Packaging compliance for sellers shipping into the EU

Two separate systems reach a parcel crossing into the EU. One is about the packaging as a product: what it is made of and what documentation stands behind it. The other is extended producer responsibility - registration, fees and annual reporting, country by country. The second decides whether you may sell at all, and it has a waiting time, so this page starts there.

Register before the first parcel, not after it

A producer registers in the national register of producers of every Member State where it first makes packaging or packaged products available on that territory. Per country, not once for the Union. Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Art. 44(2)

The sequence matters more than the paperwork. A producer may not make packaging available on a Member State's territory if it, or its authorised representative for extended producer responsibility, is not registered there Art. 44(4) - a market-access rule, not an administrative one. The authority then has up to twelve weeks to grant registration and issue a number, counted from a complete application. Art. 44(11)(b) An EU-wide launch moves at the speed of the slowest national registration.

Which register you apply to today is still a national-law question. Each Member State must set up its PPWR register within 18 months of the first implementing act under Article 44(14), Art. 44(1) and that act, due by 12 February 2026, Art. 44(14) was not found published in the Official Journal when this page's sources were verified, on 12 August 2026. The existing national registers - LUCID, ADEME and their equivalents - continue under national law meanwhile.

Which role the regulation attaches to you

Roles attach per packaging stream, not per company, and the labels are not intuitive. Packaging designed or manufactured under someone's own name or trademark puts that person in the manufacturer role, whether or not any other trademark is visible. Art. 3(1)(13) Summaries that equate "manufacturer" with the factory printing the box read the word the everyday way; the text puts the brand owner there. Where packaging carries no brand at all, the Commission's reading is that the manufacturer is whoever places the order and decides the design specification. Commission Notice C/2026/3084, section 2

The same trigger reaches importers and distributors: an importer or distributor that places packaging on the market under its own name or trademark, or modifies packaging already on the market in a way that could affect compliance, is subject to the manufacturer's Article 15 obligations. Art. 21 Private-label sellers land here routinely.

Goods that arrive already packaged from outside the EU are the importer case: before placing that packaging on the market you verify the manufacturer carried out the conformity assessment and drew up the Annex VII technical documentation, Art. 18(2) keep the declaration of conformity yourself, and be able to produce the technical documentation for 5 years, or 10 for reusable packaging. Art. 18(7) The role checker runs one stream at a time through these questions.

What the documentation duty actually is

Conformity assessment here is one procedure: Annex VII, Module A, internal production control, under which the manufacturer ensures and declares on its own responsibility that the packaging meets Articles 5 to 12. Annex VII, Module A No notified body route, no CE marking for packaging. Art. 38 Vendor content selling third-party PPWR certification is selling something the regulation does not ask for. A laboratory or a certification scheme may run the assessment on the manufacturer's behalf, but responsibility does not move with it.

Retention is also widely misstated as a flat ten years. It is 5 years for single-use packaging from the date it was placed on the market and 10 years for reusable packaging, and that split repeats for importers and for supplier traceability. Art. 15(3)

Your suppliers owe you the inputs: a supplier must give the manufacturer all information and documentation needed to demonstrate conformity, including the Annex VII technical documentation, in a language the manufacturer easily understands. Art. 16(1) Our supplier request letter asks for exactly that set.

The authorised representative duty from 12 August 2026

Two different appointments share one name. The product-compliance authorised representative under Article 17 is optional: a manufacturer may appoint one by written mandate. Art. 17(1) It is commonly reported as a duty on every non-EU seller. It is not.

The EPR authorised representative is the mandatory one. A manufacturer, importer or distributor established in one Member State or a third country that makes packaging available for the first time directly to end users in another Member State must appoint, by written mandate, an authorised representative for extended producer responsibility in each of those other Member States. Art. 45(3) That is the distance-selling case, and since the regulation applies from 12 August 2026, any obligation that does not name a later date of its own is live now. Art. 71 Whether that representative can also do the registering in your place is a national choice. Art. 44(3)

Marketplaces and fulfilment providers enforce this before any authority does. An online platform must obtain your registration number for the consumer's Member State, plus a self-certification, before it lets you sell. Art. 45(4) A fulfilment provider whose copy of that information is missing or out of date must ask you to fix it and swiftly suspend its service until you do. Art. 45(8)

Reporting, once you are registered

The EU baseline is annual: the producer, its EPR authorised representative or its producer responsibility organisation submits the Annex IX data by 1 June for each full preceding calendar year. Art. 44(7) Member States may add an audit requirement or ask for quarterly figures.

