Do Recycled Batteries Need a Battery Passport?
A recycled battery has no battery passport: recycling is the only event that extinguishes one. Article 77(8) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 takes one sentence: “A battery passport shall cease to exist after the battery has been recycled.” But most of the time, “recycled battery” does not mean a battery that has actually been recycled — it means a second-life, refurbished or remanufactured battery. And for that one the answer flips: Article 77(7) requires a new passport, linked to the passport of the original battery.
“Recycled battery”: three situations, three answers
The phrase covers three operations that the Regulation treats differently. Settling which one you are in comes before any compliance question.
| What the operator does | Status under the Regulation | Battery passport |
|---|---|---|
| Recycling — material recovery | Waste battery, then secondary raw materials | The passport ceases to exist (Art. 77(8)) |
| Direct re-use, as it is | Used battery, already placed on the market | No new passport (recital 16) |
| Preparation for re-use, preparation for repurposing, repurposing, remanufacturing | Placed on the market anew | New passport linked to the original (Art. 77(7)) |
| New battery containing recycled materials | New battery | Standard passport, recycled content declared (Art. 8, Annex XIII pt 1(e)) |
The Regulation uses repurposing where the market says “change of use” or “second life”: any operation resulting in a battery that is not a waste battery being used for a purpose other than the one it was originally designed for (Article 3, point (31)) — the textbook case being an EV pack moved into stationary storage. The terms “re-use” and “recycling” are themselves borrowed from Directive 2008/98/EC.
Recycling extinguishes the passport (Article 77(8))
The logic follows the object, not the file. Article 77(1) requires a passport for each battery, and Article 77(3) makes it reachable through a unique identifier attributed to that unit. Recycling destroys the unit: the electronic record has no referent left, so it ends.
Mind the chronology, though. The passport does not die when the battery leaves service, but when it is recycled. In between, the second subparagraph of Article 77(7) appoints a holder: where the status of a battery changes to that of a waste battery, the duty to keep the information accurate, complete and up to date transfers to the producer, or to the producer responsibility organisation, or to the waste management operator selected under Article 57(8). A waste battery therefore still has a passport, and someone answering for it.
The recycler, for its part, is a reader of the passport, not an issuer. Article 77(2) restricts part of the content to persons with a legitimate interest, and names the purpose: to allow “repairers, remanufacturers, second-life operators and recyclers to conduct their respective economic activities”. What they get is listed in Annex XIII, point 2: detailed composition of cathode, anode and electrolyte, part numbers, exploded diagrams, disassembly sequences, the type and number of fastening techniques to unlock, the tools required, warnings and safety measures. One thing to watch: the implementing act that must name those persons, due by 18 August 2026 under Article 77(9), has not been adopted.
Second life creates a new passport (Article 77(7))
The text is direct: “For a battery that has been subject to preparation for re-use, preparation for repurposing, repurposing or remanufacturing, the responsibility for the fulfilment of the obligations under paragraph 4 of this Article shall be transferred to the economic operator that has placed that battery on the market or has put it into service. Such battery shall have a new battery passport linked to the battery passport or passports of the original battery or batteries.”
Recital 16 gives the reason: those four operations are “considered to be placed on the market anew” and must therefore comply with the Regulation, whereas a battery that has simply been re-used “is considered to have already been placed on the market”. The whole boundary sits there.
| Operation | Definition (Article 3) | Starting object |
|---|---|---|
| Re-use | Borrowed from Directive 2008/98/EC | Used battery, same purpose |
| Preparation for re-use | Point (29), borrowed from Directive 2008/98/EC, Art. 3(16) | Waste battery |
| Preparation for repurposing | Point (30): preparation for a purpose other than the original one | Waste battery |
| Repurposing | Point (31): use for a purpose other than the original one | Battery that is not waste |
| Remanufacturing | Point (32): disassembly and evaluation of all cells, capacity restored to at least 90 % of original rated capacity, state of health differing by ≤ 3 % between cells, same purpose | Used battery |
The 90 % threshold is not decorative: recital 17 states that it is what “differentiates remanufacturing from simple reuse”. Repurposing works on a different criterion altogether — no capacity threshold, only the change of purpose.
What the refurbisher takes on, beyond the passport
The new passport is one piece of a full regime. Article 38(11) is the keystone: an operator placing a battery back on the market after any of those operations “shall be considered to be a manufacturer for the purposes of this Regulation”.
| Obligation | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Treated as a manufacturer | Art. 38(11) |
| Additional conformity assessment, Module A “internal production control”, taking into account Arts. 6, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 14 | Art. 17(3) |
| New labels or markings carrying the change-of-status information, accessible through the QR code | Art. 13(9) |
| New passport linked to the original; data stored by that operator or by one it authorises | Arts. 77(7) and 78(c) |
| Uploading the unique identifier to the EU DPP registry | Art. 77(10) |
| Extended producer responsibility, with an optional cost sharing mechanism with the original producer | Arts. 56(2) and 56(5) |
| Evidence that the waste battery has ceased to be waste: state of health testing, invoice or transfer contract, protection during transport | Art. 73(1) |
The articles covered by the Article 17(3) assessment are worth reading in detail: Article 6 (restrictions on substances), Article 9 (performance and durability of portable batteries of general use), Article 10 (performance and durability of rechargeable industrial, LMT and electric vehicle batteries), Article 12 (safety of stationary battery energy storage systems), Article 13 (labelling and marking), Article 14 (state of health). Neither Article 7 (carbon footprint) nor Article 8 (recycled content) appears there — consistent with the exemptions below.
