What Is the PPWR and Do You Need It to Send Parcels?
TL;DR
- The PPWR (Regulation (EU) 2025/40) is the EU's new packaging law, applying from 12 August 2026.
- You need no registration, number or document to ship with Ecoparcel; nothing changes at booking.
- Duties fall on businesses that place packaged products on the EU market, and registration is filed with national packaging registers, never through the courier.
- Private senders have no obligations under the PPWR at all.
- From 1 January 2030, e-commerce packaging may contain at most 50% empty space; enforcement starts warning-first.
Here is what the regulation covers, the dates that matter, and what it means the next time you send a parcel.
What Is the PPWR?
The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40 sets EU-wide rules for all packaging placed on the European market: how it is designed, what substances it may contain, how it is labelled and how its waste is collected. It replaces the 1994 Packaging Directive (94/62/EC) and applies directly in every member state, so the core rules no longer differ from country to country.
The regulation entered into force on 11 February 2025, and its requirements start applying on 12 August 2026. From that date, packaging that does not comply may not be placed on the EU market. Stricter design rules phase in through 2030 and 2035. The full text is on EUR-Lex, and the Commission's plain-language overview of the new rules is on europa.eu.
PPWR Timeline and Key Dates
| Date | What starts |
|---|---|
| 11 February 2025 | The PPWR enters into force. |
| 12 August 2026 | The regulation applies. Packaging must meet the baseline requirements, businesses keep conformity documentation and an EU declaration of conformity, producers register through national registers, and restrictions on PFAS in food-contact packaging take effect. |
| 12 August 2028 | Harmonised labelling: packaging carries standard material and sorting labels. |
| 1 January 2030 | Empty space in grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging is capped at 50% (Article 24). Packaging must be recyclable at grade C or better, plastic packaging must contain minimum shares of recycled content, certain single-use formats are banned, and reuse or refill options must be offered where possible. |
| 1 January 2035 | Only recyclability grades A and B remain permitted. |
Who Must Comply With the PPWR
The PPWR addresses economic operators: manufacturers, importers, distributors and online sellers who place packaging or packaged products on the EU market. Sellers based outside the EU need an authorised representative inside it; without one, the marketplace listing their products can become the responsible party.
Private individuals sit outside these duties entirely. Someone sending a gift, a sold personal item or their own belongings is not placing packaging on the market. For businesses the duty follows the packaging they fill: an online shop packing orders into boxes counts as a producer of that packaging in every country where it sells, which is where registration comes in.
Do You Need a PPWR Registration to Send a Parcel?
No. Booking a shipment with Ecoparcel requires no PPWR registration, EPR number or packaging declaration. That is not a workaround: packaging compliance does not run through couriers at all. Producers register with national packaging registers (LUCID in Germany, or an approved eco-organisation such as Citeo in France) and report their packaging volumes there. The courier is not part of that submission chain and never checks those filings.
If you sell goods into EU countries, registering in each market where you place packaged products remains your own responsibility, and most of those national EPR registers existed before the PPWR. What the new regulation changes is the packaging itself: what it is made of, how it is labelled and how much air it may contain. Your shipping process stays the same.
The 50% Empty Space Rule
From 1 January 2030, Article 24 caps the empty space ratio of grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging at 50%. The measurement is volumetric, and filler counts as empty space: paper cuttings, air pillows and bubble wrap all land on the wrong side of the ratio. An oversized box padded out with void fill can fail the cap even though it looks well packed.
Right-sizing is worth adopting early. A snug box costs less to send, because couriers price on volumetric weight, and it protects the contents better than a half-empty one. Our packaging guidelines show how to pick the box and protect what is inside without shipping air.
Will Businesses Be Fined From Day One?
Not immediately. The Commission's updated PPWR Q&A, published just before the application date, tells national market surveillance authorities to avoid a sanction-oriented approach: an operator should first receive a warning and an opportunity to take corrective action before any other step. Packaging produced before 12 August 2026 but still in stock does not have to be destroyed, remanufactured or relabelled.
The soft start is not an exemption. Penalties are set by each member state under Article 68 and can be substantial once warnings are exhausted; Germany's implementing law allows fines of up to €200,000. Parts of the framework are still moving too: industry groups are lobbying to postpone application and the Commission is running simplification work around the regulation, but it has so far kept the core rules and dates unchanged. Plan on the published timeline.
What Senders Should Do Now
If you only send private parcels, nothing. Book, pack, ship: the PPWR does not apply to you.
If you run a business that ships packaged products into EU countries: check that you are registered for packaging EPR in each market you sell to, keep the conformity documentation your packaging supplier provides from August 2026, plan for the harmonised labels arriving in August 2028, and start right-sizing your boxes well before the 2030 empty-space cap. For structured compliance training, CustomsClear runs courses and webinars on the PPWR and other EU trade rules.
Shipping through Ecoparcel keeps this side simple. One account books couriers across the EU with no packaging paperwork at any point, our packaging guidelines and volumetric pricing already reward the right-sized boxes the 2030 cap will demand, and compliance stays where the law puts it: with national registers, never in your shipping flow.
Get a quote in seconds — no packaging paperwork required.
