Plant passports on Everspring: a complete guide for resellers and suppliers

In short. Every parcel that an Everspring supplier ships to a consumer must carry a plant passport on the smallest trade unit. The supplier is the legal operator under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 and is responsible for issuing the passport and attaching it to every plant in the shipment. The reseller is the commercial seller and never physically handles the parcel. Everspring is the platform — not a grower, not a phytosanitary certifier. The detailed explanation follows below; for specific concerns, see the FAQ at the end of the article.

Plants and most plant products that move within the European Union must carry a plant passport. It is a small label, but it carries the legal proof that a plant has been inspected and is free of regulated pests. Because Everspring works with a dropshipping model — your growers ship directly to the end customer on behalf of the reseller — plant passports are part of every order that leaves a Dutch nursery and lands at a consumer in Germany, Belgium, France or anywhere else inside the EU.

This article explains, in detail, what a plant passport is, when it is mandatory, who is responsible for what in the Everspring chain, and how Everspring positions itself as a platform. It is intentionally long: we want resellers and suppliers to be able to read this once and have a clear picture, without having to chase external links.

What is a plant passport?

A plant passport is an official label, attached to the smallest trade unit (a single pot, tray, bunch of bare-root plants, etc.), that confirms a plant has been produced under the supervision of the national plant protection authority and is free of EU-regulated pests. The system is harmonised across the EU under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 (the Plant Health Regulation) and the implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2313, which fixes the visual format.

Every plant passport has the same four mandatory fields:

• A — Botanical name. The genus and species, in Latin (for example, Monstera deliciosa).

• B — Country code + registration number. The two-letter ISO country code of the issuing operator, followed by the official registration number assigned by the national authority. In the Netherlands this is the Fytosanitair Registratienummer (FRN), so a Dutch grower's B-field looks like NL-123456789.

• C — Traceability code. A unique code per batch, allowing the plant to be traced back to a specific lot. The default rule under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 — specifically Article 83(2) read together with Annex VII, Part A — is that the traceability code is mandatory on every plant passport for plants for planting moving within the EU. Article 83(2) does provide a strictly conditional derogation: the C field may be omitted only if both of the following conditions are met cumulatively: (a) the plants are prepared in such a way that they are ready for sale to the final user without further preparation and there is no risk of spreading EU quarantine pests, and (b) they do not belong to a species listed in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1770. For the species on that list, the derogation does not apply and a traceability code is mandatory even on retail-ready potted plants. The list currently covers:

  • Since 31 December 2021 (under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1770): Citrus, Coffea, Lavandula dentata, Nerium oleander, Olea europaea, Polygala myrtifolia, Prunus dulcis, Solanum tuberosum.

  • Since 1 July 2025 (added by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2507): Lavandula angustifolia, Lavandula × intermedia, Lavandula latifolia, Lavandula stoechas, Salvia rosmarinus.

  Most of these are recurrent host plants for Xylella fastidiosa; Solanum tuberosum is on the list because of separate quarantine pests of potato. For retail-ready potted plants outside this list, the C field may be omitted under the conditions above, although suppliers are free to include one voluntarily and many do.

• D — Country of origin. Required only when the plant originates from a country outside the issuing operator's country, including third countries.

How to recognise a plant passport

A plant passport is a white-label regulatory label, not a branded product label. The format is uniform across the EU under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2313, so any customer or inspector anywhere in Europe can recognise it at a glance. The infographic below shows what the label looks like and the typical places you will find it on a parcel.

A few points to highlight in addition to the visual:

• The only information that identifies the issuing grower is field B — the country code and registration number (for example NL-123456789). There is no Everspring logo, no supplier logo, no shop name and no commercial styling on the passport itself.

• "Plant Passport" always appears in English in the top-right corner, regardless of the language of the rest of the label or the country of origin.

• The label must be legible with the naked eye, printed in indelible ink, and physically attached to the smallest trade unit — never mixed in with the invoice or the packing slip.

• If a label on a parcel does not show the EU flag and the words "Plant Passport", it is not a plant passport. Care instructions, supplier address labels, marketing tags and reseller branding are separate labels next to it.

When is a plant passport mandatory?

The rules are sometimes counter-intuitive, so it pays to know them precisely.

• Business-to-business (B2B) trade inside the EU: always mandatory for the listed plant species. This includes a grower selling to another grower, a wholesaler to a garden centre, or a supplier to a reseller's bonded warehouse.

• Business-to-consumer (B2C) sales in a physical shop: the legal exception. A consumer who walks into a garden centre, picks up a Monstera, and pays at the till does not require a plant passport on their personal copy. The plant passport stays in the shop's records.

