France furniture EPR for non-EU sellers (filière EA: Ecomaison, Valdelia, Valobat)

If you sell furniture, mattresses, upholstered seating, rugs or curtains to buyers in France from another country, France treats you as the producer, and the producer pays for the waste. You appoint a representative established in France, join an accredited eco-organisme (Ecomaison, Valdelia or Valobat), and the eco-organisme registers you in SYDEREP and sends you the IDU. Above EUR 100,000 a year of delivered sales you also take old furniture back when you deliver. This page is only what France adds to the EU EPR rule. The IDU itself, and what to type in the registration form, are on the EPR number page. The other French rules are on the France page.

France treats a seller abroad as the furniture producer

The furniture stream is called filière EA, for éléments d’ameublement. Article L. 541-10-1 (10°) of the Code de l’environnement puts furnishing elements and upholstered seating and bedding in it, and since 1 January 2022 textile decoration items (Code de l’environnement, AIDA copy).

Article R. 543-242 says who the producer is: a person who, as a business, makes, imports, assembles or introduces for the first time on the national market furnishing elements, either to hand them to the end user by whatever technique of transfer, or to use them directly in France. A reseller or principal whose brand is on the goods is the producer (décret no. 2012-22, AIDA copy; décret no. 2020-1725, art. 8, which renamed the “metteur sur le marché” the “producteur”).

The ministry’s data order for EPR schemes lists the producer statuses in the furniture scheme (arrêté of 12 December 2022, annex VIII):

• manufacturer or assembler;
• importer, from the EU or a third country;
• reseller under its own brand or name, or principal;
• distance seller from abroad, selling directly to households or to users other than households located in France;
• the person named in article L. 541-10-9, which is a marketplace.

The fourth line is you. Selling to a business buyer counts as much as selling to a household. Article L. 541-10-13 has every producer register and receive an IDU, and it sets no volume below which you are exempt (Code de l’environnement, AIDA copy). Valdelia says the same in its own words: foreign companies that sell at a distance to French users, private and professional, also have producer status (Valdelia).

The stream covers twelve categories of furniture, bedding and textile decoration

Article R. 543-240 defines furnishing elements as movable goods and their components whose main function is to fit out a home, a business or a place open to the public by providing seating, bedding, storage, or a surface to put things on or work at. ADEME lists the twelve categories:

• living room, sitting room and dining room furniture;
• occasional furniture;
• bedroom furniture;
• bedding, mattresses included;
• office furniture;
• kitchen furniture;
• bathroom furniture;
• garden furniture;
• seats;
• technical, commercial and community furniture;
• upholstered seating and sleeping products (since 2018);
• textile decoration items and their accessories (since 2022).

Textile decoration means removable finished products that decorate walls, floors and windows, such as carpets, rugs, curtains and net curtains. Floor, wall and ceiling coverings that are fitted permanently in buildings are excluded (décret no. 2022-975). So are goods that fall under the electrical equipment rules, bespoke fixed fittings of business premises that a professional fitter assembles and installs, and street furniture (décret no. 2012-22, R. 543-240 II). New textile products for the home are in the textile stream, except furnishing elements and goods meant to protect or decorate furnishing elements (Code de l’environnement, L. 541-10-1 11°); see textiles.

A packaged product also falls under the household packaging scheme, and a product with a battery or electronics may fall under those schemes. Each scheme has its own IDU (ADEME, ADEME FAQ). See packaging and WEEE.

A representative established in France is required

Article L. 541-10-9-1 of the Code de l’environnement says that a person not established in France that is subject to extended producer responsibility under article L. 541-10 or L. 541-10-9 appoints, by written mandate, a person established in France as representative. The representative takes over every EPR duty whose mandate it accepts. The text is in article 5 of loi no. 2026-602 of 8 July 2026, published in the Journal officiel no. 159 of 9 July 2026 (Sénat).

Furnishing elements are among the products of article L. 541-10-1 that fall under extended producer responsibility under article L. 541-10 I. So the article reaches this stream.

• It names no EU or non-EU distinction. A seller in another EU country needs a representative as much as a seller in the United States.
• The duty counts as met for products whose EPR duties a marketplace established in France, named in article L. 541-10-9, already fulfils.
• The adopted text sets no later start date.
• The representative sets its own price.

ADEME describes the role: the representative takes responsibility for your EPR duties and declares your market placements through the eco-organisme, and you send it your registration data (ADEME FAQ). The EU side of the role is in EPR authorised representative.

