Articles · 2026-09-17
Who is the manufacturer of transport packaging under the PPWR?
Under the PPWR the manufacturer of transport packaging is the company whose brand is on it, the maker of generic packaging, or whoever orders it custom-made.
Under the PPWR the manufacturer draws up the declaration of conformity and the technical documentation. For transport packaging — crates, pallets, boxes — it is often not obvious who that is. The Commission answered it in the second edition of its PPWR FAQ (August 2026).
Why does it matter who the manufacturer is?
The manufacturer carries the conformity assessment, the technical documentation and the declaration of conformity. An authorised representative may draft the declaration, but the technical documentation cannot be delegated, and no contract moves the legal responsibility (FAQ X.9).
Is the manufacturer the company that physically makes it?
Not always. "Final form" is the stage at which the manufacturer is identified — not a rule about who it is. Packaging reaches final form when it can be used without further components being added (FAQ II.5). Who the manufacturer is then depends on the packaging:
- Branded — the company whose name or trademark is on it.
- Unbranded, generic, standardised — normally the company that physically makes it.
- Custom-made and unbranded — the company that places the order and decides the design specifications (FAQ II.14).
What does that mean for a crate or a pallet?
- A joinery builds crates to a customer's drawing, with no name on them: the customer who ordered them is the manufacturer.
- The same joinery sells standard unbranded pallets from stock: the joinery is the manufacturer.
- The crate carries the joinery's logo: the joinery is the manufacturer, because its name is on it.
What if the name and the trademark belong to different companies?
Both carry equal weight. The Commission calls it a case-by-case assessment of who has the decisive power over the design and specifications (FAQ II.7).
Can one shipment have several manufacturers?
Yes. Several packaging items in one shipment — a box, the pallet under it, the film around it — can have different manufacturers, and each owes its own technical documentation and declaration. Adding a shipping label is not branding (FAQ, section II).
Is there an exception for small companies?
If the company that would be the manufacturer is a microenterprise and its supplier is established in the same member state, the supplier is the manufacturer (FAQ II.6). Watch the wording: the definition in Article 3(1)(13)(b) says the same member state, while Article 15(12) describes the supplier as located in the Union. The Commission follows the definition.
What about packaging bought from outside the EU?
The importer must give its name and address on the packaging or in an accompanying document — also for generic, unbranded imported material (FAQ X.11).
Can a contract make the supplier responsible?
No. A contract can arrange who does the work, but not who is legally responsible. The supplier, however, cannot refuse to give the manufacturer the information needed to demonstrate conformity (Article 16(1)).
What a spreadsheet cannot do here
A spreadsheet lists the packaging, not who is its manufacturer in each case. When one customer's crates are custom-made and another's are standard, the same product line has two different answers — and a list with one column cannot hold both.
What Tarafex does
Each packaging component is a row with its own material, weight and supplier, and the supplier's answer is recorded with who gave it. The declaration page explains what the manufacturer needs and in what order. Tarafex does not decide who your manufacturer is; it keeps the data that decision rests on.
Who pays for the pallet: the producer, not the manufacturer
The manufacturer answers for the packaging being lawful. Someone else pays for its collection, and for transport packaging that someone is usually not the company that ships the goods. Czechia's scheme has written the rule out in the clearest terms of any member state, in EKO-KOM's methodology in force since 12 August 2026 and read at source on 19 September 2026.
For sales and grouped packaging the payer is the filler. For transport packaging — the pallet, the strapping, the stretch film, the layer pads — it is the producer of the EMPTY packaging. One transport unit can therefore carry several payers at once: the pallet maker, the film maker and the pad maker, each for its own part.
And a line every shipper should read twice: sticking your own label on unbranded stretch film does not make you the producer. The packaging has to be designed or made to your specification, under your name or trademark, before the duty moves to you.
What a buyer asks for instead
In Czechia the buyer asks its supplier for a *Prohlášení o zpoplatnění obalů* — a declaration that the packaging has been paid for. That is the transport-packaging equivalent of a packaging data sheet: not a certificate, just a named statement on a date.
Two cases catch people out. A logistics firm that unpacks or repacks is not an end user, and becomes the producer of the transport packaging it adds — even though it never owns the goods. And a micro-enterprise, under ten people and up to EUR 2 million, inverts the rule: it is the producer of its own sales packaging, while transport, service and primary-production packaging fall on its packaging supplier — unless it imports them itself, in which case it is back on the hook.
This is Czech practice, written by the Czech scheme. The PPWR sets the frame; who pays is still answered country by country, and the register, threshold and deadline for each of the 27 are in our table.
Sources: Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Articles 3(1)(13)(b), 15(12) and 16; Commission communication C(2026) 2151, annex; Commission PPWR FAQ, 2nd edition, August 2026, sections II.5, II.6, II.7, II.14, X.9, X.11. Checked 17 September 2026. This is information, not legal advice.