Article 45(3) of the PPWR applies from 12 August 2026: anyone supplying packaging or packaged goods directly to end customers in an EU country where they are not established must appoint an authorised representative there. Practice differs sharply by country — the registers run normally in Germany and France, Italy cannot be registered in at all yet, and Poland can take six months.
Key takeaways
Short answer: if you ship goods directly to end users in an EU country other than the one where your company is established, you now need an authorised representative there. One for each such country.
Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging applies from 12 August 2026 under its Article 71. For cross-border sellers, the operative provision is Article 45(3).
It requires a producer as defined in Article 3(1)(15)(c) and (d) to appoint, by written mandate, an authorised representative for extended producer responsibility in each Member State where it makes packaging or packaged products available for the first time, other than the Member State in which it is established.
Three things follow from the text alone. It is an obligation, not an option — the regulation uses "shall". It applies separately for each country. And it is conferred by written mandate.
1 representative = 1 country
Paragraph 3 says it explicitly: in each Member State. Five markets means five separate mandates.
The obligation does not cover every cross-border sale — only producers under points (c) and (d), meaning those who make goods available on the territory of another Member State for the first time directly to end users.
Watch the term "end user"
It is not only a consumer. The regulation defines an end user as a natural or legal person who purchases goods either as a consumer or as a professional end user and does not place them on the market again.
So if you supply a foreign business directly and that business consumes your goods itself — equipment for its premises, materials for its production — you do need an authorised representative there. The obligation only falls away once your customer resells the goods.
| Situation | Do you need a representative? |
|---|---|
| You sell from your home country via your own store or a marketplace to end customers in Germany | Yes — producer under point (d) |
| Your stock sits in FBA and Amazon ships it to end customers in further countries | Yes, in every such country |
| You supply a foreign business directly and it consumes the goods itself | Yes — a professional buyer is an end user too |
| You ship pallets to a distributor who resells the goods | No — the distributor becomes the producer |
| You sell only in the country where your company is established | No — producer under point (a) or (b) |
Points (c) and (d) both open the same way: the manufacturer, importer or distributor is established in a Member State or in a third country. An EU company is named in the definition.
What happened next is even more telling. On 10 December 2025 the European Commission tabled COM(2025) 982, a proposal to suspend the application of Article 45(3) until 1 January 2035 — explicitly for producers established in the Union. If the obligation did not apply to EU companies, there would have been nothing to suspend. And on 24 June 2026 the Council closed the file — the deferral never came.
The representative has to be established in that specific country — one for the whole EU is not enough. Each Member State has its own legal term for the role. Knowing the local term makes the search far easier, and it lets you tell whether a provider is offering you a genuine authorised representative or just membership in a compliance scheme.
| Country | Where you register | Local name for the role | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | LUCID (ZSVR) + dual system | Bevollmächtigter (§ 7 VerpackG) | A dual system is not automatically your representative. |
| France | ADEME (SYDEREP), PRO Citeo | mandataire REP (Art. L. 541-10-9-1) | The representative is subrogated into the obligations it takes over. |
| Spain | Registro de Productores de Producto (MITECO) | representante autorizado | The representative can file both the registration and the annual report by 31 March. |
| Italy | Registro Nazionale via Camera di Commercio, CONAI | rappresentante autorizzato | The register is not open yet. The representative must be established in Italy. |
| Netherlands | Verpact, supervision by ILT | gemachtigd vertegenwoordiger | Registration for non-EU entities was temporarily suspended. |
| Belgium | EPRiBEL; Fost Plus, Valipac | the representative must be registered with EPRiBEL | Fost Plus states that it handles the register entry for its members. |
| Sweden | Naturvårdsverket, e-services | producentombud | The notification includes a copy of the power of attorney. |
| Ireland | PRO Repak | — | Not confirmed which authority will run the register. |
| Poland | BDO | autoryzowany przedstawiciel | Annual report due by 15 March. |
Five questions to vet a representative
1. Are you established in that country itself? 2. Will I get a separate written mandate for this Member State? 3. Do you also handle the Article 44 registration, or do I file it myself? 4. Do you cover packaging only, or also WEEE, batteries and single-use plastics? 5. What happens to my registration if I end the contract?
Legally, no. Registration under Article 44 and the authorised representative under Article 45(3) are two separate obligations. Filing the registration and submitting the reports yourself satisfies the first one; the second does not disappear. Paragraph 3 is unconditional and has no small-volume exemption.
In practice, you will get away with it for a while. Amazon asks for a registration number, not for proof of a mandate. A seller registered in the German LUCID register on their own has a valid number and their listings keep running.
| Country | Can you register on your own? |
|---|---|
| Germany | Yes — foreign companies register in LUCID routinely |
| Spain | Yes — the registration is filed by the producer or the representative |
| Italy | No — the entry goes through a person established in Italy, who takes on the representative role |
| Netherlands | Only partly — registration for non-EU entities is suspended |
| Sweden | The notification is filed by the producentombud and includes a copy of the power of attorney |
For the remaining countries we have not verified whether self-registration is possible — ask the relevant register directly.
