The battery passport scope decision tree
Five short definitions, asked in order, tell you whether your battery needs a passport under Article 77(1), and which one applies.
| CATEGORY | THRESHOLD | SOURCE |
|---|---|---|
| Portable battery | 5 KG OR LESS | REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(9) |
| LMT battery | 25 KG OR LESS | REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(11) |
| Industrial battery | OVER 5 KG | REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(13) |
| EV battery, category L | OVER 25 KG | REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(14) |
| Industrial capacity line | OVER 2 kWh | REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 77(1) |
If you make a battery, the regulation does not ask what you call it on the spec sheet. It asks five narrow questions, and your answers land you in exactly one of five categories. Three of those categories need a passport. Two do not. This walks the five questions in order, cited to the article behind each one, so you can run it against your own product instead of trusting whatever scope list someone else posted. If it is the date rather than the scope you are unsure about, the dates that actually bind you covers that side separately.
The rule in one sentence
Article 77(1) requires a battery passport for each LMT battery, each industrial battery with a capacity greater than 2 kWh, and each electric vehicle battery placed on the market or put into service, and it sets that requirement to take effect on 18 February 2027.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 77(1)
Three named categories, one date, nothing conditional written into that sentence. Everything past this point is about working out which of those three categories, if any, describes what you make.
The five categories, walked in order
The regulation defines five battery categories, and several of the definitions include or exclude the others by name. Read all five before you settle on one. The exclusions in each definition only make sense once you have seen every definition they point to, and a battery can look like it fits more than one category until you check the rest of the list.
Is it sealed, weighs 5 kg or less, is not designed specifically for industrial use, and is not an electric vehicle, LMT, or SLI battery? Article 3(1)(9) defines a portable battery in exactly those terms.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(9) Match: portable battery.
Is it sealed, weighs 25 kg or less, and designed to power the traction of a wheeled vehicle, including a type-approved category L vehicle, without being an electric vehicle battery? That is the Article 3(1)(11) definition of an LMT battery.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(11) Match: LMT battery.
Does it supply power for starting, lighting, or ignition, with use also possible for auxiliary or backup purposes in a vehicle, another means of transport, or machinery? Article 3(1)(12) defines an SLI battery by that function, and unlike the portable, LMT, industrial, and electric vehicle definitions, it carries no weight threshold at all.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(12) Match: SLI battery, at any weight.
Is it designed for industrial use, intended for repurposing to industrial use, or simply any other battery weighing more than 5 kg that is not an EV, LMT, or SLI battery? Article 3(1)(13) covers all three routes under one definition of an industrial battery.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(13) Match: industrial battery.
Does it provide traction power in a category L vehicle over 25 kg under Regulation (EU) No 168/2013, or in a category M, N, or O vehicle under Regulation (EU) 2018/858? That is the Article 3(1)(14) definition of an electric vehicle battery, and the 25 kg figure attaches only to the category L branch of that sentence; nothing in the definition sets a weight floor for category M, N, or O vehicles.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(14) Match: electric vehicle battery.
Whichever question you matched first, that is your category for the rest of this article.
What in scope and out of scope means
Article 77(1) does not name portable batteries or SLI batteries among the categories required to carry a battery passport.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 77(1) Land on question one or question three above, and the passport requirement does not reach you. Land on question two, four, or five, and it does, subject to the capacity line covered below for industrial batteries.
That does not make the other two categories irrelevant, only outside this particular requirement. It means the passport question stops here for a portable or SLI battery, and starts a separate check for anything else.
Two trap cases
Trap one: the 2 kWh figure belongs to one category only. In Article 77(1), that capacity threshold attaches to industrial batteries alone; it does not apply to LMT batteries or to electric vehicle batteries.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 77(1) An LMT battery is in scope at any capacity, and so is an EV battery. If you ruled your product out because it sits under the 2 kWh line in Article 77(1), go back to the walk above and confirm you actually matched industrial rather than LMT or EV first. This is precisely the mistake covered in does the battery passport apply to your e-bike? for e-bike and e-scooter packs, which are LMT batteries with no capacity floor at all.
Trap two: crossing 5 kg moves a battery out of portable, not out of scope. A battery that is not an EV, LMT, or SLI battery and weighs more than 5 kg is classified as an industrial battery under Article 3(1)(13), never as a portable battery.REG. (EU) 2023/1542, ART. 3(1)(13) That reclassification matters, because a portable battery sits outside the passport article and an industrial battery above the capacity line sits inside it. A product marketed as portable that weighs more than 5 kg needs to be checked against the Article 3(1)(13) industrial definition and the capacity line above, not waved through on the label alone.
What to do with this
Run the five questions once, write down which one you matched, and the passport question is already answered: portable and SLI do not need one under Article 77(1); LMT and EV need one at any size; industrial needs one once it crosses the capacity line. Watch the two traps above before you close the question, since both of them move a battery between an in-scope and an out-of-scope category without changing anything about the product itself.
The free readiness checker turns that same answer into a full gap report in about three minutes, no signup required.
General information, not legal advice. Verify obligations against the cited regulations on EUR-Lex, or with counsel. Citations checked September 3, 2026.