• Business-to-consumer (B2C) sales at a distance — webshops, dropshipping, mail order: always mandatory. The moment a plant is shipped to a consumer rather than handed over face-to-face, the EU treats it as a movement that requires a plant passport.

• Cut flowers and plant products without roots: exempt, with a small list of exceptions for specific genera.

Because Everspring is a dropshipping platform, every order is by definition a distance sale. Every plant your supplier ships from their nursery to a consumer must therefore carry a plant passport, regardless of which reseller's brand is on the parcel. This is a hard requirement of the Everspring model, not an optional extra.

Who is responsible in the Everspring chain?

Everspring's dropshipping model has three roles, and the EU plant health framework maps onto them cleanly. We describe each role below.

The supplier (grower) is the legal operator

Under EU 2016/2031, the "professional operator" responsible for issuing and attaching plant passports is the party that physically places the plant on the market. In a dropshipping flow, that is the grower — you, the supplier — because you pack the box and hand it to the carrier. This makes you legally responsible for the following:

• Registration with the national plant protection authority. In the Netherlands, this means registering with the NVWA and obtaining a Fytosanitair Registratienummer (FRN). One FRN per company, not per crop. Equivalent registers exist in every EU member state; for Dutch flower bulbs, the BKD (Bloembollenkeuringsdienst) issues registrations and inspects.

• Issuing a plant passport for every shipment. The passport must be physically attached to the smallest trade unit. If a single consumer order contains five different cultivars, that is five plant passports — one per cultivar — even if they share a single shipping box.

• Authorisation to issue passports. Operators may produce their own plant passports only after receiving authorisation from the national authority. Without that authorisation, an operator cannot legally issue plant passports — and therefore cannot legally place plant-passport-relevant material on the EU market themselves.

• Record keeping for three years. Suppliers must record from whom they received plant material (with passport details) and to whom they shipped it. In a dropshipping context, the consumer's order ID, name and address fulfil the "to whom" requirement.

• Quality and phytosanitary status of the plant. The passport certifies that the plant was produced and inspected under the rules. The supplier remains responsible for the actual plant health at the moment of shipment.

• Format compliance. EU flag top-left, "Plant Passport" top-right, four mandatory fields, indelible ink, physically attached to the plant or its smallest trade unit, never combined with the invoice or packing slip.

The reseller is the commercial seller, not the physical operator

Resellers on Everspring sell plants in their own webshop or marketplace, but the parcel is packed and shipped by the grower. The reseller never physically holds the plant. This has important legal consequences:

• You are not the "operator" under EU 2016/2031 for plant passport purposes. You do not issue passports, you do not need an FRN of your own for the plants that pass through Everspring suppliers, and you cannot verify a passport at arrival because the parcel never arrives at your address.

• You are still the commercial seller toward your customer. Consumer law, distance-selling rules, and your own terms and conditions apply to you. If a consumer complains that the parcel arrived without a passport, the reseller is the contractual counterparty who handles the complaint, even though the supplier is the legal source of the error.

• Your due diligence is contractual, not physical. You ensure that you only sell plants from Everspring suppliers, that those suppliers are registered and issue plant passports, and that your customer-facing communication does not contradict the regulatory reality. Everspring's onboarding process is the mechanism through which this due diligence is carried out at platform level.

• Cross-border note. If your customers are in a different EU country than the supplier, the supplier's plant passport is valid throughout the EU — there is no need for a second passport at the consumer's border. Non-EU shipments are a different matter and are not currently part of the Everspring model.

Everspring is the platform, not a producer or certifier

Everspring positions itself as an intermediary. We connect resellers to suppliers, we synchronise product data, we route orders, and we handle the commercial flow. We are explicitly not a grower, a wholesaler, or a phytosanitary certifying body. Concretely:

• We do not issue plant passports. Only the supplier does.

• We do not inspect plants. The national plant protection authority does, through periodic visits to registered growers.

• We do not guarantee the up-to-date phytosanitary status of any individual shipment. The supplier's plant passport is the legal record for that.

• Everspring operates as a curated platform, not an open marketplace. Suppliers are admitted only after a structured onboarding in which we verify identity, contact details, trade-register information, and the supplier's registration with the relevant national plant protection authority. We expect every supplier to operate within the plant passport regime as set out in Regulation (EU) 2016/2031, and we maintain the right to remove suppliers who do not. This curation is a platform-access standard, not a per-shipment phytosanitary certification. The legal responsibility for plant-passport issuance, accuracy, and ongoing phytosanitary compliance on every individual shipment rests with the supplier as the operator under EU 2016/2031; a supplier's presence on Everspring is not, and is not intended to be read as, an Everspring-issued guarantee of plant health for any specific consignment.

