Articles · 2026-09-16
What is EPR for packaging? Extended producer responsibility explained
EPR (extended producer responsibility) makes whoever first places packaging on a market register, report kilograms by material and pay for its collection.
EPR is the rule that makes a company pay for the packaging it puts on a market once that packaging becomes waste. Below are the short answers, with the figures from our own country table.
What does EPR stand for?
EPR stands for extended producer responsibility. "Extended" means the producer's responsibility does not end at the sale: it continues to the collection and recycling of what it sold.
What does EPR mean for a business?
Three duties, in every EU country that has a working scheme:
- Register with the national register before selling.
- Report the packaging you placed on the market, in kilograms by material.
- Pay for its collection and recycling, usually through a producer responsibility organisation (PRO).
Registering and paying are two different steps — EPR registration or PRO membership. A registration number is what a customer or marketplace asks for — what is an EPR number.
What is EPR for packaging?
It is EPR applied to boxes, films, bags, labels, pallets and everything else that wraps, protects or carries a product. Sales, grouped and transport packaging all count.
Who is the producer?
The company that first makes the packaging available on that country's market — the manufacturer, the importer or the seller. A seller established abroad is included.
Is EPR one EU law or 27 national schemes?
Both. The PPWR, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, sets the common frame: registration is a precondition for placing packaging on a market (Art. 44), EPR itself (Art. 45) and producer responsibility organisations (Art. 46). The registers, fees and schemes stay national, and penalties are set by each country (Art. 68, national rules due by 12 February 2027). A central EU register will not exist before 1 January 2029. EPR and the PPWR are not the same thing — EPR is not PPWR.
How many EU countries have a register open?
From our country table on 16 September 2026:
- 21 registers are live: AT, BE, CY, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GR, HR, HU, LT, LU, MT, PL, PT, SE, SI, SK.
- 1 is live but its PPWR part is not assembled: RO.
- 5 are not live yet: BG, IE, IT, LV, NL.
Live means you can register today, not that the register is already in the PPWR format — the implementing act for that format is still pending.
Who collects the money?
- Competing PROs — 18 countries, you choose one.
- A single PRO — 7 countries: BE, CY, CZ, IE, LU, NL, and IT alongside autonomous systems.
- A state body — HR and HU.
Is there a minimum quantity?
It differs by country, and a threshold is often not an exemption:
- Denmark: 8 t a year changes how much you report, not whether you register and pay.
- Czech Republic: exempt only at 300 kg or less and turnover of 25 million CZK or less.
- Netherlands: under 50 000 kg, no declaration and no fee.
- Poland: 1 Mg exempts from the levy, not from the register.
- Sweden: 1 t exempts from the supervision fee only.
- Hungary: no threshold.
Is EPR the same as a packaging tax?
No. A tax goes to the tax authority; the EPR fee pays for collection. Spain charges both — the packaging tax is not the Ecoembes fee. In Latvia a contract with a packaging manager is what exempts you from the natural resources tax.
What a spreadsheet cannot do here
It holds kilograms, but not which country each shipment went to, which weights were measured and which estimated, or which packaging was reusable. Every register asks for exactly that split.
What Tarafex does
Kilograms by material and by country from the shipments you already record, with the weight frozen on the day each shipment leaves. Reusable packaging is kept beside the single-use total, never inside it. The country table holds every register, threshold and deadline with its source. Tarafex does not register you, does not join a scheme for you and files nothing with any authority.
Sources: Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Articles 44, 45, 46 and 68; Tarafex country table (16 September 2026); Denmark: Miljøstyrelsen; Czech Republic: Ministry of the Environment; Netherlands: Ondernemersplein; Poland: Marshal's Office of Łódź; Sweden: Naturvårdsverket; Hungary: Government Decree 80/2023; Latvia: VID. Checked 16 September 2026. This is information, not legal advice.