Spain packaging EPR for non-EU sellers (Registro de Productores, envases, Ecoembes)

If you ship packaged goods from outside the EU to a buyer in Spain, you appoint a representative in Spain, and the representative registers you in the packaging section of the Registro de Productores de Producto at the environment ministry (MITECO). You also join an authorised collective system, such as Ecoembes. An individual system must be recognised by the autonomous community where the operator has its seat. The registration number goes on your invoices, and the yearly information on your packaging is due before 31 March. MITECO names no registration fee. Not registering is a serious infringement, fined EUR 2,001 to 100,000 (Ley 7/2022 art. 109).

The EU rule, and who counts as a producer, is in packaging EPR in the EU and PPWR. This page is only what Spain adds. The other Spanish rules are on the selling in Spain as a non-EU company page.

The law is Real Decreto 1055/2022, in force since 29 December 2022. The consolidated text on the BOE shows no amendment since its publication on 28 December 2022. The fines are in Ley 7/2022. The EU packaging regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, has applied since 12 August 2026 (Art. 71). MITECO says its producer definition now prevails over the one in the Spanish decree (MITECO). In a clarifying note of 19 May 2026, MITECO’s waste directorate says that the Regulation prevails over any incompatible national rule, the decree included, that it is drafting a new packaging decree to adapt Spain to the Regulation, and that until that decree enters into force the Regulation applies first and the decree applies to what the Regulation does not provide for or does not contradict (MITECO, nota aclaratoria, 19 May 2026, points 2 to 4). The note names no provision of the decree as incompatible.

Do this, in this order

1. Get a Spanish tax number. A company outside Spain gets an NIF that starts with N. The tax agency issues it, on a request made through a representative who holds a Spanish NIF or NIE. MITECO’s electronic office and the powers register both need it (MITECO note, part 7).
2. Appoint the representative. It is a person or a company in Spanish territory, and it holds the documents that prove it acts for you (art. 17(2)). With a subsidiary in Spain you need none (MITECO, part 4(e)). A branch alone is not enough: a manufacturer outside the EU with only a branch in the EU sets up a subsidiary or appoints a representative (MITECO note, part 7.3). Who can act, and how, is in authorised representative for EPR.
3. Give the representative the power to act in the ministry’s system. There are two ways. One is a digital certificate of representative that names the representative, for example from the FNMT. The other is a power recorded in the Registro Electrónico de Apoderamientos (REA), type C, for four procedures: registration, deregistration, the yearly information and the simplified yearly information. If you attach documents instead of a certificate, the ministry’s legal service examines them, and that can slow the process. MITECO recommends the certificate (MITECO note, parts 6 and 7).
4. Join a collective system. You need a certificate of membership, one page, to attach to the registration (art. 15(2), MITECO). For household single-use packaging the ministry lists seven systems with a definitive authorisation: Ecoembes, Ecolec, Ecotic, Ecovidrio, Procircular, SIGRE and Ubica. Sun Repack has a provisional one (MITECO list). An individual system must be recognised by the autonomous community of the operator’s seat, through its entry in the waste production and management register (MITECO, part 2). No text we read shows how a seller with no seat in Spain meets that. For single-use household packaging you cannot combine several systems for the same product in primary and secondary packaging of the same material (art. 17(3)).
5. Have the representative register you in the packaging section, in the ministry’s electronic office (registration procedure). The form asks for the category of packaging (household, commercial or industrial), whether it is single-use or reusable, and the system. Attach the certificate. The law asks for the names and addresses of you and the representative, your tax number, the Spanish activity code (CNAE) and a declaration that the data is true (Annex IV, point 1).
6. Show the number and hand it on. The registration number goes on invoices and on the documents that go with the sale of packaged products (art. 15(3)). Give it to each marketplace and fulfilment provider, with your self-certification. The EPR number guide covers other countries.
7. Report each year. Send your system what it needs before 28 February, and the representative sends MITECO the weights and units before 31 March (art. 16(2), art. 17(1)(j)).

You are the producer when you ship straight to the buyer

A company outside the EU is the producer in Spain when it ships packaged goods directly to a buyer there, whether a consumer or a business (PPWR Art. 3(1) point 23). The shipping carton is “e-commerce packaging” (point 8). How the Regulation defines the producer and the representative is in PPWR and packaging EPR in the EU. The Spanish texts say this:

On the words of the decree and the Regulation, you are the producer and you appoint a representative in Spain. The MITECO note says of itself that it does not bind and that only the courts interpret the rules authoritatively (part 11).

