Manufacturer or producer?

Correction, 14 August 2026

We got something wrong on this page and we are fixing it in the open, because quietly editing a page is how bad information survives.

What we had wrong

This page told a micro-enterprise that had packaging custom-made by a supplier abroad that it carried the manufacturer's conformity obligations itself. That was wrong. Art. 15(12) shifts those obligations to the supplier wherever the supplier is located in the Union — it does not require them to be in your own country. If you read this page before 14 August 2026 and concluded you needed a conformity assessment and a declaration of conformity for an EU-made branded mailer, you may well not.

Why we had it wrong. We were reading the same-member-state test in Art. 3(1)(13)(b) as though it were the only micro-enterprise carve-out, and treating the sources that said "in the EU" as contradicting it. There are three carve-outs and two tests. The full picture is set out under the micro-enterprise exception.

Also added in the same pass: the Art. 15(5) and Art. 15(6) marking duties, which this page omitted entirely and which are the manufacturer obligations that actually took effect on 12 August 2026.

The two roles

Every country desk on this site is about the producer role. That is the extended-producer-responsibility side: you register in a national register, you join a scheme, you report your tonnage, you pay. It is decided country-by-country, by who first puts packaging on that particular market, which is why it has to be answered twenty-seven times.

The manufacturer role is a different question with a different answer, and it is decided once for the whole EU rather than per country. It is about whether the packaging itself is lawful — whether it meets the substance, recyclability and labelling requirements — and it lands on whoever the packaging is branded to.

Why this catches people. A maker can be perfectly clear that they are a producer in Germany and Austria, have both registrations in hand, and still not realise that putting their own logo on a mailer box made them the manufacturer of that box across the entire Union.

Who is the manufacturer

Definition: Under Art. 3(1)(13) PPWR, a manufacturer is any natural or legal person who manufactures a unit of packaging or a packaged product — or has it designed or manufactured under their own name or trademark.
How many per packaging unit: Exactly one, across the whole EU. This is not a per-country role and it does not get shared.
What triggers it: Branding. If you have packaging made under your name or your mark, you are the manufacturer — regardless of where it was physically produced.
What if the factory's mark is on it too?: It makes no difference. Your name or mark being on it is what counts; the producing factory's mark also appearing does not move the role off you.

The deemed-manufacturer rule

Art. 21 PPWR pulls importers and distributors into the manufacturer role in two situations. If either applies, you take on the full Art. 15 obligations as if you had made the packaging yourself.

(a) You brand it: You place packaging on the market under your own name or trademark.
(b) You modify it: You modify packaging already on the market in a way that could affect its conformity — for example adding a coating or a layer that changes how recyclable it is.
Unless you're a micro-enterprise: Art. 21 has a second paragraph that most summaries drop. If the importer or distributor caught by (a) or (b) is a micro-enterprise and its supplier is located in the Union, the supplier is treated as the manufacturer for Art. 15 instead. Note the test: anywhere in the EU, not your own country. See the micro-enterprise exception.

Settled: a shipping label is not branding

This page used to say we couldn't tell you where "cosmetic" stopped. The Commission's FAQ, 2nd edition of August 2026, answers it directly: "If a company adds a sticker on the box for shipment purposes, it is not considered to be branding, and this company should not be considered 'manufacturer'."

So an address label, a carrier sticker or a seal does not make you the manufacturer of someone else's box. What the FAQ still does not draw is the line for changes that go further than a label — adding a coating or a layer that could affect recyclability is expressly on the other side of it, and the middle ground remains unmapped. If you are altering packaging rather than labelling it, treat that as unresolved.

What the manufacturer owes

Live since 12 August 2026, the same date as the representative obligations.

Conformity assessment: Carried out under Art. 38 PPWR and Annex VII.
Technical documentation: Drawn up and kept — the evidence behind the assessment.
EU Declaration of Conformity: Issued under Art. 39 PPWR and Annex VIII.
How long you keep the declaration: Five years for single-use packaging. Ten years for reusable packaging.
An identifier on the packaging: Art. 15(5) — a type, batch or serial number, or another element that identifies it. It can go in a document travelling with the packaged product if the size or nature of the packaging won't take it. Batch level is enough; you do not have to mark every individual unit.
Your name and a postal address on it: Art. 15(6) — your name, registered trade name or trademark and a postal address where you can be reached, on the packaging or via a QR code or data carrier. The address has to be a single point of contact.

These two are the ones that actually bit on 12 August. Everything else in Articles 5 to 12 — recyclability, recycled content, minimisation, void space — lands on or around 1 January 2030, and the harmonised sorting label not before 12 August 2028. The marking duties in 15(5) and 15(6) apply to all packaging placed on the market after 12 August 2026. If you brand your own mailers, this is the part to deal with now.

Stock you already had is fine. Packaging produced before 12 August 2026 and still sitting in your workshop does not have to be destroyed, remanufactured or relabelled — the required information may travel in an accompanying document instead. Packaging already placed on the market before that date may stay there.

Contracts don't move this. Supplier terms that try to push the manufacturer duties back up the chain do not change the legal position. If the role lands on you under Art. 3(1)(13) or Art. 21, it is yours whatever your purchase agreement says. You may have the conformity assessment carried out for you, and an authorised representative may draw up the declaration and hold the documents — but the technical documentation is yours to draw up, and the legal responsibility does not transfer.

The micro-enterprise exception

This is the part that matters most to the people this site is for. Where the ordering party is a micro-enterprise, the supplier assumes the manufacturer's Art. 15 obligations instead.

