ESPR requires every garment to carry a "data carrier" — the physical mechanism through which a consumer or regulator accesses the Digital Product Passport. The regulation permits QR codes, RFID tags, NFC chips, and other approved formats. Both QR and RFID can satisfy the legal requirement. But they serve very different operational purposes — and the right choice depends on your product category, price point, retail environment, and operational infrastructure.
What QR codes do well
QR codes are the default choice for most fashion brands — and for good reason. They are cheap to print, require no special infrastructure at point of sale, work on any smartphone camera, and can encode a URL that resolves to a rich, mobile-optimised DPP viewer. They are ideal for consumer-facing transparency: a shopper in a store can scan the label and immediately see where the garment was made, what it's made of, and how to care for it.
- →Cost: essentially zero incremental cost over a standard barcode label
- →Consumer access: any smartphone, no app, no reader required
- →Printing: standard label printers, no specialised equipment
- →Flexibility: the URL can be updated if the DPP data changes
- →ESPR compliance: fully satisfies the data carrier requirement
What RFID does well
RFID — particularly UHF (Ultra High Frequency) RFID — enables something QR codes fundamentally cannot: bulk reading without line of sight. A single RFID reader at a doorway can read hundreds of tagged garments simultaneously as they pass through. This is why RFID is the standard for inventory management in mass-market fashion — and why Inditex, H&M, and most major retailers now require RFID on their garments.
- →Inventory accuracy: 99%+ vs 65-75% with barcode scanning
- →Read speed: hundreds of items per second in a doorway reader
- →No line of sight: reads through packaging, boxes, and fabric
- →Retail operations: loss prevention, click-and-collect, rapid stocktaking
- →Authentication: RFID chips can store cryptographic signatures for anti-counterfeiting
The EU ESPR position on RFID vs QR
ESPR does not mandate one technology over the other. The regulation requires a "data carrier" that links to the DPP — and explicitly permits both QR codes and RFID tags. However, it does specify that the data carrier must be readable by consumers without specialist equipment. This creates a practical requirement: if you use RFID as your primary DPP carrier, you either need to ensure your retail environment has consumer-accessible readers, or supplement with a QR code on the label.
Which should your brand use?
The most future-proof approach — and the one TraceID recommends — is both. QR for consumer access, RFID for operational efficiency. As RFID reader infrastructure spreads to more retail environments and the cost of RFID inlays continues to fall, the dual-channel approach becomes increasingly practical even for mid-market brands.