertaking — for example to a fleet manager who is testing a trial setup — can likewise be deemed as placing on the market once a commercial relationship is behind it.

A fifth: no distinction is recorded between "test" and "first delivery", meaning that in the event of a later inspection it is no longer possible to demonstrate what status a batch of tyres had at that time.

What you can record

• An internal definition of what counts as a "test" or "sample" within the company, and when a batch loses that status (for example upon resale).
• A registration per test batch: purpose of the test, recipient, number of units, and whether there is a commercial consideration.
• The lab data and test results already available, so that these can later serve as a basis should a passport become necessary after all — see also what data normally belongs in it on the page about the data that goes into the product passport for tyres.
• An agreement with distributors or test partners about what happens if a sample is nonetheless sold, and who in that case is responsible for compiling the passport.
• An overview of which tyre types and sizes the company normally places under the obligation, for comparison with test batches — useful alongside the broader question whether the product passport applies to own tyres.
• A note on the status of this subject: as long as the delegated act for tyres has not been published, there is no product-group-specific confirmation of how test batches are to be treated exactly, and this can be monitored via the page about when the product passport becomes mandatory for tyres.