AGEC law and France's other EPR streams for non-EU sellers (the filières REP)

France lists 21 EPR streams in article L. 541-10-1 of the Code de l’environnement, and the AGEC law of 10 February 2020 added many of them. If you sell toys, sports and leisure goods, DIY and garden goods, building products, household chemicals, oils or wipes to buyers in France, from any country, you are a producer in each stream your goods fall under. In each one you join the accredited eco-organisme, which registers you with ADEME and sends one IDU for that stream. You also name a representative in France by written mandate, in every stream, since 10 July 2026.

The EU rule, and who counts as a producer, is in the EPR guide. This page is what France adds for the streams that have no page of their own. The other French rules are on the France page.

France has 21 EPR streams, and six have a page of their own

Article L. 541-10-1 lists the streams (Code de l’environnement, copy in Ineris AIDA). Item 3° is repealed, which leaves 21 in force. ADEME’s list shows 19 approved schemes. The two without a scheme page are chewing gum (20°, from 1 January 2024) and fishing gear containing plastic (22°, from 1 January 2025). Service-Public counts 21.

Everything else is below. A single product can sit in several streams, and each one has its own IDU. The IDU page shows ADEME’s example of a smartphone that falls under three.

Do this, in this order

1. Match your products to the streams in the table under “Each stream has its own eco-organisme”. Packaged products also fall under the packaging scheme, and products with a battery or electronics under the batteries and WEEE schemes.
2. Name your representative in France, by written mandate (L. 541-10-9-1). The next section has the law.
3. Join the eco-organisme of each stream. It registers you with ADEME and sends you the IDU. What to type in each form field, with no SIRET, is on the IDU page.
4. Code and declare what you sell, and pay the eco-fee. Toys are declared every quarter at Ecomaison.
5. Show the IDU in your general conditions of sale and on your website, and give it to each marketplace.
6. Put the sorting sign and instructions on the product. It is the Triman logo, on the Triman page.
7. Check the other AGEC duties (section below), including take-back above EUR 100,000 of delivered sales in toys, sports and DIY.

A representative in France is required in every stream

Article L. 541-10-9-1 says that a person not established in France that is subject to EPR 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 (copy in Ineris AIDA). It names no EU or non-EU distinction and no stream, so it reaches a seller in another EU country too, in every stream. The duty counts as met for products whose EPR duties a marketplace established in France, named in L. 541-10-9, already fulfils.

The law was published in the Journal officiel no. 159 of 9 July 2026 (Sénat). The new article sets no later start date and cites no decree. A law with no date applies from the day after its publication (article 1 of the Civil Code), so from 10 July 2026. The mandate in full, and the EU side of the role, are on the packaging page and in authorised representative for EPR. The representative sets its own price.

Each stream has its own eco-organisme and its own IDU

You meet the 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. The streams most likely to reach an online seller:

Fishing gear can be run under an agreement with the environment minister instead of an accreditation (notice of 1 December 2022). Packaging for business buyers is a separate scheme, in full from 1 January 2027, on the packaging page.

France names the seller abroad as a producer in most streams

Article L. 541-10 reaches anyone who makes, handles, sells or imports the products. The ministry’s data order lists the producer statuses of each stream. The status “distance seller from abroad, selling directly to households or to users other than households in France” appears in toys, sports and leisure goods, household chemicals, oils, building products and vehicles. In DIY and garden goods it covers sales to households only. For wipes, ADEME quotes decree no. 2024-1166: a seller established in another EU country or a third country that sells wipes in France by distance contract to private households or other users is a producer. The order lists no such status for tobacco, boats or tyres, whose producers are the makers, importers and first placers on the French market.

What it costs

You pay the eco-organisme an eco-fee on each item you put on the French market. ADEME and the law set no fee for the IDU itself, and article L. 541-10-13 sets no volume below which you need no IDU. The scales are the eco-organismes’ own documents, not law, and they change each year.

