Do I have to keep records to prove second-hand clothing is fit for re-use?

Under Article 22d(8) and (9) of the Waste Framework Directive, inserted by Directive (EU) 2025/1892, Member States must ensure that shipments arranged on a professional basis of used textile, textile-related and footwear products assessed as fit for re-use are accompanied by a copy of the invoice and contract stating the goods are destined for direct re-use and fit for direct re-use, evidence of a prior sorting operation or direct professional assessment — a copy of the records on every bale plus a protocol — and a declaration that none of the material in the consignment is waste. The record itself must be fixed securely but not permanently on the packaging and describe the bales at the most detailed sorting granularity. Member States must transpose the directive by 17 June 2027, so the duty reaches you through national law.

Is a Basel Convention change what is driving the used-clothing rules?

Not in the texts we read. The binding dates come from EU law: the separate collection duty (1 January 2025), the management and record-keeping duties of Article 22d (transposition by 17 June 2027), textile EPR schemes in every Member State (17 April 2028) and the export regime for waste destined for recovery in countries to which the OECD Decision does not apply (Article 40 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, applicable from 21 May 2027). Worn clothing already sits in the green list the EU carries from Basel Annex IX, entry B3030.

Textile EPR and proof of reusability: the EU rules over the used-clothing trade

Q: When did separate collection of textiles have to start in the EU?

1 January 2025. Article 11(1) of Directive 2008/98/EC, as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/851, requires Member States to set up separate collection at least for paper, metal, plastic and glass, and, by 1 January 2025, for textiles. The duty is on Member States, not on a seller: it is the collected stream, not your invoice, that the article dates.

Three instruments, three different jobs

The trade coverage bundles these together. They are separate instruments with separate addressees, and only one of them is addressed to you.

The collection duty — Article 11(1), since 1 January 2025: Directive (EU) 2018/851 amended the Waste Framework Directive so that Member States "shall set up separate collection at least for paper, metal, plastic and glass, and, by 1 January 2025, for textiles". The addressee is the Member State. What it creates is the collected stream that sorters, re-use operators and exporters then work from.
The management rules — inserted by Directive (EU) 2025/1892, in force since 16 October 2025: Directive (EU) 2025/1892 of 10 September 2025 (OJ L, 2025/1892, 26.9.2025) entered into force on 16 October 2025. It inserts the extended producer responsibility scheme for textiles (Art. 22a, with the register of producers in Art. 22b and the scheme's obligations in Art. 22c) and an entirely new Art. 22d on the management of waste textiles — protection from weather and contamination, professional screening, sorting requirements, and record-keeping for consignments of used textiles that are said to be fit for re-use. Member States must bring their national measures into force by 17 June 2027 (Art. 2(1)).
The EPR deadline — 17 April 2028: Art. 22c(14): Member States must ensure that the extended producer responsibility schemes for textile, textile-related and footwear products listed in Annex IVc are established by 17 April 2028. The product list is fixed by Combined Nomenclature codes, not by a description of "fast fashion".
The export regime — from 21 May 2027: Regulation (EU) 2024/1157 (OJ L, 2024/1157, 30.4.2024) applies from 21 May 2026. Its prohibition on exporting non-hazardous waste destined for recovery to countries to which the OECD Decision does not apply (Art. 40) applies from 21 May 2027, with one paragraph, Art. 40(3)(b), running from 21 May 2026. The list of countries to which such exports are authorised is to be adopted by 21 November 2026 (Art. 41(3)); the machinery around that list has applied since 20 May 2024.
What is not in any of them: No euro amount, no brand list and no penalty scale. Those are national — see which Member States charge and, for the worked example on this site, France's ultra-fast-fashion fees.

The collection duty, and what it is not

The year the separate-collection duty began is the first thing the trade copy we started from had asterisked out. It is 1 January 2025, and the sentence is in the third subparagraph of Article 11(1) of the Waste Framework Directive as amended in 2018: separate collection "at least for paper, metal, plastic and glass, and, by 1 January 2025, for textiles".

Two corrections follow from reading it in the original. First, it is a duty on Member States to have the collection infrastructure, not a duty on a shop to hand anything over. Second, it does not come from the 2025 revision: the 2025 instrument added the EPR scheme and the management rules of Article 22d, and it inserts a further sentence into the same Article 11(1) requiring Member States to ensure the necessary infrastructure and territorial coverage of separate collection points.

