Overview#
The Battery Regulation governs batteries from the materials that go into them to the moment they become waste. It is a single rulebook that ties together what a battery is made of, how it performs, how easily it can be removed and recycled, and what data must follow it through its life.
It replaces the Battery Directive 2006/66/EC. Because it is a regulation rather than a directive, it applies directly in every member state instead of being rewritten into 27 national laws. Its many requirements switch on in stages over several years.
What it requires#
The regulation reaches across the whole life cycle rather than a single stage.
Substances#
The regulation keeps tight limits on hazardous metals in batteries, including mercury, cadmium and lead. These caps continue and tighten the controls that existed under the old directive.
Due diligence and recycled content#
For the raw materials that go into batteries, the regulation adds supply-chain due diligence, so companies must identify and address risks in how those materials are sourced. This sits alongside the EU's wider sourcing rules, such as the Conflict Minerals Regulation. It also sets minimum recycled content for key metals, pushing recovered material back into new batteries.
End of life: the Annex XII targets#
Article 71 and Annex XII put numbers on recycling. Two different things are measured, and confusing them is easy: recycling efficiency is how much of a battery's weight comes out of the process as recovered material, while recovery of materials is how much of one named metal is recovered from what went in.
How those rates are calculated and verified is set separately, by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/606. That methodology is what makes the percentages workable: until the end of 2029 recyclers may leave fractions they do not actually recover out of the calculation, and from 1 January 2030 graphite, iron and phosphorus have to be included, while oxygen, chlorine and sulphur may still be left out.
Article 71(5) required the Commission to assess by 18 August 2026 whether these targets should be revised, and at least every five years after that. The report of 11 September 2026 concludes that they "strike an appropriate balance between ambition and feasibility" and that it is not appropriate to revise them, so the Commission sees no grounds for a delegated act amending Parts B and C. Nothing about the figures above changes. The next assessment is due by 18 August 2031 at the latest.
The report is worth knowing for its reasoning, not only its outcome. On lithium, the 50% recovery target for 2027 was not set at the limit of what is technically possible: high extraction efficiencies are in principle achievable with the common technologies, and the lower figure exists to let plants ramp up. The Joint Research Centre modelling behind the report found that moving the lithium target ten percentage points either way would change the EU's total lithium supply by roughly two to three percentage points of demand, so the binding constraint is total EU treatment capacity rather than the efficiency of any one plant. For cobalt, nickel, copper and lead, the 95% target for 2031 is described as approaching the limit of technical feasibility.
Performance and durability, and the first harmonised standard#
Article 10 is the part of the regulation that a battery's data sheet has to answer to. Since 18 August 2024, rechargeable industrial batteries with a capacity above 2 kWh, LMT batteries and electric-vehicle batteries must be accompanied by a document giving values for the electrochemical performance and durability parameters in Part A of Annex IV, and the technical documentation must explain how those values were measured, calculated or estimated, with at least the elements in Part B.
Article 10(1). Values for the Annex IV parameters must travel with the battery, and Annex VIII technical documentation must show the discharge and charge rates, the power-to-energy ratio, the depth of discharge in the cycle-life test and the power capability at 80 % and 20 % state of charge that produced them.
Article 10(2) and (3). Rechargeable industrial batteries above 2 kWh (except those with exclusively external storage) and LMT batteries must also meet minimum values, which the Commission sets in delegated acts. The obligations apply from 18 August 2027 and 18 August 2028 respectively, or 18 months after the relevant delegated act enters into force, whichever is later. Article 10 sets no minimum values for electric-vehicle batteries: for them the duty is the document.
How a harmonised standard earns a presumption of conformity#
Article 15 is the bridge between those requirements and a test method. Tests, measurements and calculations for Articles 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 and 78 must use methods that are "reliable, accurate and reproducible", and a battery that conforms to a harmonised standard whose reference has been published in the Official Journal is presumed to conform with those articles, "to the extent that those requirements are covered by such harmonised standards" and, where minimum values exist, to the extent they are attained. The regulation adds one instruction to the standard writers: harmonised standards "shall aim to simulate real-life usage as far as possible while maintaining standard tests".
Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2026/2048 of 14 September 2026, published in the Official Journal on 16 September 2026 and in force from that day, publishes the reference of EN 18060:2025, "Road vehicles - Rechargeable batteries with internal energy storage - Performance and durability of alkali-Ion (Li-Ion, Na-Ion), Pb, NiMH and combined chemistries EV modules and batteries". The Annex to the decision lists that one standard. Its scope is electric-vehicle batteries, so it supports the Article 10 document for that battery type, not the minimum values for industrial or LMT batteries.
Three things follow for a supplier or a buyer of EV batteries. The presumption covers only what the standard covers: nothing in it speaks to the carbon-footprint declaration, recycled content, due diligence, the substance limits or the passport. Using the standard is voluntary, because Article 15(1) accepts any reliable, accurate and reproducible method, but only the harmonised standard carries the presumption, so a buyer will usually ask for it. And the text of the standard is copyright of CEN and its national members: buy it from your national standards body (DIN in Germany), and cite it rather than copying from it. See conformity assessment for how presumption of conformity works across EU product law, and EN IEC 63000 for the equivalent mechanism under RoHS.
The draft delegated act on minimum values#
The minimum values that Article 10(2) promises for industrial batteries do not exist yet in force. A Commission draft delegated regulation (text on the EU publications portal) supplementing and amending Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 is circulating. It is a draft: the act carries no number or adoption date, and the draft itself states that it does not constitute the Commission's final position. Treat it as a signal of direction, not as law.
Beyond the minimum values, the draft would amend Annexes IV, V and VII. The recitals give two examples: the internal short circuit is described as a failure mode rather than a test, best addressed by thermal propagation protection, and for the state-of-health parameter on the evolution of self-discharging rates the Commission says no technically feasible method has been found for a battery management system to determine it with sufficient accuracy. The numerical values are in the annexes of the draft, which we do not reproduce here because they may change before adoption. Remember that the Article 10(2) obligation applies from 18 August 2027 or 18 months after the delegated act enters into force, whichever is later.
The battery passport#
Light means of transport (LMT) batteries, industrial batteries above 2 kWh, and electric-vehicle batteries must carry a battery passport; portable batteries are excluded. The obligation becomes mandatory from 18 February 2027. This is the first operational Digital Product Passport, holding the battery's data, from composition and carbon footprint to recycled content and performance, accessible to the people who handle the battery over its life.
Where it sits#
The Battery Regulation is part of the same EU push as the ESPR, bringing durability, recycled content and the Digital Product Passport into product law. Persistent organic pollutant rules under POP can also apply to materials used in batteries.