• Toys. Ecomaison’s 2026 scale, version of March 2026, excluding tax: EUR 0.08 for a 0.3 kg teddy bear, EUR 0.22 for a 1.5 kg board game, EUR 1.14 for a 5 kg plastic baby walker, EUR 1.20 for a 10 kg wooden game. The rate depends on the product type, weight and materials, and bonuses and penalties adjust it. A company launching fewer than 15,000 items a year, each under 10 kg and under 15 tonnes in total, can use a flat-rate declaration (Ecomaison guide).
• Sports and leisure, and combustion-engine garden machines. Ecologic publishes, for sports and leisure goods, a scale with modulation and a simplified scale, both in force from 1 January 2026, and 2027 scales already. For combustion-engine machines it publishes a scale in force from 1 January 2026 and a simplified scale in force from 1 January 2024. ADEME lists bonuses for recycled materials and spare parts, and penalties for slow spare parts and low recyclability (ADEME).
• DIY and garden goods. The Ecologic scale above covers combustion-engine machines. Ecomaison publishes its own product-code and rate generator for DIY and garden goods, valid from 1 January 2026.
• Building products. Valdelia’s 2026 scale and Ecominero, plus Ecomaison.
• Household chemicals. PYRéO for pyrotechnics, and EcoPAE for extinguishers (scale of 1 January 2025).
• Lubricants. Cyclevia lists its scale for each year from 2022 to 2026.
• Wipes. Citeo Soin & Hygiène, 2026 scale guide.
• Vehicles and boats. Recycler Mon Véhicule, 2026 scale and APER, 2026 scale by boat length.

The AGEC law adds other duties on top of the eco-fee

The consumer information thresholds are in R. 541-227 and the product list in R. 541-228 (copy in Ineris AIDA; decree no. 2022-748 published them as R. 541-220 and R. 541-221). Its art. 3 puts them in force for every business above them since 1 January 2025. Each EUR 3,000 and EUR 15,000 fine, under L. 541-9-4, L. 541-9-4-1 and L. 541-15-8, is an administrative fine under the Consumer Code procedure.

Distance sellers of toys, sports and DIY goods take back used products above EUR 100,000

Article L. 541-10-8 lets the law oblige distributors of EPR products to take back used ones. It applies to toys, sports and leisure goods and DIY and garden goods (L. 541-10-8 V). Article R. 541-158 counts as a distributor anyone who supplies the end user commercially, distance sales included. Under R. 541-160 f the first take-back duty binds a distributor that sells these products with delivery and whose annual turnover from them is above EUR 100,000, or one with a shop floor of at least 200 m2 for them (decree no. 2020-1455). The Ministry dates it from 1 January 2023 for these three streams (Ministry). The same EUR 100,000 applies to furnishing elements and to household chemicals other than pyrotechnics and extinguishers, sold with delivery. Pyrotechnics and fire extinguishers have no threshold (R. 541-160 c), and neither do single-use fuel gas cartridges sold with delivery (R. 541-160 e).

Under L. 541-10-8 I, take-back is limited to the quantity and type of product you sold, or the products it replaces. When you deliver, article R. 541-161 gives you these options:

• 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.

You tell the buyer the take-back terms before the sale is concluded (R. 541-163). Below EUR 100,000 of delivered sales, a distance seller has no take-back duty under R. 541-160 f.

A marketplace is the producer when you hold no IDU

A marketplace that facilitates your distance sales meets the EPR duties for them, unless it holds proof that you already have (L. 541-10-9). An IDU for the product counts as that proof. The Ministry says the rule has applied since 1 January 2022, and ADEME says a marketplace with no proof has producer status for your quantities. That is why marketplaces ask for your IDU, stream by stream. The register it keeps, and what to type, are on the IDU page. Where a seller does not offer a take-back its sales carry, the marketplace provides it (R. 541-169).

Deadlines

If you do nothing

Under article L. 541-9-5, the minister notifies you of the facts and the penalty you face, you have one month to answer in writing or orally, and the minister then decides by a reasoned decision. The sanctions are made public (L. 541-9-8).

For a breach of the EPR duty itself, the per-unit amount takes into account the estimated average annual quantity you placed on the market over the length of the breach and the maximum unit contribution set by the approved eco-organismes of the stream. The Ministry lists the same three L. 541-9-5 amounts. A producer that joins no eco-organisme and runs no individual system gets no IDU, so it is not registered and the first row applies to it. A failure to appoint a representative falls under “any other EPR breach”: article L. 541-10-9-1 sits in the same section of the Code as article L. 541-9-5, and no text sets a separate fine for it.

What does not apply

• There is no single French EPR number. A seller in toys, sports and wipes holds three IDUs, one for each (IDU page).
• A SIRET is not required of a business not established in France.
• The EUR 30,000 fine has four triggers and no more: not registered, register not filled in, wrong data, IDU not shown.
• The sorting-sign and information duties are fined under their own articles, not under L. 541-9-5.
• The take-back duty does not bind a distance seller below EUR 100,000 of annual turnover from toys, sports and leisure goods, DIY and garden goods, furnishing elements or household chemicals other than pyrotechnics and extinguishers. Pyrotechnics, fire extinguishers and single-use fuel gas cartridges sold with delivery have no threshold.
• Medicines and medical sharps bind marketing-authorisation holders and device makers, not a general retailer of consumer goods.
• Textiles, furniture, packaging, batteries and electrical equipment are not covered here. They have the pages in the first table.