• We standardise what goes on a plant passport at the data level (botanical name, registration number, traceability code where required), but where the physical passport is placed — sticker on the pot, hang-tag, printed pot wrap, label inside the sleeve — varies per supplier and is the supplier's choice within the legal format.

This division of roles — platform curation by Everspring, operator responsibility by the supplier — is the standard model in the European flower and plant trade. It mirrors how Royal FloraHolland, the largest auction in the sector, operates: marketplaces curate who is allowed to participate; growers, as the operators recognised by the EU plant health framework, remain responsible for the certification and compliance of every shipment.

Liability in the Everspring chain

Our position on liability follows directly from the role description above. The grower is the legal operator and produces the certified plant; that is where the responsibility for plant health, passport accuracy, and regulatory compliance sits. Everspring's liability is limited to its own platform performance — accurate data synchronisation, correct order routing, faithful representation of supplier information — and is further limited as set out in our general terms and conditions, in line with industry practice.

If a plant arrives at a consumer without a valid passport, with an incorrect passport, or with a phytosanitary defect, the contractual chain runs from consumer to reseller to Everspring to supplier. The financial and regulatory responsibility, however, ultimately lies with the supplier as the operator who issued (or failed to issue) the passport.

Resellers should reflect this in their own terms toward consumers: phytosanitary compliance is provided by the originating grower, who is identified by the registration number on the plant passport that accompanies the shipment.

Practical checklist for suppliers

If you are a grower joining or operating on Everspring, the following is the minimum you should be able to confirm:

• You hold a current registration with your national plant protection authority (NVWA in the Netherlands, BKD for flower bulbs, equivalent authorities in other EU countries) and you can produce your registration number on request.

• You are authorised by your national plant protection authority to issue plant passports.

• Every parcel that leaves your nursery for a consumer (B2C distance sale) carries a plant passport on every smallest trade unit inside the parcel.

• Plant passports follow the legal format: rectangular, EU flag top-left, "Plant Passport" top-right, fields A, B, and where applicable C and D, indelible ink, attached to the plant rather than the invoice.

• For potted plants of any species listed in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1770 — currently Citrus, Coffea, the Lavandula species L. dentata, L. angustifolia, L. × intermedia, L. latifolia and L. stoechas, Nerium oleander, Olea europaea, Polygala myrtifolia, Prunus dulcis, Salvia rosmarinus and Solanum tuberosum — a traceability code (field C) is included on every plant passport, regardless of whether the plant is retail-ready.

• You keep records of incoming and outgoing plant material, including consumer orders, for at least three years.

• Inspections by the national authority are up to date and any conditions imposed on your registration are met.

Practical checklist for resellers

If you are a reseller on Everspring, you cannot inspect the plant, but you can ensure that your sales channel is compliant by design:

• You only list plants supplied by Everspring growers, who have been onboarded through our supplier process.

• Your product descriptions, marketing claims, and customer service replies do not promise plant health beyond what the plant passport itself certifies.

• If a consumer reports that a parcel appears to have arrived without a passport, the report is raised through the Everspring platform from the relevant order, with photographs and the order details, so the supplier can respond and, where applicable, provide the missing documentation. Direct escalation to Everspring is reserved for cases where the supplier does not resolve the report at that level.

• Your terms and conditions correctly identify the grower as the source of phytosanitary compliance and reflect the dropshipping nature of the fulfilment.

• You comply with consumer protection law in your customer's country, which is a separate matter from plant passports but applies in parallel.

What to do when a passport appears to be missing or incorrect

Plant passports are small physical labels — sometimes a sticker comes loose during transport, sometimes a label ends up on the inside of a sleeve and is missed at first inspection. Before treating this as a regulatory failure, the chain we follow is: check carefully, report through the platform, give the supplier the chance to provide the documentation, and only then escalate.

1. Check carefully first. Plant passports can sit on the pot, on a hang-tag, on the outside or inside of the sleeve, on a pot wrap, or on the back of the care label. The first response to "I do not see a passport" is always a careful re-check on every plant in the parcel.

2. Report through the Everspring platform, from the order. If after that check the passport is genuinely absent or appears incorrect, the report goes through the Everspring platform from the specific order — not by email, not via a separate channel. Include the order number, photographs of the parcel and the individual plants, and any other documentation that helps identify the shipment. The order-based message reaches the supplier directly, with the full shipment context attached.

3. Allow the supplier to respond and provide documentation. A frequent and legitimate cause of a missing label is a sticker that came off in transit. In that case the supplier can supply a copy or image of the original plant passport for that batch, and the report is resolved at the documentation level rather than by replacing the plant. The supplier should be given a reasonable opportunity to clarify and provide what is asked for.

