Do you need to register for packaging EPR in the United Kingdom?
You may not need to register. The United Kingdom exempts producers who stay below 25 tonnes of packaging a year or below £1,000,000 in annual turnover from every packaging EPR obligation. Above both lines the duty comes in two sizes: a producer over them is a small producer — registration with the environmental regulator and an annual packaging data report — unless it supplied more than 50 tonnes of packaging and had annual turnover above £2 million, in which case it is a large producer and must also report every six months, meet recycling obligations through PRNs or PERNs, and pay the household packaging waste disposal fee. Settled — the exemption applies · Basis: gov.uk ↗ · read 2026-09-02 · official source
What still applies below the line
The exemption covers every packaging EPR obligation and nothing wider. Our library records nothing further as owed below the line; that is what the source says, and it is not a statement that no other law in the United Kingdom touches your packaging.
Check the source itself before you rely on the line: a threshold stated in weight or turnover can exclude particular kinds of packaging, and our rule library records the figure and what it covers, not every carve-out attached to it. The source link sits next to the figure above.
The exemption is a rule about the United Kingdom, not about your business as a whole: packaging rules in other countries you ship to are unaffected by it, and this page does not speak to them. The United Kingdom rate page shows what the fee looks like once you are over the line.
Is there a volume threshold in the United Kingdom?
Yes. The United Kingdom exempts producers who stay below 25 tonnes of packaging a year or below £1,000,000 in annual turnover from every packaging EPR obligation. Our library records nothing further as owed below that line beyond what the exemption itself covers. That is what the source says; it is not a statement that no other law in the United Kingdom touches your packaging.
Settled — the exemption applies · source gov.uk ↗, read 2026-09-02 · official source
Above both lines the duty comes in two sizes: a producer over them is a small producer — registration with the environmental regulator and an annual packaging data report — unless it supplied more than 50 tonnes of packaging and had annual turnover above £2 million, in which case it is a large producer and must also report every six months, meet recycling obligations through PRNs or PERNs, and pay the household packaging waste disposal fee.
Who counts as the producer for sales into the United Kingdom?
For goods supplied into the United Kingdom from outside the country through an online marketplace, the marketplace is the regulated producer for those sales, not the overseas seller. That is the one route our library records; it is not a statement that no other route can make you the producer.
Settled — the marketplace is the producer · source gov.uk ↗, read 2026-09-02 · official source
Do you need an authorised representative in the United Kingdom?
There is no authorised-representative regime in the United Kingdom: PPWR Article 45(3) does not apply here, and the obligation is placed on the online marketplace or the importer instead.
Settled — no representative regime here · source gov.uk ↗, read 2026-09-02 · official source
Does the marketplace take the obligation off you?
PPWR does not apply in the United Kingdom, so no EU-wide marketplace verification duty runs here. In the United Kingdom, where the goods come from outside the country and the producer has appointed no representative, the online marketplace stands in as the producer and carries the financial, information and organisational duties.
Settled — the marketplace carries it in defined cases · source gov.uk ↗, read 2026-09-02 · official source
Whether a marketplace also pays the fee on your behalf is a commercial arrangement, not a rule. In the United Kingdom Amazon runs its EPR Pay on Behalf service and charges £20 per EPR category a year from 1 April 2025. That is a service one company chose to sell; it leaves the rule above exactly where it is. What it covers, and what it does not: Does Amazon pay your packaging EPR fees in the United Kingdom?.
Which authority runs the register?
Competent authority: Environment Agency. Producer register: public register of packaging producers.
Contact details, not a claim about your obligations · source gov.uk ↗, read 2026-09-02 · the authority's own page
Where each answer comes from
| Rule cell | What the library holds | Answer tier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who counts as the producer | UK packaging EPR · liability on the online marketplace | Settled — the marketplace is the producer | gov.uk ↗ checked 2026-09-02 official source |
| Volume threshold | true exemption · below 25 tonnes of packaging a year or below £1,000,000 in annual turnover | Settled — the exemption applies | gov.uk ↗ checked 2026-09-02 official source |
| Marketplace liability | marketplace deemed producer | Settled — the marketplace carries it in defined cases | gov.uk ↗ checked 2026-09-02 official source |
| Authorised representative | not applicable | Settled — no representative regime here | gov.uk ↗ checked 2026-09-02 official source |
Evidence tiers: official source = the law text or the authority's own page; authority's wording, restated = a source that quotes the authority or the law but is not the authority itself; cross-checked, not official = several non-official sources agreeing; no source we could read = we could not open an official source for this cell on the date shown, so the answer above is held at indication level and says so. Nothing on this page is inferred from what other countries do. Where a country publishes two limits, the rule library records which side the connecting word describes, and here the official source puts you below the line on either limit on its own.The competent authority and register are the authority's own details, not a claim about your obligations, so they carry no separate evidence tier. This page is rendered from our packaging-EPR rule library; how that library is built, sourced and graded is set out in our methodology.
When to check this again
An exemption is a position you hold, not a status you are granted. Check this page again if any of the following happens.
- Your figures rise past the line — 25 tonnes of packaging a year and £1,000,000 in annual turnover — and the exemption is measured per calendar year, so a good year can end it. Crossing it changes which band you are in, not just whether you are in scope — the threshold section above sets the bands out.
- You start placing a packaging type the exemption does not reach, or you open a new product line into the United Kingdom.
- The United Kingdom changes the rule — an implementing act, a new ministerial order, or the PPWR timetable catching up with this cell.
We re-verify the rules on this page by 2027-03-01, and the date at the top changes when we do.
What to do next
- United Kingdom packaging EPR rates 2026 — what the fee is, per material, with the official source on every row
- Fee calculator — enter kilograms, get the annual variable fee from the published tariff
- Compare the three routes — self-managed, a compliance provider, or the marketplace paying for you
The same question for the other 26 countries
The answer changes country by country, and so does how much of it is published. Belgium · the Netherlands · France · Germany · Spain · Austria · Finland · Portugal · Luxembourg · Latvia · Sweden · Czechia · Ireland · Croatia · Cyprus · Denmark · Hungary · Greece · Malta · Poland · Estonia · Bulgaria · Lithuania · Slovakia · Romania · Italy
Sources
Every link opened logged out on the date shown. Official sources only — the law text, the competent authority and the official register. Service-provider guides are deliberately not cited: they are written by the parties selling the service. Where we could not open an official source, this page says so instead of substituting one.
- Who counts as the producer ↗ gov.uk
read 2026-09-02
How to cite
EPR Rates (2026). Do you need to register for packaging EPR in the United Kingdom?. https://eprrates.com/united-kingdom/do-i-need-to-register/ · Retrieved 2026-09-04. CC BY 4.0.
@misc{eprratesunitedkingdomdoineedtoregister,
title = {Do you need to register for packaging EPR in the United Kingdom?},
author = {{EPR Rates}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://eprrates.com/united-kingdom/do-i-need-to-register/},
note = {Retrieved 2026-09-04. CC BY 4.0}
}
Rate figures are extracted from the official publications listed under Sources; those source documents remain under their publishers' terms.