When does the French professional packaging EPR stream start?

1 January 2027. The stream was originally meant to enter into force on 1 July 2026; the ministry's press release of 28 July 2026 records the minister, Mathieu Lefèvre, deferring its operational implementation to 1 January 2027 because the travaux communautaires needed to identify the economic operators had not concluded and the schemes' barèmes had been published too late for operators to model the cost. The ministry said every operator concerned must have joined an éco-organisme by the end of 2026.

What does wood packaging cost under the French professional packaging EPR?

The contribution is a weight-based charge per material: tonnes placed on the market multiplied by a rate per tonne. For 2027, Léko Pro's own published barème sets wood at €8.07 a tonne, excluding tax. French trade press reports €9 a tonne for Citeo Pro and €7.91 a tonne for Twiice. The Fédération Nationale du Bois says those French rates are €2 to €3 a tonne above the €6 a tonne announced for wood packaging in Spain. We have read the Léko Pro rate on Léko Pro's own barème; the other two rest on the trade report.

KontorBund — Note France's professional (B2B) packaging EPR from 1 January 2027 and the wood-tariff dispute
Last checked 13 October 2026
kontorbund.com/notes/fr-professional-packaging-epr.html

The Library

France's professional (B2B) packaging EPR from 1 January 2027 and the wood-tariff dispute

Q: Is France's professional packaging EPR the same as the household packaging EPR that catches distance sellers?

No. They are two separate REP streams with separate scheme arrangements. Emballages ménagers — household packaging — is what a distance seller shipping packaged goods to French consumers produces, and it is the regime behind the Citeo, Adelphe and Léko memberships, the identifiant unique you publish on your own site, and Triman and Info-tri. Emballages professionnels — professional packaging, the B2B stream — is a second stream, and the wider perimeter that covers all professional packaging applies from 1 January 2027.

Last checked13 October 2026

KeeperOpen — keeper wanted

StatusApplies from 1 January 2027

The short version

France runs two packaging streams, and this page is about the one a distance seller shipping to consumers is not in. Emballages professionnels — professional, B2B packaging — covers all professional packaging from 1 January 2027, deferred from 1 July 2026 by the minister, Mathieu Lefèvre, in a press release of 28 July 2026. Every producer concerned has to have joined an éco-organisme by 31 December 2026; three are approved for the wider perimeter — Citeo Pro, Léko Pro and Twiice — and three individual systems are approved alongside them. The first rates to be argued about are on wood: €8.07 a tonne on Léko Pro's own published 2027 barème, €9 a tonne for Citeo Pro and €7.91 for Twiice as reported by French trade press, against the €6 a tonne the Fédération Nationale du Bois says has been announced for wood packaging in Spain. The FNB says it asked the three schemes, OCAEPRO and the ministry repeatedly for the economic assumptions behind those numbers and got no detail.

Two packaging streams, and which one a distance seller is in

The France desk already says it, and it is worth repeating at the top of a page about rates: household packaging (emballages ménagers) and professional packaging (emballages professionnels) are separate REP streams with separate scheme arrangements. The household stream is the one behind the Citeo, Adelphe and Léko memberships, the identifiant unique you publish on your own website, the mandataire duty since 10 July 2026 and Triman/Info-tri. It is what catches an ordinary distance seller shipping packaged goods to French consumers.

This page is about the other one. The professional packaging stream was created by the loi AGEC and is a European stream, like household packaging. It has been in place since March 2024 for professional packaging in the restaurant sector, with the whole of professional packaging following from 1 January 2027.

If you only sell B2C into France, this is not your stream. Nothing on this page replaces the household answer — the mandataire, the IDU on your site, the Triman mark. It is the second registration you will need if you also ship B2B into France. The household side is set out in full on the France desk.

