Textile
DPP for Home Textiles: Towels, Bedding, Curtains
Digital Product Passport for home textiles: scope for towels, bedding, curtains and upholstery, the fields buyers already ask for, and a preparation checklist
Home textiles — towels, bathrobes, bed linen, curtains, upholstery fabric — are a strong line in Türkiye's textile exports to the EU: Denizli for towels and bathrobes, Bursa for upholstery and curtain fabric, Uşak for blankets and yarn. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) reaches these products from a different angle than apparel: the first textile delegated act focuses on apparel and accessories, and when household textiles will be brought in is not yet known.
That uncertainty is not a reason to wait. The supplier specifications of large home-textile retailers already ask for most of what a passport will carry.
Scope: are home textiles in the first wave?
The ESPR Working Plan 2025–2030 places the textile delegated act indicatively in 2027 and says the first wave will cover apparel and accessories. Towels, bed linen, curtains and upholstery fabric appear to sit outside that first definition; the Commission is expected to extend to household textiles in a later act, but there is no date. See the ESPR Working Plan and the textile DPP guide.
Two caveats. First, products that share fabric with apparel (bathrobes, pyjamas) may sit on the boundary. Second, the data points the JRC proposed for textiles are largely independent of product type, so the eventual list for home textiles will be a variant of the apparel list. See textile DPP data points.
Buyers are already asking
Retail chains' home-textile specifications have standardised on the same headings: fibre composition and label compliance, Oeko-Tex Standard 100 or an equivalent certificate, a restricted substances list (RSL) declaration, dimensional change and colour fastness after washing, proof of recycled content, and a list of production facilities. That list is almost identical to the core of a passport. See what retailers ask of suppliers.
The difference is this: today the data travels order by order as PDFs and email attachments. The passport makes the same data per product, structured and versioned.
Data fields specific to home textiles
| Field | Product group | Source | Likely tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fibre composition (%) | All | Weaver / yarn supplier | Public |
| Weight (GSM) and construction | Towels, bedding, curtains | Weaver | Public |
| Finishing treatment | All | Dyehouse / finisher | Restricted |
| Flame-retardant use | Curtains, upholstery | Finishing supplier | Public + restricted detail |
| Wash-cycle durability | Towels, bedding | Laboratory | Public |
| Oeko-Tex / RSL evidence | All | Certificate | Public (certificate number) |
| Care instructions | All | Brand / manufacturer | Public |
Fibre composition follows the same rule as apparel; see fibre composition and the labelling regulation. Cotton quality and weight for towels, yarn count and thread density for bed linen, width and light transmission for curtains are technical fields buyers already request.
Flame retardants in curtains and upholstery
Contract markets (hotels, hospitals, public buildings) demand flame-retardant performance from curtain and upholstery fabric, and that performance is often achieved with a chemical finish. For the passport this creates two separate fields: the fire performance class (public) and the declaration of the flame-retardant substance used (against REACH restrictions and the SVHC threshold). Some flame-retardant substance groups are restricted under REACH or sit on the candidate list; clarify with your finishing supplier which substance triggers a declaration at which threshold. See chemical management in textiles.
Durability: wash cycles
For towels and bed linen, durability is measured in wash cycles rather than wear: dimensional change, colour fastness, loss of softness and, for towels, retained absorbency. These tests already sit in buyer specifications; in the passport they are structured as test method, result, laboratory and date. See textile durability tests for how results become fields.
Preparation checklist
- Define your product families: separate data templates for towels, bathrobes, bed linen, curtains and upholstery.
- Move fibre composition and weight into the product master record in your ERP for each family.
- Structure Oeko-Tex and RSL certificates with certificate number, scope and validity date.
- Ask finishing suppliers for lot-level declarations of flame retardants and other finishing chemicals.
- Run wash-durability tests once per fabric quality and link them to SKUs.
- Code your facility list with a standard identifier such as a GLN.
- Pilot a QR-linked passport on one product family and show it to your buyer.
For the wider picture see the Turkish textile sector and the DPP and the textile DPP guide.
Frequently asked questions
Will a DPP be mandatory for towels and bed linen?
Not yet. The first textile delegated act focuses on apparel and accessories; household textiles are expected to follow in a later wave with no date set. Buyer demands, however, have already arrived.
What do I declare in the passport if my curtains use a flame retardant?
The fire performance class and the presence of any flame-retardant substance above the threshold; not the full formulation.
Where should a home-textile exporter start?
By structuring, per product, the data you already give in retailer specifications: fibre composition, weight, certificates and test results.