Here is the part most sellers get wrong: nobody is going to ask you. It comes out of the register.
Annex IX of the regulation sets out what an application to the producer register must contain. Two items bear directly on the representative:
That second item is the decisive one. You are asked about the representative at registration — and you answer to the authority, not to a marketplace.
The register is public
Recital 134 of the regulation states that the producer register is considered a public register for the purposes of the Digital Services Act — and that providers of online platforms should make best efforts to assess whether the information provided by sellers is reliable and complete.
So Amazon does not need to request any document from you. It only needs to look your number up in the public register, where it is visible whether a representative is recorded. Amazon is not doing this across the board today. Nothing stops it from starting.
A mandate is not a one-off purchase. It is a relationship, and when it ends badly it takes your registration with it.
Article 44(12) requires the producer, its authorised representative and the compliance scheme to notify the competent authority without undue delay of any change to the information contained in the registration. Terminating a mandate is such a change.
Three situations that cost you your number
Your representative terminates, or you miss an invoice. The mandate ends, the change is reported to the authority, and the registration is left without the representative recorded in it.
Your representative shuts down or loses its authorisation. In countries where it must be registered itself — Belgium's EPRiBEL, for instance — your entry falls with it.
You reshuffle your markets and forget to report it. You start supplying one more country, the change goes unreported, and the registration stops matching reality.
Then Article 44(4) bites: without a valid registration — yours or your representative's — you may not supply that country. Amazon sees this immediately, because the number stops being valid.
That is why the fifth question in the box above matters more than it looks. Ask it before you sign.
Enforcement does not rest on officials alone. A complaint can come from several directions, and some of them have a direct financial motive.
| Who | Why they would |
|---|---|
| National authority | Routine inspection, or cross-checking the register against marketplace data |
| Compliance scheme | Unregistered sellers ride free on the costs of those who pay. The regulation explicitly targets this free-riding. |
| A competitor | Germany has an established instrument for it — the Abmahnung, a formal warning from a competitor including their legal costs. A missing LUCID registration is a common trigger. |
| The marketplace | It has a duty to assess the information and does not want to carry the liability itself |
| Anyone | The register is public — a customer or a journalist can look you up |
One thing to be clear about: the PPWR itself does not set penalties. Article 68 requires Member States to lay them down by 12 February 2027 — effective, proportionate and dissuasive. The regulation only prescribes administrative fines as the mandatory form for Articles 24 to 29, not for registration and mandates.
That does not mean nothing is at stake before February 2027. National packaging law already carries penalties and applies today.
| Country | What national law provides for |
|---|---|
| Germany (VerpackG) | Fines up to €100,000 for a missing registration and up to €200,000 for not participating in a dual system. On top of that an immediate ban on sales (Vertriebsverbot) and the possibility of an Abmahnung from a competitor. |
| France (Code de l'environnement) | Up to €7,500 per unit or tonne placed on the market in breach, plus a separate administrative fine of up to €30,000 — including for a missing identification number. After a formal notice to comply, a penalty of up to €1,500 per day can run. |
| Other countries | Have their own national rates, which differ substantially. They must align them with Article 68 PPWR by 12 February 2027. |
The German and French figures come from national law, not from the PPWR. Rates change — verify the current amount before you act on it.
Status as of 12 August 2026, 11:00 CEST
The table below is not an official Amazon position. It is a snapshot of what we currently see on the accounts we manage. Marketplaces change their rules without notice.
| Marketplace | Enforcement level | How it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon.de | Toughest | Requires numbers from several registers: LUCID (packaging), stiftung ear (WEEE), BattG (batteries), DIVID (single-use plastics). Blocks listings without a valid number. We have one case where it also deactivated the account's return addresses alongside the blocked products. |
| Amazon.fr | High and rising | EPR numbers have been entered in the Compliance Portal for a long time. Since 12 August, sellers without a packaging number also see a warning message. |
| Amazon.es | Medium | Requires the registration number but allows time to obtain it. |
| Amazon.pl | Soft so far | Sending notices to acknowledge in Seller Central. We are not seeing blocks yet. |
| Amazon.se, Amazon.ie | Soft but active | Amazon prompts sellers to register and offers a contribution (currently up to €800 in SE and €1,320 in IE). |
| Amazon.nl, Amazon.be | Soft | Requires the number but tolerates a registration in progress. |
| Amazon.it | None so far | Amazon has stated explicitly that a missing number does not affect the ability to sell. |
Important: Amazon is not a regulator
Soft enforcement by a marketplace does not mean the obligation does not apply. Treat it as breathing room to get registered, not as an exemption.