4. Escalate to Everspring support only if the issue is not resolved. If the supplier does not respond, cannot provide the required documentation, or there are signs of a systemic issue (repeated complaints, an indication of an actual phytosanitary problem), the case is escalated to Everspring support. We log the incident, may require the supplier to notify their national authority where appropriate, and may suspend the supplier's listing pending investigation.

5. Remedy depends on what actually happened. A replacement shipment or refund is not an automatic outcome of every report. If the supplier provides the missing documentation, the report is closed at that level. A replacement or refund follows when the underlying compliance is genuinely absent, not as a default response to a missing label on a single parcel.

How Everspring's approach compares to the wider industry

Our approach is deliberately aligned with established practice in the European flower and plant trade. Royal FloraHolland, the largest auction and trading platform in the sector, applies the same logic: it positions itself as a marketplace, requires NVWA registration and full adherence to the EU plant passport regime from its growers, and places phytosanitary responsibility unambiguously with the grower. Other industry bodies — the NVWA itself, Naktuinbouw, the BKD, Floricode, the VBN — provide the underlying registration, inspection, and data-exchange infrastructure that growers rely on.

Everspring builds on top of this existing framework rather than replacing it. The plant passport remains the legal instrument, the national authority remains the inspector, the grower remains the operator, and Everspring remains the platform.

Frequently asked questions

I received a parcel and I do not see a plant passport — is that a violation?

Probably not, on first inspection. Plant passports can be placed in different physical locations depending on the supplier: as a sticker on the pot, on a hang-tag, on the outside of the plastic sleeve, on the inside of the sleeve, on the pot wrap, or on the back of the care label. Before concluding that a passport is missing, check all of these locations on every individual plant in the parcel. If after that check the passport is genuinely absent or unclear, raise the report through the Everspring platform from the specific order, with photographs and the order number attached, so the supplier can respond and, where applicable, supply a copy or image of the original plant passport for that batch.

Can I request a copy of my supplier's full plant passport register?

No. Suppliers are required to keep records of incoming and outgoing plant material for at least three years, but these records are kept for the relevant national plant protection authority — they are not a reseller-facing or consumer-facing report, and there is no legal basis for a reseller or consumer to demand the entire register. If you have a specific concern about a particular shipment or batch, raise it with Everspring support and we will coordinate with the supplier to clarify that specific item.

How can I verify that an Everspring supplier is properly registered?

The supplier's registration number appears on every plant passport, in field B. For example, "NL-123456789" indicates a Dutch operator with Fytosanitair Registratienummer 123456789. If you want independent confirmation, you can cross-check the registration number against the public register held by the relevant national authority — the NVWA in the Netherlands, the BKD for Dutch flower bulbs, or the equivalent register in another EU country. Beyond that, the legal record of compliance is the plant passport itself, not a separate Everspring certification.

Does Everspring guarantee the phytosanitary status of every plant shipped through the platform?

No. The supplier is the legal operator under EU 2016/2031, the national authority is the inspector, and the plant passport is the legal record of phytosanitary status at the moment of shipment. Everspring's role is platform infrastructure — synchronising product data, routing orders, supporting both sides of the transaction — not plant inspection or certification.

If Everspring curates which suppliers join the platform, doesn't that make Everspring responsible for plant health?

No, and this is an important distinction. Curation determines who is allowed to operate as a supplier on Everspring: identity verified, business properly registered, plant-health registration in place with the relevant national authority, willingness to operate within the EU plant passport regime. Certification of an individual shipment — that this specific batch of plants on this specific day is free of regulated pests and accompanied by a correct plant passport — is a separate legal act, performed by the supplier as the operator under EU 2016/2031 and underwritten by their national plant protection authority through periodic inspections of the nursery. Everspring does not perform that second act and does not represent it as such. The same separation between platform curation and operator certification is standard practice across the European flower and plant trade.

If I am a reseller, am I required to physically verify each plant passport?

No. In a dropshipping flow you never receive the plants, so physical verification at arrival is not possible and not required of you. Your responsibility is contractual and informational: sell only through Everspring suppliers, do not make marketing claims that go beyond what the plant passport certifies, and route any compliance concerns from your customers to Everspring support.

Disclaimer. This article describes the EU plant health framework as it applies to operations on Everspring at the time of publication. It is not legal advice. Suppliers and resellers are responsible for verifying current obligations under Regulation (EU) 2016/2031 and its implementing acts — notably Regulations (EU) 2017/2313, (EU) 2020/1770 and (EU) 2024/2507 — together with any national rules that apply to their specific situation. For authoritative guidance, consult your national plant protection authority.