In many cases, you can make an initial assessment yourself as to whether your business qualifies as a supplier under the digital product passport for tyres. The regulation describes the role of supplier on the basis of factual activities: who places a tyre on the market under their own name, who holds a brand, and who is responsible for providing the product information. For a large part of businesses, this can be determined on the basis of their own business operations, without requiring legal assistance.
The boundary lies in cases of doubt: businesses that sell tyres under multiple brands, that act as intermediaries without importing themselves, or that resell tyres that have already been provided with a passport elsewhere. In those situations, precise definitions and the factual division of roles in the chain determine whether your business is a supplier, and that is a question that is better put to a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority than to be definitively settled yourself.
What the role of supplier means in practice
The regulation assigns different roles to parties in the tyre supply chain: from manufacturer to importer to distributor. The supplier is the party held responsible for making the correct product information available via the passport. This is not necessarily the same party as the one who physically sells the tyre. A wholesaler that places tyres on the market under its own label typically fulfils a different role than a wholesaler that exclusively resells tyres from a brand manufacturer without making any changes to them.
These concepts are comprehensible in themselves, but their application to a specific business situation requires precision. A business that is in doubt would be well advised to test its own position against the official text, and not to go by rules of thumb that happened to apply to another business.
When you can assess this yourself
In a number of common situations, the role is relatively easy to establish. A business that imports tyres from a country outside the EU and distributes them under its own name typically fulfils the role of supplier. A business that only installs tyres that have already been provided with a passport by another party does not usually need to draw up that passport itself. For such cases, an initial assessment based on your own business activities is often sufficient to determine whether, and to what extent, your business is affected by this.
A practical way to make that initial assessment is to go through your own position in the chain step by step: who places the tyre on the market, under what name, and who is responsible for providing the technical data. For those who feel the need for this quickly, a quick indication of your own position can be obtained in a few questions, without requiring an extensive file right away.
When doubt requires expert advice
The assessment becomes more difficult as soon as a business fulfils multiple roles at the same time, or when the chain has multiple links that are not all based in the Netherlands. Also in private label constructions, where a business has its own brand applied to a tyre from a third party, the division of roles is not always immediately clear. In those cases, the exact wording of the regulation, and sometimes the interpretation that a supervisory authority gives to it, determines what applies to your business.
It is not advisable to draw a definitive conclusion on the basis of a general rule of thumb in such situations. A lawyer familiar with product legislation, or the supervisory authority competent in the Netherlands for this regulation, can assess the situation against the actual text. Moreover, supervisory practices can vary per EU country in the way roles are assessed, which for companies operating in multiple member states is an additional reason not to rely solely on their own assessment.
What you can prepare yourself, even if in doubt
Even when the role determination is not yet fully established, you can already put matters in order that are relevant in any case: which product data are available per tire type, who within your organization is the point of contact for this, and what agreements already exist with suppliers and customers regarding the sharing of technical information. That work is never wasted, regardless of which role is ultimately formally established.
For those who want to quietly read through the background of these concepts, the knowledge base with concepts and explanation per situation provides more information on the different roles in the chain. And for concrete, frequently asked questions about how this is assessed in practice, the page with frequently asked questions is a good starting point.
Anyone who wants to know how tyrepas.eu collects the data for the passport and where it comes from will find that on the page where it is explained how the information is produced. This does not answer the question of whether your company is a supplier, but it does provide clarity on what happens once that role is established.
If you are unsure about your position in the chain, a good starting point is to go through the free quick-scan or read the relevant topics in the knowledge base. For a definitive assessment of your specific situation, a lawyer or the competent supervisory authority remains the appropriate party.