What counts as a micro-enterprise: Under Recommendation 2003/361/EC: fewer than ten employees, and an annual turnover or balance sheet total not exceeding €2 million.
What shifts: The Art. 15 manufacturer obligations move to the supplier you ordered from — the conformity assessment, the technical documentation, the declaration, and the marking duties above.
Where the supplier has to be: It depends which duty you mean. For the Art. 15 obligations, anywhere in the Union. For the shift to move the role itself — and with it, potentially, producer status — the supplier must be in the same member state. See below.

Settled: there are three carve-outs, not one

This page used to record a conflict between the ZSVR, which says the supplier must be in the same member state, and other sources saying merely in the EU. There is no conflict. The Regulation contains three separate micro-enterprise carve-outs, with two different geographic tests, and each source was describing a different one.

Art. 3(1)(13)(b) — supplier in the same member state. This one changes who the manufacturer is, for the whole Regulation. It is the one the ZSVR is describing, and it is the strict test.

Art. 15(12) — supplier located in the Union. This shifts the manufacturer role "for the purposes of this Article", meaning the Art. 15 duties only.

Art. 21, second paragraph — supplier located in the Union. Same effect, for importers and distributors caught by the deemed-manufacturer rule.

What this means for you. If you are a micro-enterprise having packaging made under your own name, and your supplier is anywhere in the EU, the Art. 15 conformity duties on this page are the supplier's, not yours. Only where the supplier is in your own member state does the role shift wholesale.

And it can reach EPR — but not on a cross-border sale. This page used to say your producer duties were simply unaffected. That is right for the sales these desks are about and wrong as a general statement. Because Art. 3(1)(13)(b) moves the manufacturer role itself, the supplier can become the producer too, and the Commission's FAQ says so explicitly. But the test is the member state where the packaging is made available — on a sale into France, that is France. Your local box supplier does nothing for you there. The relief is real and it is domestic-only: it can apply to what you sell at home, and it will not apply to what you ship abroad. Your registration and representative duties in the destination country stand either way — see the Germany and Austria desks.

Which one are you?

Does your name, logo or brand appear on the packaging?: If no — you are not the manufacturer. Only the EPR producer duties apply to you.
Yes, and you're a micro-enterprise buying from a supplier in your own country: The supplier carries the manufacturer obligations, and carries them completely — this is the Art. 3(1)(13)(b) case, so the role itself sits with them.
Yes, you're a micro-enterprise, and your supplier is elsewhere in the EU: The supplier still carries the Art. 15 obligations — Art. 15(12) only asks that they be located in the Union. This page previously told you the opposite; that was wrong, and it was corrected on 14 August 2026.
Yes, and your supplier is outside the EU — or you're above micro-enterprise size: You carry them yourself. Neither carve-out reaches a non-EU supplier, and none of them apply above micro-enterprise size.
Buying plain, unbranded stock packaging: Not the manufacturer. Nobody put your name on it.

And GPSR is a third thing

If you have followed this far you are now tracking three separate regimes, and it is worth naming them so you can tell which conversation you are in:

Packaging EPR: Per country. Register, license, report, pay. The Germany and Austria desks.
Packaging conformity: EU-wide, decided by branding. This page.
Product safety: GPSR — the EU Responsible Person for the goods, not the packaging. See the GPSR explainer, currently in draft.

Solving one does not solve the others, and the representatives are not interchangeable.

Sources

Primary law first, then the registry, then secondary material. Where a claim on this page rests only on a secondary source, or is unresolved, we have said so in the body text rather than leaving it to a footnote.

Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR) — EUR-Lex Read in full for this page. Source for the Art. 3(1)(13) manufacturer definition including the same-member-state carve-out at (13)(b), Art. 15 obligations including the 15(5) and 15(6) marking duties and the 15(12) Union-wide carve-out, Art. 17 on what may be delegated, Art. 21 deemed manufacturer and its second-paragraph carve-out, Art. 38 and Annex VII conformity assessment, Art. 39 and Annex VIII declaration of conformity
Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC Source for the micro-enterprise definition: fewer than ten employees and turnover or balance sheet total not exceeding €2 million
ZSVR — distinguishing between manufacturers and producers Source for the same-member-state test. Now understood to be describing Art. 3(1)(13)(b) specifically, which is why it appeared to conflict with sources describing Art. 15(12) and Art. 21
European Commission — PPWR Frequently Asked Questions, 2nd edition DG ENV Unit B01, August 2026 (KH-01-26-068-EN-N). Read in full for this page. Source for the shipping-sticker answer, and for the statement that a micro-enterprise manufacturer who is also the producer is relieved of EPR where the supplier is in the same member state. Note: its Q6 cites the manufacturer definition as Art. 3(1) point (12); the correct citation is point (13), as the same document says elsewhere and as EUR-Lex confirms
European Commission — PPWR guidance (Commission Notice) The guidance document of 30 March 2026, distinct from the FAQ above and complemented by it. Not read in full by us. This is where the remaining question on this page — how far a modification can go before it affects conformity — would have to be settled

Help us finish this page

Both of the questions this page used to carry are now closed. The supplier-establishment conflict turned out not to be a conflict — there are three carve-outs with two tests, and each source was describing a different one. The cosmetic-modification question was answered by the Commission's August FAQ: a shipping sticker is not branding. Both answers came out of reading the primary text properly rather than out of new information, which is worth saying plainly.

One narrower question remains open. Between "adding a label", which is settled as harmless, and "adding a coating", which is settled as a conformity-affecting modification, there is unmapped ground. If you have read the Commission Notice of 30 March 2026 end to end, you can close it. Nobody here has.

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