Renovation passport

A roadmap for one building

A renovation passport is about a specific building, not a building type, and it plans a deep renovation in a limited number of steps. It is the document that the definition of staged deep renovation in point (21) refers to: the steps of a staged deep renovation are set out in a renovation passport.

Article 12 sets the rules. By 29 May 2026 each Member State had to introduce a scheme based on the common framework in Annex VIII. The scheme is voluntary for owners unless the Member State makes it mandatory (Article 12(2)). The passport is issued in digital form by a qualified or certified expert after an on-site visit (Article 12(4)), and the owner should be offered a discussion with that expert on how to turn the building into a zero-emission building well before 2050 (Article 12(5)).

It connects to the rest of the building's records. A Member State may let the passport be issued together with the energy performance certificate (Article 12(3)), and in that case it replaces the certificate's recommendations (Article 19(6)). It must be possible to upload it to the national energy performance database (Article 12(7)) and to store it in, or reach it through, the digital building logbook where one exists (Article 12(8)).

The Netherlands implements Article 12 without new legal rules. The explanatory note to Staatsblad 2026, 103 states that the renovation passport is implemented as a voluntary instrument, so there is no duty in the regulations to draw one up. The Dutch passport will build on the existing maatwerkadvies (tailored energy advice) for homes and non-residential buildings, which can be extended with the steps to a zero-emission building and is registered under certificate by qualified energy advisers.