Who is responsible for packaging conformity across a supply chain?

Duties attach to legal persons, so start with a map of who holds the goods and who sells them. For each packaging unit, record who makes it, who fills it, which company sells it, where that company is established, and where the packaging is expected to become waste. The Commission's guidance notice says a branch with no separate legal personality can't be an importer. A non-EU company selling through a branch needs an EU subsidiary or, where a Member State requires one, an authorised representative.

Then mark when each unit is placed on the market, meaning first made available in the EU. The guidance notice says sales and grouped packaging are normally placed on the market when filled, and transport packaging when empty. Imported goods are placed on the market when they are released for free circulation. Goods that only transit the EU aren't placed on the market. The FAQ adds that bought-in transport packaging used to move parts between a company's own sites is placed on the market, because it was bought from another company.

Treat inner and outer packaging as separate rows. A bottle with its cap and label is one packaging unit. The case it ships in, the pallet, the stretch wrap and the straps are each separate units, often with their own manufacturer.

The manufacturer is defined in Article 3(1), point (13). Its duties are in Article 15: place only conforming packaging on the market, carry out the conformity assessment, draw up the technical documentation and the declaration, mark the packaging with an identifier and its own name and address, and keep the documents for 5 years for single-use packaging or 10 years for reusable packaging. The guidance notice says there is only one manufacturer in a supply chain. A contract can delegate the drafting of the declaration, but not the legal responsibility.

An importer is a company established in the EU that places packaging from a third country on the market (Article 3(1), point (17)). Under Article 18 it checks that the non-EU manufacturer carried out the assessment and drew up the declaration, that the packaging bears the manufacturer's identifier, name and address, and that the required documents go with it. It adds its own name and address and keeps a copy of the declaration. A distributor, under Article 19, takes due care. Before supplying packaging, it checks that the EPR producer is registered and that the labelling and identification rules are met.

The producer is defined in Article 3(1), point (15), for EPR. It registers and reports in each Member State where it first makes packaging available (Article 44), and finances the collection and recovery of that packaging there (Article 45). The guidance notice puts the difference plainly: there is one manufacturer EU-wide, ensuring conformity, and one producer in each Member State where the packaging is expected to become waste, paying for waste management. The same company can hold both roles, or neither.

Branded packaging belongs to the brand owner. Where packaging or a packaged product is designed or made under a company's own name or trademark, that company is the manufacturer, even if another company makes or fills it and even if it chose a standard design from a catalogue. A micro-enterprise is the exception: its supplier becomes the manufacturer when they are in the same Member State. Where one company's name and another's trademark both appear, the FAQ calls for a case-by-case reading of who decides the packaging design.

Bought-in unbranded packaging normally belongs to its maker. The FAQ's examples are a standard cardboard box, even when supplied flat, and stretch wrap sold on a roll. A shipping label added by the buyer isn't branding. For custom-made packaging with no name or trademark, the guidance treats the company that orders it and sets its design as the manufacturer. That test comes from the guidance, not the Regulation's text, so record the facts it rests on.

Repacking can change the role. Under Article 21, an importer or distributor that puts packaging on the market under its own name, or modifies packaging in a way that could affect compliance, becomes the manufacturer of that packaging. Unpacking has an EPR effect too. A company that unpacks goods without being their end user can be the producer of the packaging it removes (Article 3(1), point (15)(e)). The FAQ says logistics companies that unpack, repack or split goods are not end users.

Take a fictional manufacturer, Tarnwick, established in Ireland. It fills an own-brand degreaser into 1 L bottles, packs twelve to a standard unbranded case from an Irish box maker, then palletises and wraps the cases. In a direct domestic sale to an Irish distributor, Tarnwick is the manufacturer of the bottle unit, because it carries Tarnwick's name. The box maker is the manufacturer of the case. In Ireland, Tarnwick is the producer for the bottles, as the first company to make the filled product available there. Following the FAQ's box example, the box maker is the producer for the empty cases it sold to Tarnwick in the same country.

If Tarnwick sells the same pallets to a distributor in Germany for resale, the manufacturers don't change. In Germany, the distributor is the producer for both bottles and cases, because it makes them available there first. If Tarnwick instead ships straight to a German factory that uses the degreaser in its own operations, that factory is a professional end user, so Tarnwick is the producer in Germany. Article 45(3) then requires Tarnwick to appoint an EPR authorised representative there. A Commission proposal of 10 December 2025, COM(2025) 982, would suspend that requirement until 1 January 2035. It hadn't been adopted on 14 October 2026. Meanwhile, the Commission's page for small businesses says it has asked Member States to enforce the requirement pragmatically and not to sanction operators.

If Tarnwick stores stock at a third-party warehouse that picks and ships orders, the warehouse is likely a fulfilment service provider. Under Article 20, it must make sure that its storage, handling and packing don't compromise the packaging's compliance. If it unpacks pallets and repacks the bottles into new outer cases, it isn't an end user of the goods. The new cases need their own manufacturer and declaration. For imported goods, the guidance notice treats a logistics company that repacks as the producer of the transport packaging.

For a non-EU supplier, take a fictional Swiss maker of an own-brand lubricant, sold in 5 L cans to an importer established in Austria. The Swiss maker is the manufacturer and owes the assessment and declaration. The Austrian company is the importer and, as the first to make the cans available in Austria, the producer there. If the importer relabels the cans under its own brand, it becomes the manufacturer.

Keep one register row for each packaging unit and each market. Record the manufacturer and where its declaration and technical documentation are kept. Record the importer and the checks it made, and the distributor checks that apply. For each Member State, record the producer, its registration number, and any producer responsibility organisation or authorised representative. Add the reasoning for each role decision, especially where it rests on guidance rather than the Regulation's text.

Article 22 requires every economic operator to identify, on request, who supplied it with packaging and whom it supplied, for 5 years for single-use packaging and 10 years for reusable packaging. Article 16 requires suppliers to give the manufacturer the information it needs for its technical documentation, and the FAQ says suppliers can't refuse. Log each request, the document received and the date.

Revisit the register when a supplier, brand, route or customer changes. Role decisions often turn on facts such as who specified a design or whether a customer resells. Those facts change quietly, and the register should show when each one was last confirmed.