KontorBund — Explainer
Myth vs factLast checked 8 September 2026
kontorbund.com/explainers/myth-vs-fact.html
Myth vs fact
The short version
Your supplier's compliance does not cover your use of their box in another country. The customer is not the importer on a direct sale. Selling from your own site removes the middleman, not the obligation. Recycled packaging is still packaging. And the ones that catch careful people are the half-true ones — a threshold that is real but relieves only the national layer, or a rule that exists in the country you were told about and not at the level that binds you.
How to read this page
Every claim below is one we have actually been told, usually by someone repeating it in good faith. Several are half true, and the half matters more than the whole — a myth with a real statute behind it is far more dangerous than one somebody invented, because the person repeating it can cite something.
So each entry gets a verdict rather than a tick or a cross, and each ends with where to check. Where we have been wrong ourselves, that is on the list too.
Myths about somebody else covering you
“My supplier is compliant, so their box is covered”
False, and the most expensive one on the list. Your supplier's compliance covers their placing of that packaging on their market. When you put the box round your product and send it to a consumer in another member state, you make it available for the first time on that territory — which is exactly what Art. 45(1) attaches responsibility to. Their licence does not travel with the cardboard. Check: Art. 3(1)(15)(c) and (d).
“The customer is the importer, so it is their problem”
False on a direct sale. This is a real rule in the wrong place. It can apply where a private individual genuinely imports goods for themselves. On a distance contract where you sell to a consumer and ship to them, the Regulation names you — a producer established in a member state or a third country, making packaging available for the first time on the territory of another member state, directly to end users. That is a description of ordinary e-commerce.
“The marketplace handles it for me”
False, and it is now provably false. Since 12 August 2026 the platform must obtain your registration number and a self-certification from you before it may let you sell (Art. 45(4)). It is structurally the opposite of covering you: it is required to come and ask. One thing a platform genuinely can do is pay your fees under written mandate — see when the marketplace asks for your number.
“I sell from my own website, so there is no middleman and no obligation”
Half true, and the wrong half is load-bearing. Selling direct removes the middleman. It does not remove the obligation — it removes the person who might otherwise have carried it for you. On your own shop you are unambiguously the producer, with nobody upstream to argue about it. Selling direct makes your position simpler, not lighter.
Myths about being too small
“There is a de minimis — under some weight none of this applies”
False as a general statement. Art. 44 registration and Art. 45(3) representation have no threshold anywhere in the Union. National thresholds exist and are real, but they relieve national obligations. The one genuine EU relief is Art. 44(8): under 10 tonnes you file a reduced data set. That is less paperwork, not less duty. See who pays for the packaging.
“Under 100 kg you do not need a representative in Slovakia”
Half right — and this is the most dangerous cell we have seen in circulation. § 54(6) of Act 79/2015 genuinely releases a producer under 100 kg from the Slovak representative duty in § 27(4)(b). That is real law, and two English-language compliance sites deny it, wrongly. But it cannot disapply Art. 45(3), which has no threshold. So below 100 kg you drop the Slovak representative and keep the European one, plus registration, records and the 28 February report. Both circulating versions are wrong. See the Slovakia desk.
“Czechia's 300 kg exemption means I am out”
False twice over. It is two tests, not one — a weight limb and a turnover limb, and you need both. And even when you meet both, it relieves the Czech national layer while every EU duty underneath it survives. See the Czechia desk.
“Slovenia has a 15,000 kg threshold”
False — and if your source still says it, date your source. Slovenia abolished that threshold in 2021. A comparison table still listing it is five years stale, which also means anyone who relied on it has exposure predating the PPWR entirely. See the Slovenia desk.
“The Netherlands is micro-friendly, so I am fine there”
True, and incomplete. The 50,000 kg threshold is the most generous in the Union and it is real relief — below it a micro-seller genuinely files nothing with Verpact and pays nothing. Two things spoil it: single-use plastics and deposit containers sit entirely outside the threshold and register from the first item, and Art. 45(3) has no threshold, so you can owe a Dutch representative while owing Verpact nothing. See the Netherlands desk.
“Ireland exempts small producers, so the PPWR does not reach me”
Two different questions, and Irish guidance historically answered only the first. The national major-producer test needs both 10 tonnes and €1 million to be exceeded, so a small seller was genuinely outside mandatory Repak membership. From 12 August 2026 the PPWR imposes registration and a representative with no threshold at all. Being outside Repak was never the same as being outside the PPWR. See the Ireland desk.
Myths about what counts
“Recycled or reused packaging does not count”
False. Packaging is packaging by function, not by provenance. A reused box you were sent last week is packaging you place on the market when you ship in it. Reusing is good practice and it is not an exemption — though in a handful of countries reusable packaging sits in its own regime, which is a different point.