Legal creation: Article L. 541-10-1 2° of the Code de l'environnement — the loi AGEC's creation of a stream for professional packaging.
The restaurant perimeter, in place since March 2024: One éco-organisme approved (Citeo Pro), under décret 2023-162 du 7 mars 2023, the arrêté du 20 juillet 2023 setting the perimeter, the same date's cahier des charges, and the arrêté du 11 mars 2024 granting the approval. In scope: primary food packaging consumed or used specifically by professionals with a catering business, above the mass or volume thresholds in the annex to the perimeter order.
The full perimeter, from 1 January 2027: Décret 2025-1081 du 17 novembre 2025; the cahier des charges and the perimeter each by arrêté du 2 décembre 2025.
What stays out: ADEME's wording: packaging that already belongs to another REP stream will not be taken into account in the professional packaging stream. So a packaging item that is already inside another stream is not counted here — which is a scoping rule, and worth checking against whatever else you already declare.
What the stream has to achieve: For the 2027 perimeter the cahier des charges sets, among others, wood recycling at 25% from 2028 and 30% from 2030, and reuse objectives on transport packaging — 40% reusable and in a reuse system by 2030 for transport and sales packaging used for transport, and 100% for certain internal and B2B delivery flows. The headline is a per-tonne contribution; the direction of travel behind it is reuse.

The date: 1 January 2027, deferred from 1 July 2026

The date on this page is not a trade-press estimate. It is in a ministry press release, and the ADEME write-up on the government's REP portal repeats it.

What was supposed to happen: The stream was to enter into force on 1 July 2026.
The reasons the minister gave: Two, in the press release of 28 July 2026. First, the travaux communautaires needed to identify the economic operators called on to contribute had not concluded, leaving many operators unsure whether they had to join one of the three éco-organismes. Second, the late publication of the schemes' barèmes had not allowed those operators to take the new charge into their business model.
What he decided: To postpone the operational implementation to 1 January 2027, and to ask the approved éco-organismes to publish their 2027 barème from September. The ministry added that all uncertainties about the obligations would be lifted by the administration at the latest in September 2026.
The deadline that lands on you: In the minister's own words: every operator concerned must have joined an éco-organisme by the end of the year, "pour une REP pleinement opérationnelle au 1er janvier 2027". ADEME words it as a warning: anticipate your obligations by joining an éco-organisme before 31 December 2026.

The shape of the sequence matters more than the date itself. In July the ministry deferred the stream because the rates were not out. The rates are now out, or at least some of them are — and the argument described further down (the FNB's complaint) is about whether anyone can see how they were built.

Who is caught, and by when you must have joined

The producer definition the stream has applied since March 2024 is the familiar one, and it is worth reading against the packaging it concerns:

"toute personne qui, à titre professionnel, emballe ou fait emballer ses produits en vue de leur mise sur le marché, tout importateur dont les produits sont commercialisés dans des emballages ou, si le producteur ou l'importateur ne peuvent être identifiés, la personne responsable de la première mise sur le marché de ces produits."

ADEME makes the practical consequence explicit: the packaging manufacturer is not the producer — the party who puts the products into the packaging is. For the wider perimeter applying from 1 January 2027, ADEME points to alinéa 15 of Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (the PPWR) for the producer definition, and says it will publish further guidance on how to interpret it. That guidance is not on the page yet.

The three éco-organismes for the wider perimeter: Citeo Pro, Léko Pro and Twiice. ADEME's filière page gives the approval date as 5 June 2026; the timeline on the same page files the approval under July 2026. Both are on the official page, and we have not tried to reconcile them.
Three individual systems, approved in their own right: Euro Pool System France, approved from 9 July 2026 to 31 December 2030; La Palette Rouge, from 9 July 2026 to 31 December 2031; International Pallet Pool BV, from 6 July 2026 to 31 December 2031. These are systèmes individuels agréés — the route that sits beside joining an éco-organisme — and the names are those of pallet and crate poolers, which is the wood-heavy end of the stream.
One membership, one stream: Joining an éco-organisme for professional packaging is a second membership. Léko says expressly that its own adherents get a guichet unique — a single desk for the household stream and the professional stream, with the same tool for declarations, payments and monitoring. That is a service claim by one scheme, not a rule.
Where the tonnage comes from: The contribution is a weight-based charge per material: the tonnes of each material you place on the market, multiplied by that material's rate per tonne. A multi-material item is declared material by material. Léko Pro's barème adds a simplification: a material under 5% of the weight of a packaging unit may be declared under the predominant material — with the exception that this rule does not apply to plastic.

The published wood tariffs

Wood is where the argument started, because wood is what pallets, wooden crates and cagettes are made of. Four numbers are in play, and they do not all have the same standing.

