The plant passport label: what the EU flag and A, B, C, D mean
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A standard EU plant passport has the EU flag in the top left corner, the words "Plant Passport" in the top right, then four lines. A is the plant's botanical name, B the issuing business's country code and registration number, C the traceability code and D the country of origin.
Not sure your plants need a passport at all? Do I need a plant passport? When the EU requires one
Where do the EU flag and the title go?
- The EU flag sits in the top left corner. It may be printed in colour or in black and white.
- The words "Plant Passport" sit in the top right corner, always in English. They may also appear in one other EU language, separated by a slash: "Passaporto delle piante / Plant Passport" on an Italian label, for example.
- The passport sits inside a border, or is otherwise clearly set apart from anything else printed on the same tag, such as the price or care instructions. It must be readable without a magnifying glass (Impl. Reg. (EU) 2017/2313, Art. 2).
The format, word for word: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2313 on EUR-Lex
Where it sits among the EU's plant health rules: the European Commission's page on moving plants within the EU
What do A, B, C and D mean?
A is the botanical name, B the business that issued the passport, C the traceability code and D the country of origin. The label prints only the letter, not the name of the element.
- A — Botanical name: The species' Latin name, such as Lavandula angustifolia, sometimes followed by the variety, such as 'Hidcote'. Never the common name. For an object rather than a plant, the name of the object.
- B — Operator: Two letters for the EU country where the issuing business is registered, a hyphen, then its registration number, which may contain letters, digits or both. In Italy, the number is the business's RUOP code.
- C — Traceability: The code that links the plant to its lot in the issuer's records. A barcode, QR code, hologram or chip may sit next to it, but it adds to the code and does not replace it. C can be left out for plants for planting already prepared for sale to the final user, with no risk of spreading quarantine pests, unless the species is on a Commission list (Reg. (EU) 2016/2031, Art. 83(2)).
- D — Country of origin: A two-letter code for an EU country, such as NL, or the name or code of a country outside the EU. It can differ from the country in B: if a Dutch business issues the passport for olive trees grown in Italy, B starts with NL and D reads IT.
More on element C and the records behind it: The traceability code and the records behind it
Which other versions of the label exist?
Four you may come across: the PZ passport for protected zones, the replacement passport, the passport built into a certification label, and the format from before December 2019, which is no longer valid.
Plant Passport – PZ
Plants moving into or within a protected zone, an area of the EU kept free of a pest found elsewhere, carry "Plant Passport – PZ" instead. Immediately below the title comes the scientific name of that pest, or its code. A, B, C and D follow as usual (Annex VII, Part B).
Replacement passports
A business that receives plants with a passport may issue a new one in its place, and when it splits one trade unit into several, it must issue a passport for each of them, provided the plants are unchanged and still traceable. B then shows the business that issued the new passport, not the grower. On a PZ passport, D also carries the registration number of whoever issued the original one (Art. 93; Annex VII, Part B).
Combined with a certification label
Certified seed, seed potatoes and certified propagating material, such as fruit plants and vines, already carry an official certification label. Their plant passport is part of that label: the EU flag and "Plant Passport" across the top, at the same width, and the certification label with its details below (Art. 83(5); Annex VII, Parts C and D). You may see no A, B, C or D on such a label.
Labels from before December 2019
The current format applies from 14 December 2019. Passports issued earlier in the old format stayed valid until 14 December 2023, so a plant passport without the EU flag is no longer valid (Impl. Reg. (EU) 2017/2313, Art. 4).
What does the label not tell you?
- Whether it is genuine, or whether the business in B is still registered. There is no public EU database to look that up.
- Who sold you the plant. B is the business that issued the passport: the grower, or a business further along the chain that replaced it.
- Exactly where the plant was grown. D names a country, not a region or a nursery.
- Anything about quality. A plant passport is an official label attesting that the plant meets the EU's plant-health requirements for moving within the Union (Reg. (EU) 2016/2031, Art. 78). It is not a quality grade, a variety certificate or an organic label.
- What the barcode or QR code holds. The Regulation leaves that to the issuer: it adds to the code in C and does not replace it.
Holding a passport and wondering whether to trust it? Checking a passport you received
Issuing passports yourself
FloraPass prints passports in this format, including the PZ version and an optional barcode or QR code, as PDF or on thermal label printers.