“Only the product's own box counts, not what I wrap around it”
False, and it is the commonest under-declaration we see. Sales, grouped and transport packaging all count. The outer carton, the tape, the filler, the mailer, the card an earring is mounted on. See what counts as packaging.
“Paying a dual system means I have to print the Grüner Punkt”
False, and it costs people print runs. The Green Dot is a licensing scheme's own trademark, not a legal obligation. Paying a German dual system does not oblige you to print anything. Going the other way: in Belgium the Green Dot must come off your artwork from February 2027, and Verpact in the Netherlands discourages it.
“The EU sorting label starts now, so I need new artwork”
False. It is 2028 at the earliest. Art. 12(1) applies the harmonised sorting label from 12 August 2028, or 24 months after the implementing acts enter into force, whichever is later. Nothing was due on 12 August 2026. What was due, if your name or logo is on the packaging, is Art. 15(5) and 15(6) — an identifier plus your name and postal address. That is a different duty and it is live now. And Italy has had its own national labelling duty running for years.
Myths about the rules themselves
“It has been suspended by the Omnibus”
False. Settle this one every time it comes up. The Environmental Omnibus proposal of 10 December 2025 would have suspended the EPR representative duty for EU-established producers until 2035. The Council dropped EPR from its negotiating mandate on 24 June 2026. It is a proposal, it is not law, and the duty that took effect on 12 August 2026 is live. See the suspension that didn't happen.
“An authorised representative is something national law may require”
Wrong category, and this one was in a widely shared guide under the heading "confirmed at EU level". Art. 45(3), first sentence, imposes it directly on a producer established in another member state — no national implementation needed, no threshold. It is the second sentence that is a national option, and only for producers established in third countries. Getting this backwards inverts your risk assessment.
“The representative duty is in Article 46”
False, and it is one source copied five times. It is Art. 45(3). Article 46 is the producer-responsibility-organisation article — and 46(5) is worth knowing for a different reason: it forbids PROs from placing "a disproportionate burden on producers of small quantities of packaging". We found this miscitation in five country profiles in one guide pack.
“Germany lets my representative register me”
False, and a service offering it is selling something non-compliant. German LUCID registration is höchstpersönlich — strictly personal. Germany took neither of the two delegation routes in Art. 44. Your own employees may do the typing; an external service may not. Austria is the exact opposite: there a foreign seller may not register alone. See where registration can be delegated.
“Finland leaves the representative optional for packaging”
Finnish national guidance does say something like that. It is out of date. Finnish guidance still describes the representative as a choice for packaging, because nationally it was compulsory only for electricals, single-use plastics and batteries. Art. 45(3) is directly applicable and removes the choice. National practice has not caught up; the Regulation does not wait for it. See the Finland desk.
Two we got wrong ourselves
Quietly editing a page is how bad information survives, so these stay on the record.
We cited the wrong paragraph for the marketplace duty
Until 8 September 2026 this site cited Art. 45(6) for the duty on a platform to obtain your registration number before letting you sell. It is Art. 45(4); 45(6) is the best-efforts assessment that follows. Corrected on the Germany desk, the Austria desk and the Library.
We described Slovakia's 100 kg rule imprecisely
An earlier version said the rule was about the scheme contract. It is § 27(4)(b) — the Slovak authorised-representative duty — relieved by § 54(6). The correction matters because it is the difference between "you need no representative" and "you need no Slovak representative".
Sources
Each entry above says where to check itself, which is deliberate: a myth-busting page that asks you to trust it is just another rumour with better typography. The underlying documents are these.
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Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR) — EUR-Lex The text behind every article number quoted above —
3(1)(15),12(1),15(5)–(6),44,44(8),45(1),45(3),45(4),46(5) -
European Commission — PPWR Frequently Asked Questions, 2nd edition DG ENV Unit B01, August 2026 (KH-01-26-068-EN-N). Read in full. Useful, and not binding law — it says so itself. It also miscites the manufacturer definition as
Art. 3(1)(12)where it is(13), which is a reminder that official does not mean infallible -
The twenty-seven country desks Slovakia, Czechia, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland and Italy above each link to their own desk, where the finding sits next to its national source
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The suspension that didn't happen The Omnibus entry above, in full, with the Council mandate date
Help us finish this page
Bring us the thing you were told. The entries above exist because somebody repeated a claim in a Discord channel and we went and checked it. That is the whole method, and it works better with more people doing the repeating. Half-true claims are the most valuable ones to send — they are the ones with a real statute behind them, and they are the ones that catch careful people.