Why a seller should still care about a Member State duty. Once collection is separate and general, the material the trade buys is cleaner, more standardised and more closely inspected. The 2025 revision then puts obligations on the same material at the other end — sorting granularity, bale records and proof of re-use grade.

Screening, sorting and “waste on collection”

Art. 22d is the part of the 2025 revision that a seller of used clothing meets first. It is written as "Member States shall ensure", which matters for who is liable and when — see the traps.

Protection and professional screening — Art. 22d(1): Collection, loading and unloading, transport, storage and handling — and the sorting and treatment that follow — must be protected from adverse weather and sources of contamination. Separately collected used and waste textile must undergo a professional screening at the separate collection point or the sorting facility to identify and remove non-target items, materials or substances that are potential sources of contamination.
Waste upon collection — Art. 22d(2): Used and waste textile, textile-related and footwear products that are separately collected are considered to be waste upon collection. The same paragraph requires different fractions of textile materials and items to be kept separate at the point of waste generation where that helps re-use, preparing for re-use or recycling. Discarded unsold stock in scope is treated the same way.
The one exception — Art. 22d(3): Products handed over directly by end users and directly professionally assessed as fit for re-use at the collection point by the re-use operator or a social economy entity are not considered waste upon collection. That is the narrow door through which a hand-over stays a second-hand good.
How sorting must be done — Art. 22d(4) and (5): Separately collected textiles must be sorted so that they are treated in line with the waste hierarchy. Sorting must generate products for re-use and preparing for re-use, prioritising local sorting and local re-use where appropriate; it must work at a level of granularity that allows item-to-item sorting, separating what is fit for direct re-use from what needs further preparing for re-use; and it must target a specific re-use market, applying up-to-date sorting criteria relevant to the receiving market. Items not suitable for re-use are sorted for remanufacturing and recycling, with remanufacturing preferred.
The survey — Art. 22d(6): By 1 January 2026, and every five years after that, Member States must run a compositional survey of collected mixed municipal waste to determine the share of waste textiles in it. The results must be published, and they can be used to require producer responsibility organisations to enlarge collection networks and run information campaigns.

What a seller has to be able to document

This is the heart of the "proof of reusability" story, and it is specific. Where a shipment of used textile, textile-related or footwear products is assessed as fit for re-use and is arranged on a professional basis, Art. 22d(8) requires it to carry three things, and Art. 22d(9) requires the bale record itself.

1. The paper that says “goods, not waste”: A copy of the invoice and contract for the sale or transfer of ownership which states that the products are destined for direct re-use and that they are fit for direct re-use.
2. The evidence of sorting or assessment: Evidence of a prior sorting operation or a direct professional assessment as fit for re-use — in the form of a copy of the records on every bale within the consignment plus a protocol containing the record information described below.
3. The declaration: A declaration by the person in possession who arranges transport on a professional basis that none of the material within the consignment is waste within the meaning of Art. 3(1). The consignment must also be protected against damage during transport, loading and unloading — sufficient packaging and appropriate stacking, so that the integrity and quality for re-use survive.
The bale record — Art. 22d(9): The record of the sorting, assessment or preparing-for-re-use operation must be fixed securely but not permanently on the packaging. It must contain (i) a description of the items in the bale at the most detailed sorting granularity those items went through — type of clothes, size, colour, gender, material composition and any other characteristic relevant to efficient re-use — and (ii) the name and address of the company responsible for the final sorting or preparing for re-use.
Inspection, and who pays for it — Art. 22d(7) and (10): A shipment assessed as fit for re-use that is suspected of being waste may be inspected by national authorities for compliance with these requirements. Where an intended shipment is suspected of being waste, the costs of analyses, inspections and storage may be charged to the producers of the products listed in Annex IVc, to third parties acting on their behalf, or to other persons arranging the shipment.

Read the addressee before you buy software

Article 22d is addressed to Member States. The duty that reaches your consignment is the national measure transposing it, due by 17 June 2027, or a national rule that already does something similar. Any vendor telling you that "Article 22d requires" a given bale label is skipping the transposition step — and the date it lands on is not the same in every Member State.

Which Member States charge, and from when

The EU instrument sets the frame; the fee, the register and the reporting route are national. On this site France is the worked example, and it is a long-standing one: France already charges a textile fee through the TLC stream and, since 1 September 2026, modulates it by a durability score.

