What features does WatchPassport have?
A tour of watch registration, history and service logging, private records, ownership transfer, stolen-watch reporting and the public lookup.
Last updated 28 September 2026
WatchPassport is built around a single idea: a documented record that stays with a watch throughout its life. That record is made up of several features that work together, from registration and ownership history to service logging, private notes, transfers and public lookup. This guide walks through what is in the platform today and how those pieces fit together.
How does a watch get registered?
Registration is a guided, multi-step process that captures a watch's identity, including its brand, reference and serial number, movement type and other specifications, along with identity photographs, any accessories that came with it, and a verification photo and code showing that you have the watch in hand.
Progress auto-saves as a draft at every step, so you can leave and come back without losing what you have entered. The passport is only created once you complete and submit the registration.
If the same brand, reference and serial number are already registered to someone else, WatchPassport does not simply create a duplicate. Instead, it opens a dispute process so the competing claims can be resolved.
What does a passport track once a watch is registered?
The Identity tab holds the watch's specifications, photographs and accessories. The current owner can update these details, while important changes are recorded so the watch's history is not silently overwritten.
Alongside that sits the Timeline, which records events such as services, ownership transfers and other logged changes in chronological order, building the watch's documented history over time.
Three kinds of specialised logging sit alongside the general timeline for watches where they are relevant. Pressure testing records water resistance checks, with a summary showing the latest result and when the watch was last tested. Timegrapher logging tracks a mechanical watch's rate, beat error and amplitude across successive readings. Battery logging records battery changes for quartz watches, making it easier to see how long batteries tend to last for that particular watch and how long it has been since the last change.
WatchPassport also includes standalone accuracy tracking. Start a session against a reference time source, check in periodically, and WatchPassport calculates the watch's average gain or loss in seconds per day. This makes it possible to follow a watch's real-world timekeeping over days or weeks without a timegrapher.
What's private to just you?
Every passport also has a Personal tab for information that stays private to you. This includes private notes, photographs you keep for yourself, and your own acquisition record, such as what you paid, whether the watch was bought, gifted or inherited, and when and where you acquired it.
See our guide on what transfers and what stays private for the full distinction between information that stays with you and information that travels with the watch.
How does ownership move between people?
A current owner can initiate a transfer to a specific recipient. The recipient works through a short checklist, including confirming identity photographs and accessories and recording their own acquisition details, before accepting the watch.
Once the recipient accepts, the ownership transfer is recorded on the timeline and the passport moves to the new owner. The previous owner keeps access to their own private information and a historical snapshot from their period of ownership, while the new owner continues the watch's active record from that point forward.
A passport can also be archived if you no longer own the watch and the passport for any reason was not transferred, or if you for any other reason no longer wish for the passport to be active. An inactive passport can also be reactivated at any time by the current owner.
If a watch is stolen, the current owner can flag it as stolen. This blocks ownership transfers and displays a warning on the public lookup until the flag is cleared.
What's available without an account?
Anyone can look up a watch by brand, reference and serial number at watchpassport.online/lookup, with no account required. A lookup shows whether a watch is registered on WatchPassport and whether it carries a stolen flag. The public lookup does not share any information about the current or past owners of the watch.
It gives you one quick piece of due diligence before acquiring a watch, or a way to check whether a watch is already registered, without needing to create an account.
Taken together, these features are meant to do one thing: give each watch a record that can grow during ownership and continue with it when ownership changes.