Rate, 2027	Wood packaging, per tonne	How far we could verify it
Léko Pro	€8.07	Read on Léko Pro's own published 2027 barème
Citeo Pro	€9	French trade press only — Citeo Pro's 2027 tariff guide sits behind a registration form
Twiice	€7.91	French trade press only — Twiice's resource page for its barème did not resolve when we checked
Spain, for comparison	€6	The FNB's comparison, as reported. We have not seen a Spanish source

Rate, 2027

Wood packaging, per tonne

How far we could verify it

Léko Pro

€8.07

Read on Léko Pro's own published 2027 barème

Citeo Pro

€9

French trade press only — Citeo Pro's 2027 tariff guide sits behind a registration form

Twiice

€7.91

French trade press only — Twiice's resource page for its barème did not resolve when we checked

Spain, for comparison

€6

The FNB's comparison, as reported. We have not seen a Spanish source

Wood is at the cheap end of the scale, which is exactly why the argument is about it. Léko Pro's barème for 2027 publishes the whole per-material table, and the gap between wood and the rest is an order of magnitude:

Material (Léko Pro, 2027)	Rate, excl. tax, per tonne
Plastics	€259.00
Carton	€34.65
Wood	€8.07
Other materials — glass, aluminium, steel, textile, ceramic, cork…	€5.05
Non-plastic packaging of dangerous goods	€82.69

This is one scheme's scale, not a harmonised national rate: The table above is Léko Pro's. Each éco-organisme publishes its own barème, which is why there are three different wood rates rather than one. Read it as an illustration of the spread, not as a rate that applies to you by operation of law.
The floor that decides who pays what: Léko Pro's barème applies from 4 tonnes placed on the market; below that, a flat rate of €220 excl. tax is available instead, and the minimum invoice for the year is €220 excl. tax. Detailed declarations for 2027 go in on the MyLéko portal from January 2028.
The rates are not frozen: Léko Pro states in the barème itself that it may change during the year if the regulatory framework set by the public authorities changes, and that it will inform adherents as soon as possible. A 2027 rate published in October 2026 is therefore a starting point, not a guarantee.
What the annual bill looks like in practice: Take the quantities first, the rate second. Wood at €8.07 a tonne means a busy B2B flow of pallets is still a small line, while the same tonnage in plastic is more than thirty times the money. The barème is a per-material schedule precisely because the costs behind it are per material — which is the substance of the dispute below.

The FNB's transparency complaint

The Fédération Nationale du Bois — the French national timber federation — has accused the French schemes of publishing rates that are both too high and opaque. In a statement, it compares the French rates with the €6 a tonne it says has been announced for wood packaging in Spain, a difference of between €2 and €3 a tonne:

"Rien de rationnel ne peut expliquer des tarifs significativement plus élevés entre les deux pays. La France est numéro 1 européen pour la production des emballages professionnels en bois et dispose de la filière la mieux organisée pour le réemploi et la valorisation en fin de vie. Tous les emballages bois usagés correctement triés et isolés ont une valeur positive, voire très positive. Ce ne sont pas des déchets mais de la matière noble apte au réemploi et au recyclage. C'est la boucle d'économie circulaire la plus aboutie et qui sert de modèle dans les écoles de formation au développement durable."

The complaint is not only about the level. The FNB says that for months it asked the three éco-organismes, OCAEPRO and the Ministry of the Ecological Transition, repeatedly, for the detail of the economic assumptions that produce those rates — and that it received none. Its own account of why it was asking is the practical part:

"Comprendre pour aider à améliorer, tel était notre offre de service. Nous souhaitions échanger avant la publication des tarifs et éviter que les éco organismes embarquent notamment les collectivités sur le terrain de l'illégalité. Nous nous sommes heurtés à un rideau de fer et à une position soudée et concertée des éco organismes comme de l'OCAEPRO pour ne rien laisser filtrer. La passivité du Ministère nous interpelle car la transparence devrait être leur leitmotiv…"

Who the FNB speaks for: 80 national, regional or trade organisations dedicated to French timber and its use, representing 1,750 companies with €5bn in turnover.
What it is, and what it is not: This is a trade-body position, not a regulatory decision. The rates come from the éco-organismes; the perimeter and the cahier des charges come from the arrêtés. The FNB's statement does not change a rate, and nothing in the sources we read shows the ministry or OCAEPRO answering it.
What it says it will do next: The FNB says it is determined to make transparency the rule and will take the steps needed to get there. It also frames the point commercially: the sector is highly competitive and contracts are won or lost on cents, so a per-tonne charge nobody can explain is not a rounding error for a bidder.
The earlier, wider version of the same argument: That last phrase — the risk of installing a new scandale d'État "en plus de la REP PMCB" — refers to the building-products stream, not to packaging. It is context for how the FNB reads French EPR generally, not evidence about the packaging rates.