The scope the EU fixes — Annex IVc: EPR attaches to the products in Annex IVc, identified by Combined Nomenclature code: chapters 61 and 62 (articles of apparel and clothing accessories, knitted and not knitted), headings 6301 to 6304 (blankets, bed linen and other furnishing articles), 6309 worn clothing and other worn articles, headings 6504 and 6505 (headgear), 4203 (leather apparel and accessories) and 6401 to 6405 (footwear). Entry 6309 is why the used-clothing trade is inside a producer responsibility scheme at all.
Who is a producer, and the representative duty — Art. 22a(1) and (3): Producers have extended producer responsibility for the Annex IVc products they make available on the market for the first time. A producer established in another Member State must appoint, by written mandate, a legal or natural person established in the Member State of sale as its authorised representative for the EPR obligations there; for third-country producers Member States may require the same. Registration is in a national register of producers under Art. 22b.
What the fees have to cover — Art. 22c(8): Not just disposal. Producers cover the collection of used products for re-use, the separate collection of waste products for preparing for re-use and recycling, transport, sorting, preparing for re-use, recycling, other recovery and disposal, the treatment of waste produced by social economy entities in the collection system, the compositional survey, information campaigns, data reporting, and support for design and fibre-to-fibre recycling.
Where it is already running — Art. 22c(10): The directive itself assumes that some Member States had a textile EPR scheme in place on 16 October 2025: where they did, producers cover the costs for products first made available from that date. The directive does not name those Member States, and we do not list any here beyond France.
Small shops — the date that matters — Art. 41: A paragraph added to Article 41 of the Waste Framework Directive provides that, from 17 April 2029, Articles 22a to 22d apply to enterprises which employ fewer than 10 persons and whose annual turnover and annual balance sheet do not exceed €2 million. Both size tests are cumulative, and the relief is a delay of the EPR articles — not a permanent exemption.
Marketplaces — Art. 22c(13): Online platforms in the scope of the DSA's trader-traceability section must obtain from a producer, before letting them offer Annex IVc products to consumers in the Union, the producer's registration number in the register of the Member State where the consumer is located, and a self-certification that the products offered comply with the textile EPR requirements of that Member State.
The French working example: France's Law n° 2026-602 of 8 July 2026 and the arrêté of 24 August 2026 put a per-item durability penalty into the TLC stream from 1 September 2026: €9 on jeans at a score of 0.8 or lower in 2026 and 2027, €17.25 from 2030, €12 on a coat or jacket, €19.50 from 2030, capped at 50% of the pre-tax price, with the EU's own 17 April 2028 deadline a separate and later thing. The detail — and the thresholds still missing from the décrets — is in the France note.

The export routes to non-OECD countries

The second asterisk in the trade copy sat in front of the words "waste-export regime". The regime is Regulation (EU) 2024/1157 on shipments of waste, and the change of direction for non-OECD routes is in its Article 40.

The rule — Art. 40(1), applicable from 21 May 2027: Exports from the Union, destined for recovery in countries to which the OECD Decision does not apply, of the following are prohibited: non-hazardous wastes listed in Annex III or Annex IIIB and mixtures of non-hazardous wastes listed in Annex IIIA; non-hazardous wastes and mixtures that are in the European List of Waste but not already in those annexes; non-hazardous wastes and mixtures not classified under a single entry in those annexes or in the European List of Waste; and the four entries AB130, AC250, AC260 and AC270.
The exception — Art. 40(2) and (3): The prohibition does not apply to exports to a country included in the list established under Article 41, for the wastes specified for that country. Even then, the waste must go to a facility licensed under the domestic law of the destination country, and must not be destined for interim operations unless the subsequent recovery happens in the same country or in another listed country for that waste. Exports under that paragraph carry the general information requirements of Article 18, or prior written notification and consent where the destination country so asks — and for non-hazardous waste not listed in Basel Annex IX, prior written notification and consent in any event.
The list — Art. 41(3): The Commission's list of countries to which exports of non-hazardous waste and mixtures are authorised is to be adopted by 21 November 2026 — unless no country asks to be on it or none meets the requirements — and updated at least every two years. Countries to which the OECD Decision does not apply had to request inclusion by 21 February 2025, showing that the waste will be managed in an environmentally sound manner (Art. 42(3)), with the Commission assessing each request (Art. 43).
Textiles in that architecture: The regulation carries the Basel green list forward as List B of Part 1 of Annex V, and that list contains entry B3030, “Textile wastes”, which expressly includes “worn clothing and other worn textile articles” and used rags, sorted or other. Under the regulation's own introductory note, wastes in List B are caught by the export prohibition of Article 39 only if contaminated to the stated extent; otherwise the Article 40 regime governs. Separately, the regulation records that the Commission should assess whether to add entries on mixtures of waste footwear, waste clothing and other textile waste to Annex IIIA — the annex of mixtures that carry the notification procedure.
Where the practical pressure lands: A destination country that is not on the Article 41 list cannot take these consignments for recovery from 21 May 2027, and one that is on it takes them under information or notification conditions. That is a routing change for sorters and exporters, and it arrives before the EPR deadline of 17 April 2028 — not after it.