Trap one: Amazon EPR Pay on Behalf. Under this service Amazon reports volumes and pays eco-contributions on the seller's behalf. Plenty of sellers have taken it to mean EPR is off their plate. It is not — the service covers only sales made on Amazon and does not replace your own registration.
Trap two — and this is the one that hurts today
You have a company doing your EPR? That does not mean you are done. Most providers have so far handled your registration and volume reporting. Until yesterday that was enough.
From 12 August 2026 you also need an authorised representative established in that country. It is not the same thing as membership in a compliance scheme.
And one thing does not change: extended producer responsibility stays yours. Paragraph 1 of the same article places it on producers directly.
| The representative takes over | Stays with you |
|---|---|
| Registration in the national EPR register | Packaging design and composition |
| Reporting packaging volumes by material | Packaging labelling (from 2028 at the earliest) |
| Paying fees to the compliance scheme | Recycled content share (from 2030 at the earliest) |
| Dealing with the authorities | Extended producer responsibility |
Article 45(4) requires providers of online platforms to obtain information about the registration and the registration number from the seller before allowing them to use the service; paragraph 6 adds a duty to assess whether that information is complete and reliable. Paragraph 8 then requires fulfilment service providers to suspend the service without delay if the seller is not registered. Amazon is both at once.
Marketplace practice tends to be simple from there: no proof, no listing. You do not get a fine, you get a drop in revenue overnight — with no administrative procedure, no appeal and no deadlines.
Anyone who makes packaging or packaged goods available for the first time directly to end users on the territory of an EU Member State in which they are not established.
Most often it will be offered by whoever already handles your EPR — usually as a paid add-on, so ask about the price up front. Start with your existing provider. If you handle EPR in-house, you have to source the representative yourself: start with the authority or register in the table above and search using the local term.
Legally that is not sufficient. Registration is Article 44, the authorised representative is Article 45(3). In practice you will get away with it for a while, because Amazon only checks the registration number. In countries where you cannot register without a representative, you hit the wall immediately.
From the register. Under Annex IX, the registration includes a declaration of how you meet your obligations under Article 45, and the representative's details are part of the entry. The register is public and platforms have a duty to assess whether the information is reliable.
Under Article 44(12) the change must be reported to the authority without undue delay. Without a valid registration — yours or your representative's — Article 44(4) means you may not supply that country. That is why you should ask, before signing, what happens to the registration if the contract ends.
The national authority, a compliance scheme, the marketplace or a competitor — in Germany the Abmahnung exists for exactly this. The register is public, so anyone can look you up.
A natural or legal person who purchases goods either as a consumer or as a professional end user and does not place them on the market again.
No. A compliance scheme fulfils EPR obligations collectively under Article 46; an authorised representative is a legal representative established in the given country under Article 45(3).
Yes. The Commission even proposed suspending the obligation for EU companies until 2035, but the Council closed the file in June 2026.
No. The service covers only sales made on Amazon and does not replace your own registration number (ERN).
We verified the wording of the obligations directly in the text of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on EUR-Lex: full text. The operative provision is Article 45(3), with the definitions in Article 3(1)(15), (20) and (23). The producer register and changes to it are in Article 44 (notably paragraphs 4 and 12), the content of the application in Annex IX Part A, the public nature of the register in recital 134, platform obligations in Article 45(4), (6) and (8), penalties in Article 68 and the date of application in Article 71.
The deferral proposal is COM(2025) 982 of 10 December 2025; the Council closed the file on 24 June 2026. Information on national registers and local names for the representative comes from official sources in each country (ZSVR, ADEME, MITECO, CONAI, Verpact and ILT, Fost Plus and EPRiBEL, Naturvårdsverket, Repak, BDO). Penalty levels come from the German VerpackG and the French Code de l'environnement. Amazon enforcement levels are our own observations from client accounts, as of 12 August 2026, 11:00 CEST.
This is not legal advice and we cannot vouch for any particular service provider. For the impact on your markets we recommend a legal consultation.
For the wider marketplace picture, see our overview of marketplaces and the details of selling on Amazon.
Nine registers, nine authorities, nine languages — and an authorised representative established in each one on top. That is weeks of work, and a country will still slip through.
EPR and the authorised representative
We work with a partner who handles complete EPR and the authorised representative across the EU
One partner, one process, every country you sell into — instead of three suppliers you then coordinate yourself. Specifically:
What we add is the part we are best at: we know which markets you actually use and where a registration would just sit there as a cost. We watch the status directly in Seller Central and catch the warning messages before they turn into a blocked listing.
We will go through the countries you genuinely supply, tell you where a mandate is missing and what it will cost. You can also look at our complete management of marketplace sales.
Share this article on a social media.