What remains open

A dated page should say where its own limits are. These are ours, as of 13 October 2026.

Two of the three wood rates are second-hand: We read €8.07 a tonne on Léko Pro's own barème PDF. The €9 (Citeo Pro) and €7.91 (Twiice) figures reach us through French trade press reporting. Citeo Pro's 2027 tariff guide is delivered only after a registration form, and Twiice's resource page for its barème did not resolve when we checked on 13 October 2026. If you need a rate you can rely on, ask the scheme you are joining for its own barème.
Twiice's own publication window: Twiice's site carries a banner stating that the éco-contribution barèmes will be published before 15 October, on the calendar agreed with the DGPR. Its site also states plainly that the stream enters into force on 1 January 2027. Expect the picture on this page to move within days of the date we checked it.
The Spanish comparison: The €6 a tonne is the FNB's comparison as reported. We have not read a Spanish rate ourselves, so treat the €2–€3 gap as a claim by an interested party rather than a verified comparison — a claim, note, about a stream that is a different national scheme with different cost bases.
The ministry's September deadline: The ministry said all uncertainties about the obligations would be lifted by the administration at the latest in September 2026. We have not seen the document that does it. ADEME's page still says it will publish further guidance on interpreting the producer definition — in the future tense.
Two loose ends on the official page itself: ADEME gives the approval of Citeo Pro, Léko Pro and Twiice as 5 June 2026 in the body text and files it under July 2026 in the timeline. And the barèmes, which the ministry asked for "from September", are reported as published in early October. Neither is a substantive doubt about what you have to do, but both are the kind of detail a page like this one should not silently smooth over.
What the FNB's campaign produces, if anything: Unknown, and unknowable from the texts. A rate that a federation calls opaque is still the rate in the barème, and the barème is what the éco-organisme bills from.

Known traps

"It's packaging EPR, and I already do the French packaging EPR"

Two streams, two memberships, two sets of declarations. Your Citeo or Adelphe position for the parcels you send to French consumers does nothing for the crates and pallets you send to French business customers. If you sell B2B into France, the question is not whether you are registered but where.

Working to the 1 July 2026 date

That date was the original entry into force and it did not hold. The operational implementation is 1 January 2027, and the deadline that bites earliest is 31 December 2026 for joining a scheme — the minister's own framing, and ADEME's.

Thinking the loud number is the only number

The wood argument is loud because wood is what pallets are made of. It is also the cheapest rate in the schedule bar one — €8.07 a tonne at Léko Pro against €259 for plastics. If your professional packaging is film-heavy rather than crate-heavy, the wood dispute is not where your money is.

Assuming the rate you read in October is the rate you will pay

Léko Pro's barème says outright that it may change during the year if the regulatory framework changes. Publish a page, a price list or a bid on a three-month-old per-tonne figure and you have priced a moving target.

Treating a flat rate as a way around the tonnage

Léko Pro's €220 flat rate is for producers below 4 tonnes a year, and €220 is also the minimum invoice. A one-person shop shipping a few crates a year is inside the small numbers, not outside the stream.

Reading the FNB's complaint as legal advice about your bill

It is a federation's position, and an important one to know about — a rate built on assumptions nobody will show you is a real budget risk. But it does not suspend anything, and the adherence deadline is unaffected by it.

Sources

Official first, then the schemes' own barèmes, then the trade press. Where a figure rests only on a secondary source, the body text says so rather than leaving it to a footnote.

