The Digital Fabric Passport: What It Is & Why It Matters

The fashion industry has spent decades treating "sustainability" as a marketing term rather than something that can be measured. But this is changing, since the EU put the Digital Fabric Passport in place in July, 2026.

Manufacturers can no longer make half-true claims about where a fabric comes from, what it’s made of, and how it was manufactured. If you’re in the industry and print on fabric, design fashion garments or manufacture them, it’s essential you record this information on a digital passport.

What Is a Digital Fabric Passport?

A Digital Fabric Passport records the journey fabric takes to ensure that it’s sustainable and won’t harm the planet. It was introduced in the EU in July this year, when the ESPR (Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation) came into existence.

It’s usually accessed by using a marker like a QR code or NFC tag (that’s a tiny microchip storing some info you can access on a mobile phone). This is usually sewn into the fabric and gives an idea of the fabric’s journey, from being grown as a plant to made into a piece of clothing. When you scan this marker, you receive much more than being told that the fabric is, say, 100% cotton. You find out how it was grown, produced into fabric, dyed and treated. You’ll know about the chemicals used to dye and produce it, as well as how to look after the fabric, repair it and even recycle it.

The fabric passport is part of a wider focus taken by the EU, the ESPR, or Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (see above). This is phasing in the use of digital passports for fabrics and clothing. Eventually the Digital Fabric Passport will indicate the entire identity of the piece of clothing, but for now, it’s small steps in that direction.

It’s no good concentrating on the finished fashion item. After all, this doesn’t tell us how sustainable the entire journey was, from start to finish. Knowing about the entire journey, from fabric to supply chain, is not only more accurate, it’s also more transparent. 

maake's Take: 2026 as a Turning Point

At maake, we have monitored this journey carefully, as sustainability has always been our main focus. Whether through new technology or through measurable criteria like the digital passport, we’re watching what is being done to protect the planet, particularly in the fabric industry. The need for transparency in this journey from plant to finished garment is crucial and includes caring for the item so that it is durable, and can be recycled, instead of ending in landfill. 

The digital passport doesn’t only trace that inevitable journey; it’s also a way to show customers how to extend the life of their garments, which is what we have focused on when we discuss slow fashion in detail.  We published two fascinating guides on the subject, including Why Slow Fashion is the Only Choice and why 2026 is a Turning Point for Slow Fashion. Take a look.

When we discuss slow fashion, we explain how fast fashion retailers are flooding the market with bad quality on-trend clothing that lasts only as long as the trend itself. We also bemoan the fact of the resulting waste, with figures running into 300,000 tonnes either being incinerated or ending in landfills.

Why a Digital Fabric Passport?

There are important principles in play to stop the fast fashion movement, even eradicate it. These include sustainability, fair trade, local production, transparency and quality manufacture. This is what the digital passport will enforce, along with mandatory rules about manufacturing timeless, classic, quality, durable garments.

We’re returning to bygone days when people used to create every piece of clothing with care, using handicraft skills and quality natural fabric like cotton and linen. We want the world to return to that time, when quality really mattered, to the extent that clothing was always mended, instead of being discarded. A passport that guides customers to return to thinking and acting this way will improve our lifestyles as well as damage our planet less.

Where Digital Fabric Printing Fits In

There's also a technical connection between digital fabric passports and our digital fabric printing methods. Our guide to Digital Textiles in Fashion & Design discusses how on-demand digital printing produces fabric in exactly the amount required, with no excess left over. Our production model thus generates less waste than mass dyeing and printing runs, as each batch we print is linked to a specific order, design, and fabric base. We’ve created built-in traceability, which is ideal for a digital passport. The passport tells us about the fabric’s composition, when and how it was printed, and the type of ink used to print it. So half the work is already done. We need to do the rest.

What You Need to Do

Here’s a heads-up of what printers, designers and manufacturers in the fabric industry need to do in future to facilitate the digital passport:

• Take note of as much as you can about your fabric’s journey: Keep a note of how the fabric was created, what it’s made of and the dyeing and printing methods used on the material. This will be ready to fill in on your digital fabric passport.
• Choose fabric that’s sustainable wherever possible: Check the fabric and find out whether it’s organic, natural, and what it’s certifications are (such as GOTS, OekoTex®, REACH, etc.). It’s good for you to know, and is vital for a digital fabric passport.
• Consider how to look after, wash and repair the fabric: This isn’t an afterthought; it’s vital information.  
• Monitor how manufacturers detail their fabrics: Finding out what manufacturers use to sell their materials makes it easier for you to create passport info.

What The Digital Passport Means for UK Fabric Businesses

As a UK-based studio, this is what the Digital Fabric Passport means to us:

1.        We don’t have a Fabric Passport in the UK

At the time of Brexit, the United Kingdom kept to the EU’s underlying rules regarding sustainability and fashion. However, there’s no current talk about us having a Digital Fabric Passport here. The UK government hasn’t decided how it will approach this yet. With no deadline set, we have to wait and see. In the meantime, we follow what the EU is doing. The only part of the UK that falls under EU Digital Passport rules is Northern Ireland; that’s under the Windsor Framework, a legal agreement between the UK and the EU.

2.        Use the Digital Passport if you have business in the EU

If you export printed fabric or finished fashion items to the EU, the Digital Fabric Passport applies to you. In fact, by late 2026, it’s expected that we use the passport and follow the EU’s ESPR (Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation). We must be compliant by 2027/2028. According to one survey, few UK exporters are ready for this, and almost 80% are concerned they will lose access to the EU because of it. 

3.        WRAP & the UK Textiles Pact have already created a 10-point blueprint

This is for the mandatory UK Textiles EPR (Extended Product Responsibility Theme), which is expected to come into effect in 2026. The Digital Fabric Passport is meant to work alongside this mandatory law (it won’t get as much publicity as the EU Digital Fabric Passport, but is well worth taking into account). The UKFT (UK Fashion & Textile Association) is currently actively engaged in EPR, and WRAP is creating the blueprint.

4.        What You Need to Do in the UK

Consider EU compliance by 2027/2028 as your real deadline. You need to be EU compliant already, so don’t sit tight and wait for the UK to produce similar regulations.

The Bigger Picture

Don’t expect the Digital Fabric Passport to fix our fashion or fabric problems. That’s not going to happen. But it paves the way for sustainability and handling waste far more than anything else has done in the past. It provides transparency so that customers know exactly what they’re purchasing when they buy a fashion garment. The details of fabric production and fabric content are available, so there are no excuses left. If the industry continues to fight fabric waste and apply systems that will diminish fabric ending in landfill, even better. We have the data available. All we need to do is scan it.