Three eco-organismes are accredited until 31 December 2029

You meet your duty by joining an accredited eco-organisme, or by running your own approved individual system. Service-Public notes that the individual route is complex and that joining an eco-organisme is generally simpler (Service-Public).

Source: Ministry, ADEME. ADEME lists all three for households and professionals. Valdelia describes itself as accredited for professional furnishing elements and for the extension of the scheme to textile decoration (Valdelia). A coordination body, OCABJ, is accredited until 31 December 2029 to coordinate the three. Your membership must cover every category you sell.

Do this, in this order

1. Sort your products into the twelve categories, and set aside anything that belongs to another stream.
2. Appoint your representative in France by written mandate.
3. Join an eco-organisme. At Ecomaison you create an account in its Services Space, pick the furnishing sector, give the start date of your market launch, and upload your administrative details and certificate of incorporation. You give the company name, legal status, share capital and tax identification, and the contact details of a signatory. You have no SIRET, and France does not ask you for one: a business outside France gives its intra-Community VAT number or, failing that, the number its own tax authority issued (see the EPR number page). You sign the contract online and pay the membership fee, and the IDU follows. Ecomaison says ADEME assigns it within a few days of the signed contract (Ecomaison guide and Ecomaison). At Valdelia you apply online, sign the contract on your online space, and Valdelia declares you in SYDEREP and gives you the IDU (Valdelia). ADEME cannot generate the IDU of a member of a collective scheme, and the time to finish the contract is the eco-organisme’s own (ADEME FAQ). To have the number before your first sale, join before you launch.
4. Show the IDU in your general conditions of sale and on your website, and give it to each marketplace. What to type in each form field is on the EPR number page.
5. Code your products and declare what you sell, each quarter at Ecomaison and Valdelia.
6. Offer take-back if your delivered sales pass EUR 100,000 a year (section below).
7. Mark the product (sections below).

What it costs in France

ADEME’s IDU page states no fee for the IDU. You pay the eco-organisme an eco-fee on each item you put on the French market. Ecomaison also charges a flat membership fee of EUR 50 excluding VAT per sector, so three sectors cost EUR 150 (Ecomaison guide).

The eco-fee depends on the type of item, its weight, its dimensions and volume, and its materials. The eco-organisme sets it from a published scale and adjusts it by bonuses and penalties (Ecomaison price guide). These are examples from Ecomaison’s 2026 scale, version of 30 March 2026, applicable from 1 January 2026, excluding VAT:

Bonuses and penalties follow the product. ADEME’s table for 2025 gives EUR 0.05 per kg off for a foam or textile product with at least 50% by weight of sustainably managed renewable resources, EUR 40 per tonne for recycled wood, EUR 450 per tonne for recycled plastic and EUR 500 per tonne for recycled textile, and 16% off the fee for the EU Ecolabel. It sets a penalty of EUR 0.15 per kg for a product mostly of wood with more than 50% uncertified wood, and for products with recycling disruptors. A product with a penalty cannot take a bonus (ADEME).

Small volumes have two routes. Article L. 541-10-13 gives no exemption from the IDU. Where several eco-organismes are accredited for the same category, as the three are here, they set a joint threshold below which a flat-rate declaration is possible, within 5% of the products their members put on the market in a category (arrêté of 12 December 2022, art. 2 II). Ecomaison’s simplified declaration is for companies that put on the market less than 15 tonnes and 1,000 items a year, with annual turnover from furniture sales under EUR 2 million. From 1 January 2026 it also offers a simplified flat rate of 0.4% for companies whose total turnover in France is under EUR 2 million (Ecomaison guide).

Valdelia publishes its scales for 2026 and 2027 as downloads (Valdelia). A representative in France charges its own price on top.

Ecomaison’s guide adds that from 1 July 2026 the eco-fee is due on a product’s first launch on French territory, second-hand included. A used product launched in France before pays nothing again on resale. A used product first launched in another country and then brought into France is a first launch in France and carries the fee.