Small volumes get a lighter form, not an exemption. A producer that made available less than 10 tonnes in a Member State in a calendar year submits a reduced information set. Art. 44(8) Registration and EPR fees still apply; summaries written for small sellers frequently read that threshold as an exit.

What Latvia specifically requires

Latvia has not yet adapted its own packaging law to the regulation. The Iepakojuma likums in force on 12 August 2026 is the text effective from 1 January 2022 and contains no reference to Regulation (EU) 2025/40. Iepakojuma likums, 1. panta 3. punkts The national framework is the natural resources tax (dabas resursu nodoklis, DRN) plus two Cabinet regulations, with the EU regulation applying directly on top.

This is where a widely sold service does not match the country. As at 1 August 2026 the State Environmental Service (VVD) states that Latvia has no separate register of packaging producers and issues no EPR or PPWR registration numbers. If a vendor offers to obtain your Latvian EPR number, ask which register it comes from. VVD adds that the register and its legal framework are in development, which makes this the most volatile item on this page.

What Latvia does ask for is concrete. VVD's position is that foreign companies placing packaged goods on the Latvian market, including by distance selling and through online platforms, are subject to the same packaging requirements as companies established in Latvia. A taxpayer whose generated used-packaging volume in a calendar year is 300 kilograms or more participates in an extended producer responsibility system, by contract with an operator (apsaimniekotājs) that is itself registered with VVD, or by running its own system. DRN likums, 8. panta 1.² daļa Failing that duty means paying the tax at double. 8. panta 1.³ daļa The packager itself also registers with VVD within three months of the day its used-packaging volume passes 300 kg in a calendar year MK noteikumi Nr. 983, 5. punkts - that is the existing national packager registration, not the EPR or PPWR number VVD says it does not issue. Below that volume, VVD's reading is that scheme participation is not mandatory but packaging records, tax calculation, declaration and payment still are.

The tax itself is charged per kilogram of material, not on the value of what is inside: 0,24 EUR/kg for paper and cardboard, 1,25 EUR/kg for plastic (polymer), 44,00 EUR/kg for expanded polystyrene. DRN likums, 7. pielikuma 2. punkts Packaging without the marking the law requires is taxed at the plastic rate whatever it is actually made of 24. panta sestā daļa, which is what missing supplier documentation costs in practice. The DRN calculator holds the full rate table.

Who pays, when the seller is not established in Latvia, has two routes. VVD names both for a foreign company at or above the 300 kg volume: register with the State Revenue Service as a taxpayer, or authorise in writing a person carrying out commercial activity in Latvia to take on the EPR participation obligations. The tax law fills in what happens without either. Where a foreign person not registered as a taxpayer with the State Revenue Service is first to sell packaged goods in Latvia, the tax is paid and the report filed by its permanent representation, by the recipient of the goods, or by another person in Latvia that has assumed the obligation in writing. DRN likums, 27. panta devītā daļa With none of those in place, the foreign person pays into the state budget itself and files no report, 27. panta desmitā daļa and no official page describes how that direct payment works in practice.

What is not in force yet, whatever you have read

The empty space rule is the clearest example. Vendor and SEO content widely states a 40 % cap from August 2026. Both halves are wrong: the ratio is 50 %, and it applies from 1 January 2030 or three years after the Article 24(2) implementing acts enter into force, whichever is later - so the date can only move later than 2030, never earlier. Art. 24(1) A separate duty bites sooner: from 12 February 2028, whoever fills sales packaging reduces empty space to the minimum needed for functionality and protection, with no numeric ratio and no implementing-act condition. Art. 24(4) The empty space calculator uses the regulation's own formula.

One requirement did start on the application date: since 12 August 2026, food-contact packaging may not be placed on the market containing PFAS at or above the Article 5(5) limit values. Art. 5(5)

Your next three steps

1. List the countries you ship to and start the registrations there. Twelve weeks is the maximum from a complete application, and supply before registration is not allowed, so this is the item with a lead time. Where you sell directly to consumers outside your own Member State, the EPR authorised representative appointment belongs in the same step.
2. Run one packaging stream at a time through the role checker, then send the supplier request for every stream where the documentation duty lands on you. Chasing material data from a non-EU supplier is usually the long pole.
3. Put the weights on paper. Fill the register template, write down the allocation method that splits your total across destination countries so someone else could repeat it from the same invoices, and keep both with the invoices behind them. An annual report, a tax calculation and an authority's question all draw on that one spreadsheet.

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