Basel, and why the EU rules are the ones that bite

The trade account we started from makes a claim we cannot verify from the Convention's own texts: that the binding pressure on the used-clothing trade today comes from the European rules, and not from Basel, because no Basel rule bringing used clothing under tighter controls is in force. We report that as the article's characterisation, not as our finding. The Basel Convention's own annexes were not open to us when we checked.

What we can verify is the EU side, and it is enough to plan on: the instrument that revises the Basel annexes into EU law is the waste-shipment regulation, and its green list already carries worn clothing. A change at Basel would have to be transposed through the Union's own instruments before it reached a consignment leaving Rotterdam or Hamburg — and the dates in those instruments are the ones described above.

The direction of travel is not "less paperwork". The regulation invites the Commission to consider moving textile mixtures into Annex IIIA, the annex whose contents carry the prior-notification procedure. If that happens, the scenario a Kenya-focused study models is no longer hypothetical for the Union's own exports.

What we could not read, and what is still open

We would rather list our gaps than fill them by inference. The starting point for this page was trade press, and the trade press we could read is partly masked.

The article that started this — partly visible: Fibre2Fashion, “EU second-hand clothing rules: Is proof of reusability the new asset?”, 9 October 2026. We could read the headline, the date and the teaser, where the year of the collection duty, the name of the waste-export regime and its date, and the month and year of the study are replaced by asterisks. The full article is behind the publisher's paid tier. Every date on this page instead comes from the official texts listed below.
The IVL / Humana study: The article describes a June study by the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, commissioned by Humana, modelling how Kenya's mitumba market would be affected by permits and compliance delays if prior informed consent were applied to used clothing. We did not read the study, so we publish none of its figures, and we treat it as an EU-export scenario, not as an EU obligation.
The Basel texts: Not opened. The statement that no Basel rule bringing used clothing under tighter controls is in force is therefore reported here as the trade article's claim. We verified only that worn clothing sits in the EU's green list entry B3030, which the regulation carried over from Basel Annex IX.
The Article 41 list: Not verified as adopted. It is due by 21 November 2026; which countries asked to be on it, and which were assessed as compliant, is not something we could confirm from the sources we read.
Annex IIIA and waste clothing mixtures: Not verified. The regulation says the Commission should assess adding entries for mixtures of waste footwear, waste clothing and other textile waste to Annex IIIA. Whether a delegated act has since done so, we cannot say from what we read.
National schemes other than France: Not verified one by one. The directive shows that some Member States had textile EPR schemes on 16 October 2025 without naming them. We list none here beyond France, and we do not treat a packaging fee for textile material as proof of a textile EPR scheme.

Known traps

“We sell goods, so the waste rules are not ours”

Under Art. 22d(2), separately collected used textile products are considered waste upon collection. The only exception in the article is the direct hand-over by end users that is directly professionally assessed as fit for re-use at the collection point. A collection route that skips that assessment has produced waste, whatever the label on the bale says.

Buying a "reusability certificate" that proves nothing

Art. 22d(8) asks for three things, and a certificate answers none of them on its own: the invoice and contract stating direct re-use, evidence of a prior sorting operation or a direct professional assessment, and a declaration that none of the material is waste — with the records on every bale and a protocol behind them.

“Mixed clothing” as a bale description

Art. 22d(9) demands the description at the most detailed sorting granularity the items went through — type of clothes, size, colour, gender, material composition — and the name and address of the company responsible for the final sorting or preparing for re-use, fixed securely but not permanently on the packaging. A generic bale label is the easiest way to lose an inspection.

