Every product passport needs a data carrier — the physical thing on the product that opens the digital record. In practice the choice is between a QR code and an NFC tag, and vendors on each side tend to oversell their favourite. Here is the comparison we give our own customers, trade-offs included.

The short answer

Woven QR is the right default for most apparel: lowest cost, universally scannable, and — when textile rather than paper printed — durable for the life of the garment.
NFC earns its premium on flagship and accessory lines: a tap is a nicer moment than a scan, it works where a camera struggles, and it unlocks cryptographic anti-counterfeit features QR cannot match.
Many programmes sensibly use both: NFC for the experience, a textile QR as the visual, no-hardware fallback.

Cost

A textile QR label adds little over the label you were producing anyway — the code is part of the textile. An NFC label carries a chip and antenna, so expect roughly two to four times the per-unit cost of a textile QR, depending on volume and construction. At tens of thousands of units, that difference is a real line item; decide based on what the tap is worth on that specific product.

Durability

This is where construction matters more than technology.

A printed QR — on a sticker, hangtag or paper label — fades and abrades. Hangtags are cut off before first wear; printed on paper or film often becomes unscannable within a season of washing.
A woven QR on textile. The modules are the fabric. Properly constructed and wash-tested, it stays scannable for the practical life of the garment.
An NFC inlay is electronics inside a textile: done well (sealed, strain-relieved, placed away from high-stress seams), it survives normal washing; done carelessly, it dies early. Ask any NFC vendor how they wash-test — if the answer is vague, keep shopping.

User experience

QR: everyone understands it, every modern phone camera reads it, and it works at a distance (a wholesale buyer can scan a rack). The cost: the customer has to see it, open a camera, and aim.
NFC: one tap with the phone, no camera, no aiming — it feels like the product responding to touch. The cost: the customer has to know the tap is possible, which is why NFC products usually carry a small printed prompt anyway.

For accessibility, note that a tap can be easier than framing a small code for users with low vision or limited dexterity — another quiet argument for NFC on the lines where it fits.

Security and anti-counterfeiting

A QR code is public information: anyone can photograph and reprint it. That is fine for care data and storytelling; it is weak for authentication.

Modern NFC chips can do better: cryptographically signed responses that change with every tap, so a cloned tag fails verification. If counterfeits cost you real revenue or reputation, this is the feature that decides the question — and it is only available on the NFC side.

Regulation-proofing

The EU’s Digital Product Passport rules describe data carriers in technology-neutral terms — QR codes and NFC are both expected to qualify, and final specifics arrive with the delegated acts. The safe move is not picking the “winning” technology; it is making sure the carrier holds a persistent unique identifier and physically survives the product’s life. A dead tag is non-compliant in every scenario.

A rule of thumb to steal

Product	Carrier
Core apparel line	Textile QR
Premium / flagship pieces	NFC (+ textile QR fallback)
Leather goods & accessories	NFC
Anything counterfeited	Cryptographic NFC
Workwear / rental textiles	Textile QR, industrial-wash spec

If you are still unsure, order samples of both, put them through your actual wash spec, and hand them to five real customers. The right answer is usually obvious within a week.

QR vs NFC for product passports: an honest comparison