What the Regulation changed in Spain, according to MITECO, is the packaging that makes someone a producer. Since 12 August 2026 the manufacturers, importers and distributors that first place transport, service or primary production packaging on the Spanish market are producers too, in every category (MITECO, part 4(c)).

What each of you does

A collective system cannot register or report for you unless you first give it a power in the REA (MITECO note, part 8).

Deadlines

The window for the 2026 data runs to 31 March 2027 inclusive. MITECO’s page says it opens on 2 January 2027, and the procedure sheet says 1 January (MITECO, procedure sheet). The yearly information counts every element of the packaging: the main item, lids and closures, handles and seals, and the fixing and protection elements such as straps, filler and bubble wrap (Annex IV, point 2).

The 2026 declaration is split at 12 August

For 2026 you declare by who was the producer on the date of the sales contract (MITECO, part 4(d)). For packaged products:

For transport, service and primary production packaging, such as a shipping carton, MITECO gives a second list (MITECO, part 4(d)):

What it costs

MITECO names no fee for registering. Neither its page on the packaging section nor the registration procedure sheet shows one (MITECO, procedure sheet). The costs of managing the packaging waste fall on producers, and you meet them through a system (art. 23(1), art. 28(2)). No text we read sets a fee for a representative.

Each system sets its own tariff. Ecoembes says joining costs nothing and you pay a yearly contribution on the packaging you put on the market (Ecoembes FAQ). Its 2027 base prices per kilogram for household packaging include these. Ecoembes modulates the price of plastic and paper by eco-design criteria, and it lists a separate 2026 price sheet that this page does not reproduce (Ecoembes prices). Where the list has a single-use plastic (SUP) variant at a higher price, the figure is the non-SUP one:

Ecoembes bills four quarterly invoices and a fifth that settles the difference with your real declaration. A declaration under EUR 400 gets one invoice in March, due in June (Ecoembes FAQ). Its tariff is its own document, not law, and other systems publish their own.

Packaging for business buyers is a separate category in the register: household, commercial or industrial. The duty to join a system for commercial and industrial packaging has applied since 31 December 2024 (MITECO, part 4(a)). Ecoembes lists separate commercial prices and calls them indicative until the 2027 ones are final (Ecoembes prices).

Who checks your registration

A marketplace that falls within Section 4 of Chapter III of the Digital Services Act must obtain your registration number and a self-certification that you belong to a system and, if you sell from outside Spain, have a representative. It checks your tax number, company name and registration number against the public list on MITECO’s page (PPWR Art. 45(4), MITECO, part 4(f)). The ministry is building a web service for automated checks. The fulfilment provider’s check is in packaging EPR in the EU.

A trader that sells packaged products, in a shop or at a distance, may sell only products from producers that hold the register number (art. 30(a)). If you name no representative, the first distributor or trader with a seat in Spain is subsidiarily responsible for your duties (art. 17(2)).

MITECO inspects the duties to register and to report, and the autonomous communities supervise the EPR duties. Customs and tax authorities may check that producers comply, with attention to imported products (art. 52, Ley 7/2022 art. 12(3)(g)). The public list is updated about every month.

If you do nothing

You may not make the packaging available in Spain until you are registered (PPWR Art. 44(4)), and a marketplace that falls under the Digital Services Act platform rules must hold your number before you use it (Art. 45(4)). A fulfilment provider’s duty to suspend is in packaging EPR in the EU. The fines are in Ley 7/2022 arts. 108 and 109; the decree sends a breach of it to Ley 7/2022, to Ley 21/1992 on industry and to the consumer protection consolidated text, Real Decreto Legislativo 1/2007 (art. 54).

The class for a given breach is not settled. Art. 108(3)(b) makes any breach of the law and its implementing rules serious, and art. 108(4)(b) and (d) make some of them minor. No text we read says which one a marking breach falls under.

If the fine would be lower than the gain from the infringement, it can be raised to twice the gain. For the financial-duty breaches the authority may also order the goods forfeited (art. 109(2), (3)). MITECO states that a declaration missing in time is an infringement under art. 108 (MITECO, part 3). When the State imposes the sanction, the minister decides serious cases and the Council of Ministers very serious ones (art. 111(2)).