Waiting for Basel

The dates that bind are already in EU law: separate collection since 1 January 2025, transposition of the Article 22d duties by 17 June 2027, the Article 40 export prohibition from 21 May 2027, and EPR schemes by 17 April 2028. Planning on a Convention change that is not in force means planning on nothing.

Reading the smallest-business relief as permanent

Art. 41 delays the application of Articles 22a to 22d to businesses with fewer than 10 employees and turnover and balance sheet not exceeding €2 million until 17 April 2029. It is a delay, and both tests must be met.

Assuming the platform has checked you

Art. 22c(13) requires online platforms to obtain your registration number in the register of the Member State where the consumer is and a self-certification before you may offer Annex IVc products there. The absence of that check is the platform's problem until your listing is suspended — and then it is yours.

Sources

The instruments were read directly rather than through the trade account above. Where an article number is given, it is the number in the instrument.

Directive (EU) 2025/1892 of 10 September 2025 amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste — EUR-Lex (OJ L, 2025/1892, 26.9.2025) Read in full, 9 October 2026. Source for Art. 22a (EPR for the Annex IVc products and the authorised-representative duty), Art. 22b (register of producers), Art. 22c(8) (the costs producers must cover), Art. 22c(10) and (11) (schemes already running on 16 October 2025), Art. 22c(13) (platform checks), Art. 22c(14) (schemes established by 17 April 2028), Art. 22d(1) to (10) (protection and professional screening, waste upon collection, the hand-over exception, sorting granularity and target market, the compositional survey from 1 January 2026, inspections, the three documents and the bale record, and the charge-back of analysis costs), Annex IVc (CN chapters 61 and 62, headings 6301–6304, 6309 worn clothing and other worn articles, 6504, 6505, 4203, 6401–6405), Art. 2(1) (transposition by 17 June 2027) and the paragraph added to Article 41 of the Waste Framework Directive (from 17 April 2029 for enterprises under 10 persons and €2 million)
Directive (EU) 2018/851 amending Directive 2008/98/EC on waste — EUR-Lex Read in full, 9 October 2026. Source for Art. 11(1): Member States shall set up separate collection at least for paper, metal, plastic and glass and, by 1 January 2025, for textiles — the date the trade copy left blank
Regulation (EU) 2024/1157 of 11 April 2024 on shipments of waste — EUR-Lex (OJ L, 2024/1157, 30.4.2024) Read in full, 9 October 2026. Source for the application dates (21 May 2026 generally; Art. 40 from 21 May 2027, except Art. 40(3)(b) from 21 May 2026; Articles 41 to 43 from 20 May 2024), Art. 4 on which wastes carry the information requirements or the notification procedure, Art. 40(1) to (3), Art. 41(3) (list adopted by 21 November 2026, requests by 21 February 2025), Art. 42 and Art. 43 (requirements for and assessment of a country's request), and entry B3030 “Textile wastes … worn clothing and other worn textile articles” in List B of Part 1 of Annex V, together with the recital inviting the Commission to assess entries on mixtures of waste footwear, waste clothing and other textile waste for Annex IIIA
European Commission — Waste Framework Directive (targeted revision 2025) Official page, read 9 October 2026. Source for the revision's entry into force on 16 October 2025, its focus on food and textile waste, the new rules for the management of used textiles and textile waste, and the Commission's own summary that each Member State will set up its own EPR scheme for textile and footwear products
Fibre2Fashion — “EU second-hand clothing rules: Is proof of reusability the new asset?”, 9 October 2026 Trade press, behind a paywall. Headline, date and teaser only: the characterisation that EU rules are shifting value in the used-clothing trade from collection volume to documented re-use grade and that pressure may move to sorters and to brands funding textile EPR; the reference to a June study by the IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute commissioned by Humana on Kenya's mitumba market; and the claim that the binding pressure today comes from the European rules rather than from Basel. Its dates are masked; we did not rely on any of them
KontorBund — France's ultra-fast-fashion EPR fees, the durability score and the online ‘made in’ duty Our own note, last checked 9 October 2026, for the national layer that sits under these EU instruments and for Art. 22c(6) on modulation

Help us keep this page honest

Two documents would close the gaps above: the Commission's list of countries to which exports are authorised once it is adopted, and a national transposition measure that puts the Article 22d screening and record-keeping duties into practice in a Member State you ship from. If you have either, send it to us and we will correct the page date.

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