The EU packaging regulation now applies. Here is what actually changed.

The Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, usually shortened to PPWR, applies from 12 August 2026. Unlike the directive it replaces, it is a regulation: identical rules in every member state, no national transposition delays, and it covers all e-commerce packaging (the box, the mailer, the tape, the void fill) with no small-seller volume threshold.

What an online seller is actually obliged to do

Register as a producer in each EU country where you place packaged goods on the market. "Placing on the market" includes shipping a parcel to a consumer there. Selling into a country from abroad triggers it.
Declare, on each national scheme's cadence, the weight of packaging you placed on that market, broken down by material: paper/cardboard, plastics (often by polymer), glass, metals, wood.
Pay fees based on those declared weights, at each scheme's rates.

The registers are national: LUCID in Germany, CITEO in France, CONAI in Italy, Verpact in the Netherlands, and so on. PPWR harmonises the obligations; the filing itself still happens country by country.

The part everyone underestimates

The arithmetic. Every declaration is the same question, how many kilograms of each material did you ship into this country during this period?, and almost no store records which box each order went into. Reconstructing that from order history and a weighing scale is the actual work, and it is exactly the step PPWR Compliance.com automates: upload your order export, describe your packaging once, and the per-country, per-material weights fall out.

See your own numbers in two minutes

Upload your Shopify order export and get a free preview of your packaging obligations in every EU country you ship to, including this one.

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All country guides

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Requirements and thresholds change, so verify with the national register or your scheme before filing.