What it does not have to redo
Three heavy requirements fall away, on one shared condition: that the battery had already been placed on the market or put into service before the operation.
- •Carbon footprint: Article 7(5) disapplies Article 7(1) to (3).
- •Recycled content: Article 8(4) disapplies Article 8(1) to (3).
- •Electrochemical performance and durability: Article 10(4) disapplies paragraphs 1 to 3, but the burden of proof is explicit — the operator placing the battery on the market must demonstrate that the initial placing on the market predates the dates on which those obligations became applicable.
- •Due diligence: Chapter VII does not apply to the placing on the market of such batteries where they had already been placed on the market before the operation (Article 47, second paragraph). See our article on the postponement to 18 August 2027.
The “status” field: what the passport actually adds
Point 4 of Annex XIII is where the passport earns its value for second life. Four sets of data specific to an individual battery, accessible only to persons with a legitimate interest — never public:
- •(a) the values for the performance and durability parameters of Article 10(1), recorded when the battery is placed on the market and when it is subject to changes in its status;
- •(b) information on the state of health, pursuant to Article 14;
- •(c) information on the status of the battery, defined as “original”, “repurposed”, “re-used”, “remanufactured” or “waste”;
- •(d) data resulting from use: number of charging and discharging cycles, negative events such as accidents, and periodically recorded operating temperature and state of charge.
Point (c) is the only place in the Regulation where a battery's life cycle becomes structured, queryable data. It is also what makes the Article 77(7) link meaningful: the new passport does not erase the history, it continues it.
Two provisions in Article 14 make the regime technically workable. Article 14(2) requires read-only access to the Annex VII parameters through the battery management system, on a non-discriminatory basis, for whoever legally purchased the battery — including independent operators and waste management operators — in order to evaluate residual value and to “facilitate the preparation for re-use, preparation for repurposing, repurposing or remanufacturing”. Article 14(3) requires the BMS to include a software reset function, and releases the original manufacturer from liability for software uploaded after the battery was placed on the market. Without those two paragraphs, refurbishing a modern pack would be blocked both legally and technically.
Two blind spots to know about
1. The original passport may not exist. A battery placed on the market in 2025 has no passport at all. Repurposed in 2028, it is “placed on the market anew” and therefore falls under Article 77(1) — yet Article 77(7) demands a link to an original passport that was never created. The Regulation does not resolve this case. Operationally, for the entire stock predating 18 February 2027, the second-life operator has to rebuild the history rather than inherit it, from the BMS data opened up by Article 14(2) and from its own state of health testing.
2. The end-of-waste criteria are not technical yet. Article 73(1) sets a documentary test — a state of health evaluation or testing confirming the performance relevant for the intended use, an invoice or contract documenting further use, and evidence of appropriate protection during transport. Article 73(4) empowers the Commission to adopt an implementing act laying down “detailed technical and verification requirements” for ceasing to be waste, but sets no deadline for it, unlike the acts under Articles 8(1) or 77(9). Until it is adopted, the assessment stays a matter of files and of national competent authorities.
In short
Three answers, not one. A battery that has actually been recycled has no passport: Article 77(8) extinguishes it. A battery re-used as it is triggers no new one: recital 16 treats it as already placed on the market. A battery prepared for re-use, prepared for repurposing, repurposed or remanufactured triggers a new passport linked to the previous one, under the responsibility of the operator placing it back on the market — an operator that is treated as a manufacturer, redoes a conformity assessment, relabels, and enters extended producer responsibility. Finally, a new battery made with recycled materials keeps a standard passport, in which recycled content is public information.
Arianee provides the infrastructure that carries these status transitions: a unique identifier per unit, a history preserved across changes of owner or of use, and differentiated access rights between the general public, legitimate interest and authorities. See our Battery Pass page, the battery solutions by segment, or request a demo.
Sources: Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 — consolidated text as of 31 July 2025, Articles 3, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 17, 38, 47, 56, 73, 77 and 78, Annex XIII (EUR-Lex) · Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 as published in OJ L 191 of 28 July 2023, recitals 16 and 17 (EUR-Lex) · Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, Article 3 (EUR-Lex) · Digital Product Passport — Batteries, European Commission.
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