Ministère de la Transition écologique — “Filière REP pour les emballages professionnels : Mathieu Lefèvre annonce la mise en œuvre opérationnelle de la filière à partir du 1er janvier 2027”, communiqué de presse, 28 July 2026 Official, read in full. Source for the stream being due to enter into force on 1 July 2026, for the two reasons given for the deferral (the travaux communautaires to identify the economic operators not concluded; the late publication of the barèmes), for the postponement of the operational implementation to 1 January 2027, for the request that the schemes publish their 2027 barème from September, for the statement that all uncertainties would be lifted by the administration at the latest in September 2026, and for the requirement that every operator concerned have joined an éco-organisme by the end of the year
ADEME — “Emballages professionnels (EPRO)”, filières à responsabilité élargie du producteur portal, gouvernement français Official, read in full. Source for the stream's creation by the loi AGEC and Art. L. 541-10-1 2°, its European character, its application since March 2024 for restaurant packaging and from 1 January 2027 for all professional packaging, the three éco-organismes agréés (Citeo Pro, Léko Pro, Twiice — approval given as 5 June 2026 in the text and under July 2026 in the timeline), the guidance to join a scheme before 31 December 2026, the statement that the schemes would publish their barèmes during September 2026, the three systèmes individuels agréés with their approval dates (Euro Pool System France 09/07/2026–31/12/2030; La Palette Rouge 09/07/2026–31/12/2031; International Pallet Pool BV 06/07/2026–31/12/2031), the producer definition applied to the restaurant perimeter and the reference for 2027 to alinéa 15 of Article 3 of Regulation 2025/40 with further guidance to come, the exclusion of packaging already in another REP stream, the legal texts (décret 2025-1081 du 17 novembre 2025; arrêtés du 2 décembre 2025), and the recycling and reuse objectives including wood at 25% from 2028 and 30% from 2030
Léko Pro — “Barème des emballages professionnels, applicable au 1er janvier 2027” (PDF) Scheme source, read in full. The only wood rate we read on a scheme's own document: wood €8.07 per tonne, excl. tax, alongside plastics €259.00, carton €34.65, other materials €5.05, non-plastic dangerous-goods packaging €82.69, the 4-tonne threshold and the €220 excl. tax flat rate, the €220 minimum invoice, declarations on MyLéko from January 2028, the 5% predominant-material rule (not applied to plastic), and the scheme's own warning that the barème may change during the year if the regulatory framework changes
Léko — “Découvrez le barème 2027 de Léko Pro et adhérez dès maintenant !”, published 6 October 2026 Scheme source for the timing: the 2027 barème is available, adherence contracts take effect on 1 January, and Léko positions a guichet unique for the household and professional streams. A service claim by one scheme, cited as such
Twiice — site of the approved éco-organisme for professional packaging Scheme source. Source for the statement that the professional packaging REP enters into force on 1 January 2027, and for the banner stating that the éco-contribution barèmes will be published before 15 October on the calendar agreed with the DGPR. Its resource page for the barème itself did not resolve on 13 October 2026
Citeo Pro — “Tarif Emballages Professionnels, guide du tarif 2027” Scheme source, not read: the 2027 tariff guide is delivered only after a registration form (raison sociale, contact details, consent), so we could not open the document behind the €9 figure. The page does confirm that a 2027 guide exists
Emballage Digest — “REP Emballages professionnels : la FNB dénonce des tarifs trop élevés”, by Karine Duval, 12 October 2026 Trade press — a secondary source, read in full, and the origin of the figures we could not read on a scheme's own site: €9/tonne for Citeo Pro, €8.07/tonne for Léko Pro and €7.91/tonne for Twiice, the comparison with Spain at €6 a tonne and the gap of €2 to €3 a tonne, and the FNB's statements in full, including that it asked the three éco-organismes, OCAEPRO and the Ministry of the Ecological Transition repeatedly for the economic assumptions, the “rideau de fer”, and the federation's figures of 80 organisations, 1,750 companies and €5bn in turnover. The article's published headline is “la FNB dénonce des tarifs trop élevés”
KontorBund — the France desk, section “B2B is a separate stream, and it is moving” Our own page, dated 13 October 2026, on the household packaging stream: the mandataire since 10 July 2026, the identifiant unique you must publish on your own site, Citeo's €80 flat rate, Triman and Info-tri, and the €30,000 fine. That is the regime that catches an ordinary distance seller shipping to French consumers

Help us keep this page honest

Two things would close the gaps above, and both come from someone doing this for real: a barème PDF from Citeo Pro or Twiice for 2027 as published by the scheme, and the Spanish wood rate with a source behind it, so the comparison the FNB is making can be checked by someone other than the FNB. If you have either, send it to us and we will correct the page date.

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