The marks Spain sets

Household packaging says which fraction or container its waste goes in. A pack of several materials that separate easily names the container for each. A pack that does not separate, or a composite, names the container of the material that weighs most, unless a better collection route is shown (art. 13(2)). The mark goes on the packaging or its label, clearly visible, legible and durable even after the pack is opened (art. 13(8)). The new marking duties of art. 13 have applied since 1 January 2025 (final provision 5). The decree carves out no distance sales. MITECO’s note on marking (refundida version, 10 March 2026) lets a QR code, or another open digital data carrier, replace the printed container mark where objective circumstances justify it. That covers packaging with labels in several languages for several EU countries (note, point 2(b)). The QR must show the recycling information on its first screen, with no sales material beside it. Packs 10 cm wide or less, or with no room for a label 15 mm wide with text or 6 mm wide with symbols only, may carry the information digitally (point 4(b)). The note does not mention distance sales in its reading of the decree. It carries no notice on whether it binds, unlike the registration note, which says it does not.

• Reusable packaging says it is reusable (art. 13(2)).
• No pack may carry the words “respetuoso con el medio ambiente”, or an equivalent that could lead to its abandonment in the environment (art. 13(3)).
• A material code is a choice. Packaging “may” be marked with the codes of Decision 97/129/EC, and the marking is voluntary unless EU law says otherwise (art. 13(1)). The PPWR repeals that Decision from 12 August 2028 (Art. 70(2)).
• If you print a recyclability percentage, it must come from an assessment that can be audited and certified by bodies independent of the packaging maker and the producer (art. 13(4)).
• Compostable plastic packaging says it is certified to UNE-EN 13432 and carries “no abandonar en el entorno” (art. 13(5)).

The EU sorting-mark rules are in packaging symbols.

A deposit system for drinks packaging is due

The ministry found that Spain missed the 2023 target for separate collection of single-use plastic drink bottles. Its report of November 2024 puts the 2023 rate at 41.3% against a target of 70% (Ley 7/2022 art. 59(1)(a), MITECO report, part 4). It concludes that a deposit, return and refund system (SDDR) must be set up across Spain within two years (MITECO report, part 5).

Article 47 of the decree names the packaging: single-use plastic bottles up to 3 litres, and with them cans and drinks cartons, for mineral and spring waters, juices, nectars, freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable blends, concentrates for dilution, soft, energy and isotonic drinks and alcoholic drinks. The producers that put them on the market set the system up through an individual or a collective EPR system, and pay the first deposit, at least EUR 0.10 a unit (art. 47(1), (4)). The two years of art. 47(2) run from the ministry’s notice to the producers’ systems. No official text we read gives the date of that notice or a start date for the system.

What the texts leave open

• Couriers, platforms and the shipping carton. For transport packaging used in distance sales and supplied by courier companies, the couriers meet the producer duties on behalf of producers. The same goes for platforms, for transport packaging used in a distance sale that the platform helps a third party make (art. 17(5)). MITECO’s page and note on the 2026 changes do not mention this clause, so they do not say whether it still applies next to point 15(c) of the Regulation.
• The first distributor after 12 August 2026. Art. 17(2) still makes the first distributor or trader with a seat in Spain subsidiarily responsible when you name no representative. MITECO’s pages name only the platform as no longer a subsidiary producer.
• Which decree rules the Regulation displaces. MITECO’s note of 19 May 2026 says the Regulation prevails where the two are incompatible and that a new packaging decree is being drafted, but it lists no provision of Real Decreto 1055/2022 as displaced (MITECO, nota aclaratoria, points 2 to 4). Where this page says a decree rule applies, it applies only to the extent the Regulation does not contradict it.
• Household or commercial. The decree defines household packaging by the product it holds: packaging of products for use by private persons, whether primary, secondary or tertiary, that a consumer can buy in shops (art. 2(m)). No text we read says which category a shipping carton falls in.

What does not apply

• A marketplace as the fallback producer. MITECO says that since 12 August 2026 it is not one (MITECO, part 3). The decree’s text still carries it (art. 2(t)). A platform that buys packaged goods itself and first places them on the Spanish market is a producer.
• A representative, if you have a subsidiary in Spain. The person named on the subsidiary’s certificate, or in the REA power, already acts (MITECO, part 4(e)).
• A minimum volume. No text sets a volume below which a producer of household packaging need not register. Under 15 tonnes only the yearly information is simplified (art. 16(1)). For service packaging and small amounts of commercial and industrial packaging, a producer that puts service packaging and under 50,000 kg of commercial and industrial packaging on the market, and has agreed under art. 28(1), 35(3) or 41(3) that the packaging’s maker, importer or acquirer (for service packaging, also its distributor) meets its duties, is registered through them, once for all (art. 15(1)). Whether that survives next to the Regulation’s producer definition is not settled.
• One number for every Spanish EPR stream. The packaging number is ENV/year/nine digits. Electrical goods and batteries are registered elsewhere, as set out on the selling in Spain as a non-EU company page.