PPWR – UK sellers: are you pausing sales to the EU?
Summary: memfycases initiated a discussion regarding the challenges faced by UK business sellers due to the new EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). They expressed concerns about the significant costs and administrative burdens of registering for packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in multiple EU countries. fullers_uk and herbaladaptogens shared their decisions to stop selling to the EU due to high compliance costs relative to their sales volume. ancestryantiques criticized the regulation for negatively impacting UK businesses, while jonatjonatjonat clarified that the regulation applies to EU businesses as well, emphasizing its broad scope. Participants debated the practicality of finding affordable compliance solutions and considered the option of limiting or ceasing EU sales.
Hi everyone,
I’m trying to understand what other UK business sellers are doing about the new EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) requirements.
As I understand it, from 12 August 2026, if we are considered the packaging producer when selling directly to customers in the EU, we may need to register for packaging EPR separately in each EU country we sell to, as well as deal with reporting, fees and potentially an authorised representative.
For a small/medium UK business selling across Europe, the cost and administration of registering in multiple countries could be very significant and potentially make many EU sales commercially unviable.
What are other sellers doing?
Are you registering in every EU country you sell to?
Are you registering only in your main EU markets and excluding the others?
Are you using an EPR/PPWR compliance company to handle everything?
Have you decided to temporarily stop EU sales altogether?
Has anyone found a reasonably priced solution for UK sellers?
Does anyone know how this will work with eBay International Shipping?
At the moment, it seems that restricting sales to EU countries where we are not registered may be the only practical option, but I would really like to hear what other sellers have decided to do.
Especially interested in hearing from other UK business sellers shipping directly to EU customers.
Thanks.
bobsbrickstuff
·3 days agoYep, paused sales to EU here. Had to go through all my postage policies and block all the EU countries. Hopefully it's just pausing and some exemption will be worked out, this is negatively impacting so many small and medium businesses.
herbaladaptogens
·1 week agoJust turned off EU sales, after checking the requirements down to the need to see how a foil pouch is made up,
getting a local rep the costs for the small amount of sales we ship at the moment would be more than the cost of the product.
Just one more brick!
ancestryantiques
·3 weeks agoAs a UK registered business seller, there is no choice in this but to exclude selling to the EU. Well done EU for yet another regulation that damages UK business operators !
jonatjonatjonat
·3 weeks agoTo be clear - this regulation doesn't just apply to UK businesses. As it does read like you believe the EU is solely attacking the UK with this particular policy.
Everything in it applies to EU businesses - though obviously they would have some benefits to being within the EU in the first place. Mainly not having to employ an authorised representative. Even if we were in the EU - as a business, you'd have to adhere to the regulations,
fullers_uk
·3 weeks agoJust an update, I called a family friend who works in the Maltese government, great guy known him and his family almost 40 years, Malta is signatory to the PPWR, it had to sign up because it wanted EU grants that wont be spent on what there suppose to be. He says Malta will take enforcement action on goods on entry to Malta, but there is no form to register for the regulations, they are working towards it, they have just put in place the framework for importing scrap cars and scrap barges and are working towards the PPWR regs but there is no timescale at this time so please feel free to pay a company to comply with the regulations for Malta that do not exist.
fullers_uk
·3 weeks agoAs a business seller (I don’t sell in the UK) I am about to bin EU member states, there’s no way I am spending thousands to comply with the new regs, my EU sales are low and only introduce about 4 kilos of packaging into the EU a year, I am keeping Switzerland even though these so called compliance solution companies say they are part of the new regulations and would be happy to take 400 quid per country to fix a problem in Switzerland that doesn’t exist yet but may be reviewed in 2027 with a slim possibility of it being a requirement by 2030.
As to EIS, from what I see its still a requirement, if you don’t comply and an order gets to there hub without the rubbish registration number they will keep it and refund the customer so you lose the money and the goods, the hub doesn’t return it to you they sell it off on ebay and use your pictures and description to do it.