What goes on the invoice, the product and the listing

• The invoice. Article L. 541-10-21 had every producer and each later buyer show the unit cost of managing furniture waste on the sales invoice, in addition to the unit price, until 1 January 2026 (Code de l’environnement, AIDA copy; Service-Public). Ecomaison’s March 2026 guide still has its members show the eco-fee separately on invoices, with the same VAT rate as the item, so check your contract.
• The sorting sign. A product subject to EPR sold to households carries a sign telling the consumer that sorting rules apply, with the sorting instructions beside it, on the product, its packaging or, failing that, in the documents supplied with it (article L. 541-9-3, AIDA copy). This is the Triman logo; see Triman.
• Environmental information. Furniture carries three statements at purchase: recycled content, recyclability and hazardous substances above 0.1% by mass (Service-Public). The duty binds producers that declare more than EUR 10 million of turnover across all the products listed in article R. 541-228 on the French market and put at least 10,000 units of those products a year on it, since 1 January 2025. The turnover and unit thresholds are in R. 541-227 and the product list in R. 541-228 (copy in Ineris AIDA; décret no. 2022-748 published them as R. 541-220 and R. 541-221, and its art. 3 sets the start dates).
• The IDU. It goes in the conditions of sale and on the website (ADEME).

Delivery brings a take-back duty above EUR 100,000 a year

A distributor, distance sellers included, takes back used furniture (décret no. 2020-1455, arts. R. 541-158 to R. 541-166, AIDA copy). For furnishing elements article R. 541-160 d sets two thresholds:

Below those thresholds there is no take-back duty. If you cross EUR 100,000 of delivered sales, article R. 541-161 gives you these options when you deliver:

• Take the used product back at the point of delivery.
• Use a nearby collection point that you finance and organise, or have organised. This works only for products that can be carried without equipment.
• Offer a free return service for the holder, such as the post. This works only where the features of the used product allow it.
• Let the holder send the used product straight to a waste operator under contract with an approved eco-organisme. This works only when that eco-organisme offers it.

The buyer is told the take-back terms, in a visible and readable way, before the sale is concluded (R. 541-163). The text sets no condition on where the distributor is established. Failing to take back or to inform is a fifth-class contravention, distance sales included (R. 541-166). The fine is up to EUR 1,500 for an individual (Service-Public) and five times that, EUR 7,500, for a company (Ministry of Justice, Infostat Justice 82). Ecomaison runs the same two thresholds in its guide. It adds that a third-party seller on a marketplace with more than EUR 100,000 a year of turnover organises the free take-back and tells the marketplace the terms (Ecomaison guide).

A marketplace is the producer when you hold no IDU

A marketplace has producer status for the quantities it places on the market for third parties, unless it holds proof that those sellers already hold an IDU for the scheme (ADEME). It keeps a register for that proof (Service-Public). Where a seller does not offer the take-back its sales carry, the marketplace must provide it for the seller (article R. 541-169, in the same decree). That is why marketplaces ask for your IDU for furniture. This page covers the furniture stream only. The IDU for each other stream is a separate number.

Deadlines

What happens if you do nothing

The minister in charge of the environment notifies you of the facts and the penalty you face. You have one month to give written or oral observations, then the minister decides by a reasoned decision, and the sanctions are made public (articles L. 541-9-5 and L. 541-9-8, Code de l’environnement, AIDA copy). The fines come from article L. 541-9-5, except the sorting-sign and information duties, which have their own articles:

The per-unit amount takes into account the gravity of the breach and what you gained from it. A producer that joins no eco-organisme and runs no individual system gets no IDU, so the first row applies to it. Article L. 541-9-5 does not apply to the sorting-sign and information duties, which articles L. 541-9-4 and L. 541-9-4-1 fine (Code de l’environnement, AIDA copy). The Ministry’s page lists the L. 541-9-5 fines, and Service-Public the 3,000 and 15,000 amounts.

Joining late costs more than the fee. Ecomaison applies a three-year retroactive period to a producer that launched products without a contract and charges the contributions for those years (Ecomaison guide).

What does not apply

• There is no separate furniture register to enter. SYDEREP is filled in by your eco-organisme, and the IDU is the number. A registration in another country does not stand in for it, because each country runs its own (EU EPR guide).
• The legal duty to show the waste cost on the invoice ended on 1 January 2026. Ecomaison still requires it of its members.
• Article L. 541-10-13 sets no quantity below which you need no IDU. Small quantities change the way you declare, not whether you need an IDU.
• The environmental statements bind only producers above EUR 10 million of turnover across all the products listed in article R. 541-228, and 10,000 units of those products.
• Take-back binds you only above EUR 100,000 of delivered sales for these products.
• Textile products for the home that are not furnishing elements, clothing and footwear are in the textile stream, not this one.