Packaging taxes in Europe (2026)

How this differs from an EPR fee

A packaging tax and an EPR fee are two different obligations with two different creditors. The EPR fee is a contribution to a producer responsibility scheme; the tax is levied by the state under a tax statute. The relationship between the two is not the same in every country on this page, so each country is set out on its own terms below — in one of them the two are the same money seen twice, in another the tax is not yet in force at all. Each tax follows its own base, threshold and calendar.

This is a tax, not an EPR scheme — Plastic Packaging Tax is levied by HM Revenue & Customs under Part 2 of the Finance Act 2021 and is payable in addition to the packaging EPR fees invoiced by PackUK.

The United Kingdom charges two separate things on the same packaging and they are easy to confuse. Plastic Packaging Tax is a tax: HM Revenue & Customs charges it per tonne of finished plastic packaging components whose recycled content is below 30%, at a rate uprated every 1 April in line with inflation. The packaging producer responsibility fees invoiced by PackUK are the separate EPR obligation and are listed elsewhere in this dataset. A business above both thresholds pays both. Two features of the tax matter commercially. It is a cliff edge, not a sliding scale: a component at 29% recycled content is taxed in full, one at 30% is not taxed at all, which is the opposite of the Spanish tax, where only the virgin share is taxed. And registration is required of anyone manufacturing or importing ten tonnes or more of finished plastic packaging in a twelve-month period even if every component is above the threshold and no tax is due. This dataset carries the complete rate series since the tax came into force on 1 April 2022.

Declaration basis: GBP per tonne of finished plastic packaging components below the recycled-content threshold. Official page: gov.uk ↗

This is a tax, not an EPR scheme — the special tax on non-reusable plastic packaging is levied by the Spanish tax agency under Law 7/2022 and is payable in addition to the packaging EPR fees invoiced by Ecoembes and Ecovidrio.

Spain taxes the virgin plastic, not the package. The special tax on non-reusable plastic packaging has applied since 1 January 2023 at a single statutory rate per kilogram, but the taxable base is only the NON-RECYCLED plastic a product contains, so raising recycled content lowers the bill proportionally rather than switching it off at a threshold. That makes the recycled share worth money, and the law treats it accordingly: it must be certified by an accredited body, and a false or incorrect certification is a specific serious tax infringement penalised at half the tax underpaid, with a floor of one thousand euros and a further quarter added for repetition. Where a product mixes plastic with other materials, only the non-recycled plastic is taxed. This tax sits on top of the packaging EPR fees invoiced by Ecoembes and Ecovidrio, which are listed separately in this dataset; a Spanish producer pays both, to different bodies, on different bases.

Declaration basis: EUR per kg of non-recycled plastic contained in the packaging. Official page: sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es ↗

This is a tax, not an EPR scheme — the environmental product fee is administered by the Hungarian tax and customs administration under Act LXXXV of 2011; the MOHU EPR fee is deductible from it.

Hungary is the country where the packaging tax story most often gets told wrong. Nine per-material product fees are widely quoted for Hungary, one for each packaging material. They no longer exist: the amendment in force from 1 January 2025 abolished the environmental product fee on packaging materials outright, and the tax administration's own 2026 information booklet lists just three fee-liable groups — other mineral oil products, other plastic products and other chemical products. Packaging is not among them. The figures still circulating as Hungarian per-material product fees are in fact the MOHU extended producer responsibility fees fixed by ministerial decree, which are carried separately in this dataset; the numbers match because they are the same numbers, not because two charges are levied. What survives is narrow and specific. Plastic carrier bags were moved into the other-plastic-products category to comply with EU law and remain fee-liable, at a rate an order of magnitude above any packaging EPR fee, with a lower rate for bags made of biodegradable plastic. The EPR fee stays deductible from the product fee, but for carrier bags the product fee is the larger of the two, so a positive balance is normally still payable.

Declaration basis: HUF per kg of carrier bags released on the domestic market, EPR fee deductible. Official page: nav.gov.hu ↗

This is a tax, not an EPR scheme — and it is not yet in force; the tax on single-use plastic manufactured items was created by Law 160/2019 and its entry into force has been deferred to 1 January 2027.

Italy's plastic tax is the one that keeps not arriving. The 2020 Budget Law created a tax on single-use plastic manufactured items at a fixed amount per kilogram of the plastic they contain, charged to the manufacturer for items made in Italy, to the buyer or seller for items arriving from other Member States, and to the importer for items from outside the EU. It has never been collected. Its entry into force has been pushed back repeatedly by successive budget laws, and the 2026 Budget Law moved it again, from 1 July 2026 to 1 January 2027, in the same provision that deferred the sugar tax. The rate carried here is therefore the statutory rate with a future effective date, not a charge any Italian producer is paying today: what they pay now is the CONAI packaging contribution, which the deferrals do not touch. The value of knowing this is mostly negative value — it is the row that tells a buyer not to budget for an Italian plastic tax this year, and to watch the next budget law.

Declaration basis: EUR per kg of plastic contained in the item — statutory rate, not yet collected. Official page: gazzettaufficiale.it ↗

This is a statutory contribution collected by the Portuguese tax and customs authority under article 320 of Law 75-B/2020, not an EPR scheme — it is payable in addition to the packaging EPR fees invoiced by Sociedade Ponto Verde.

Portugal charges per item, not per kilogram, and only in one situation: single-use packaging handed over with a ready-to-eat meal, in take-away or home delivery. The amount is the same for plastic and for aluminium, and it must be shown as a separate line on the invoice, which makes it the most visible of the packaging charges in this dataset — the consumer sees it. Packaging used in a social or humanitarian context, such as social food distribution or food-waste recovery, is outside it, and a customer who brings their own container avoids it entirely; suppliers are barred from obstructing that. The dates are worth getting right, because secondary sources get them wrong: the enabling law set application from 1 January 2022 for plastic and 1 January 2023 for aluminium, and the implementing Portaria then moved plastic to 1 July 2022 while leaving aluminium where it was. This contribution is separate from, and additional to, the packaging EPR fees invoiced by Sociedade Ponto Verde.

Declaration basis: EUR per single-use packaging item, itemised separately on the invoice. Official page: files.dre.pt ↗