Estonia packaging EPR 2026 — obligations and one scheme's published service fees

How fees are set

ETO (Eesti Taaskasutusorganisatsioon) — Licensed recovery organisation (taaskasutusorganisatsioon) for packaging under the Estonian Packaging Act; one of several licensed organisations, its service fees are its own and not a statutory tariff.

Estonia sets no national packaging tariff. A company that places packaged goods on the Estonian market either transfers its recovery obligation to a licensed recovery organisation, which charges its own service fee, or pays the statutory packaging excise duty — joining an organisation is what exempts a producer from that duty, which is why the excise works as a penalty rather than as a price anyone plans around. The organisations compete on their fees and set them themselves. One of them, ETO, publishes its full service fee table, and this page carries it as a market reference: a real published number a producer can anchor on, clearly labelled as one scheme's price rather than the Estonian rate.

Declaration basis: EUR per tonne of packaging, plus 24% VAT — one scheme's published service fees. Official rates page: eto.ee ↗

Obligations under the Estonian scheme

A company that places packaged goods on the Estonian market carries the obligation to collect and recover the resulting packaging waste, under the Packaging Act. There are two routes to discharging it. The usual one is to transfer the obligation to a licensed recovery organisation under contract, declaring the packaging placed on the market and paying that organisation's service fee. The alternative is to carry the obligation alone and pay the packaging excise duty on packaging that is not recovered. Because membership of a recovery organisation exempts a producer from the excise duty, the duty functions as the consequence of not joining rather than as a route anyone chooses deliberately.

Why there is no Estonian tariff — and what the table below is

No Estonian authority publishes a per-material tariff that every producer pays. The licensed recovery organisations set their own service fees and compete on them, so the price for identical packaging differs between them and changes when they choose. What can be published is one organisation's own schedule. The table below is ETO's, taken from its own price page. It is a market reference, not a national rate: it is labelled as such on every row, it is excluded from this site's country comparison table, and it is not used for this page's headline finding. This site was not able to retrieve the national authority's list of licensed organisations, so it makes no claim about how many operate or how their prices compare.

• ETO — published service fees ↗

Where to go next

A binding price comes from a recovery organisation directly, under a contract that also fixes the declaration procedure. The figures below show what one organisation charges and are a reasonable starting point for judging a quote, but a producer comparing options should ask the Estonian environment authority for the current list of licensed organisations rather than treating the one shown here as the only route. The two columns matter: the calculated tariff and the final cost to the producer are not the same number, and VAT of 24% applies on top.

• ETO — published service fees ↗

ETO (Eesti Taaskasutusorganisatsioon) — Recovery organisation under the Estonian Packaging Act; one of several competing organisations.

ETO prices grouped and transport packaging (Ruhmapakend ja veopakend) in a separate six-line table below its eleven-line sales packaging table. Each line gives an accounting tariff and the final cost to the packaging undertaking; the final cost is the figure carried here. Estonia has several competing recovery organisations, so these are published market rates.

Declaration basis: EUR per tonne, excl. 24% VAT; final cost to the packaging undertaking after discount. Official rates page: eto.ee ↗