Battery Passport, CE Marking and UN 38.3: How the Requirements Fit Together

Importers often ask whether the battery passport replaces the CE mark, or whether having UN 38.3 test reports means the passport is already handled. The short answer to both is no. These are separate requirements that sit side by side. This guide explains how they relate, so you do not mistake one for another.

Three different things

It helps to name what each one is:

• The battery passport is a structured, hosted record of a battery under the EU Battery Regulation, reachable by a data carrier and served in access tiers. See what is a digital product passport.
• CE marking is the manufacturer's or responsible operator's declaration that a product meets the applicable EU requirements that call for it. It is a conformity mark, not a data record.
• UN 38.3 is a set of transport safety tests for lithium batteries, used to show a battery can be shipped safely. It is a testing standard, evidenced by a test summary.

They serve different purposes: the passport informs and traces, the CE mark declares conformity, and UN 38.3 supports safe transport.

Why one does not replace another

Because they do different jobs, satisfying one does not satisfy the others:

• Having UN 38.3 test reports does not create a passport. Those reports are useful inputs, since test and safety documentation is part of what a passport references, but they are not the passport.
• Carrying a CE mark does not create a passport either. A battery can be CE marked and still need a passport produced and hosted.
• Producing a passport does not remove any CE or transport obligations that apply.

This is the same trap as assuming a supplier's paperwork transfers the passport duty to them. It does not. The documents feed your passport; the responsibility to build and host it stays with you as the operator placing the battery on the market. See who is responsible for the battery passport.

How they connect in practice

The requirements are separate but they share inputs. The test reports behind UN 38.3, and the documentation behind a conformity declaration, are exactly the kind of supporting evidence the passport's Annex XIII data set references. So the work is cumulative rather than duplicated:

1. Gather the test and safety documentation you already need for transport and conformity.
2. Reuse it as supporting documentation in the passport where the data set calls for it. See Annex XIII explained.
3. Keep the obligations distinct in your records, so you can show each is met on its own terms.

To ground the distinction: the CE marking is required by the Battery Regulation itself. A battery must bear it before being placed on the market (Arts. 19 and 20 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1542), backed by the EU declaration of conformity (Art. 18), and as the importer you must check the CE marking and Art. 13 labelling are present before you place the battery on the market (Art. 41). UN 38.3 is not in the Battery Regulation at all. It is a transport-safety test that lives in dangerous-goods transport law (the UN Model Regulations, applied in the EU through the ADR rules), which is exactly why it stands as a separate obligation from the passport.

In short

The battery passport, CE marking and UN 38.3 are three separate requirements: a data record, a conformity declaration, and a transport safety test. None replaces another. They share inputs, so the documentation you gather for testing and conformity feeds the passport, but the passport duty stands on its own and remains yours as the importer.