PPWR Commission guidance: how to read and use it

On 5 June 2026 the European Commission adopted a notice setting out guidance on Regulation (EU) 2025/40, published in the Official Journal on 10 June 2026 (OJ C, C/2026/3084; the act itself is C/2026/3702). It runs to 33 sections and answers questions collected from Member State authorities and from industry. For anyone who signs an EU declaration of conformity, it is the first official text saying plainly who should draft it.

Start with what the document is not, because that is where the confusion sits.

Legal force: interpretation, not new rules#

The guidance settles its own status. In the introductory part the Commission writes: "This guidance document does not replace, add to, or amend the provisions of the PPWR, which alone establish the applicable legal obligations." And further: "However, the binding interpretation of EU legislation remains the exclusive competence of the Court of Justice of the European Union."

It "should not be considered in isolation but must be read in conjunction with the relevant legislation", and may be updated as experience accumulates. FAQs published on 30 March 2026 complement it.

More instruments follow over two to three years: implementing acts, delegated acts, standardisation requests and further guidance. The Commission notes it will not prioritise the implementing act on identifying material composition by digital labelling.

Who drafts the declaration: the manufacturer, not the producer#

The Regulation uses two terms that sound interchangeable in ordinary speech but denote two roles defined for different purposes.

The Commission puts it without hedging: "there is always only one manufacturer in a supply chain within the meaning of the PPWR." And then, in a passage that belongs above every declaration workflow:

The EU declaration of conformity (Article 39) must be drafted by the manufacturer, based on the information and documentation provided by suppliers pursuant to Article 16(1), or by an authorised representative, appointed by the manufacturer by a written mandate pursuant to Article 17. This means that the manufacturer is the sole economic operator bearing legal responsibility for the packaging's compliance with the sustainability and labelling requirements, regardless of who might have actually drafted the EU declaration of conformity or parts of it.

The last clause is the operative one. Handing the drafting to a laboratory, a consultant or a supplier does not move the responsibility. The Article 38 assessment may be run by the manufacturer or by someone on its behalf — a laboratory or a certification scheme — under Article 15(2). Responsibility stays put.

How to work out whether you are the manufacturer#

The guidance offers several practical rules:

A separate rule covers micro-enterprises. If the company having packaging made under its own name is a micro-enterprise and its packaging supplier sits in the same Member State, that supplier is the manufacturer (Article 3(1), point (13)(b)). The threshold from Recommendation 2003/361/EC: fewer than 10 persons employed and annual turnover or balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 2 million. The reverse configuration does not trigger the carve-out.

The guidance also closes a route some non-EU suppliers had used: a branch without separate legal personality cannot qualify as an importer. A non-EU manufacturer with only an EU branch must incorporate a subsidiary or appoint an authorised representative. VAT registration alone is not establishment, and Member States cannot impose requirements that undermine the harmonised notions of producer and importer.

Supplier evidence and the technical documentation#

On the evidence side, the most important phrase is "based on the information and documentation provided by suppliers pursuant to Article 16(1)". The Commission treats supplier data not as supporting material but as the proper foundation of the declaration — worth holding to when you press a silent supplier for the documents the PPWR requires.

Later sections spell out what belongs in the Annex VII technical documentation:

• Recycled-content exemptions (Article 7(5)) apply directly and need no grant from the Commission or national authorities. The manufacturer must substantiate compliance with the exemption requirements in the technical documentation, with documented evidence. For Article 7(5)(a), the polymer used must be identified for each plastic part accounting for at least 5 % of the packaging unit's weight.
• Packaging minimisation (Article 10) — the obliged party is the manufacturer, who must run the conformity assessment and draw up the technical documentation and the declaration. Until 1 January 2030 the assessment rests on EN 13428:2004.
• Custom-designed transport packaging (Article 29(4)(b)) — the exemption requires documentation, held in the technical file, showing the packaging was designed for the specific product.
• Recyclability — Article 6(1) applies from 12 August 2026, but manufacturers need not perform the Article 38 and Annex VII conformity assessment for recyclability until the delegated acts under Article 6(4) enter into force. That is a real reduction in what today's documentation must carry.

PFAS: the only part of Article 5 the guidance covers#

Worth saying outright, because it saves time: the guidance has no section on the heavy metal limit. Its only Article 5 section deals with PFAS in food-contact packaging. The 100 mg/kg limit on the sum of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium stays put, and is calculated as before.

There the Commission notes that no harmonised EU methodology exists for testing PFAS in food-contact packaging, and recommends a stepwise approach. Step one is total fluorine quantification: below 50 mg/kg, the sample could be considered compliant. Above it, step two uses methods such as pyrolysis-GC/MS to confirm whether the fluorine is organic; step three is a direct total oxidizable precursors analysis against the 25 µg/kg and 250 µg/kg limits. On the evidence available to the Commission, samples compliant with the first test are also compliant with the other two.

The second point concerns stock: the Regulation gives no transitional period for exhausting it. Packaging placed on the market before 12 August 2026 may remain and need not be withdrawn; anything placed after must meet the limits, with no exception for recycled material. For imports, the timestamp is release for free circulation on completion of customs.

EUNR: common positions from the national registers#

Alongside the guidance runs the European National Registers network (EUNR) — a voluntary association of Member State representatives, bringing together the national authorities and organisations responsible for producer registers and packaging data. It develops common approaches to a uniform interpretation of the Regulation, including coordinated clarifications of terms, and publishes explanatory documents with common positions.

For a company on a single market that is a footnote. For one selling in several Member States it is the mechanism meant to stop the same carton being classified one way in Poland and another in Germany, with the divergence surfacing only at inspection. The producer role is settled market by market, so common positions from the registers feed straight into which role you hold where.

Where and how to read it#

The guidance exists in all official EU languages: open it on EUR-Lex and swap /EN/ for your own language code when a supplier needs the local wording. CELEX is 52026XC03084, ELI http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/3084/oj. In technical documentation, cite the reference and section number, not a bare link.

What the guidance does not change#

It does not change the deadlines or the limits. The key requirements apply from 12 August 2026, the Article 5 limit on the sum of the four heavy metals is still 100 mg/kg, and Annex VIII and Annex VII are untouched. What changes is how authorities will read those provisions — and what justification you can write into your documentation today, resting on the Commission's position rather than your own.

If the guidance has moved your answer to which entity in your group is the manufacturer, revisit your declarations and check the right party issues them. Start from the post on how to issue a packaging declaration of conformity; to see a complete data set on one item, break a pack down into its materials.

Responsibility for a declaration rests with whoever signs it. The guidance helps identify who that is. It takes nothing off them.

Sources#

• Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste — base text, CELEX 32025R0040.
• Commission Notice — Guidelines on Regulation (EU) 2025/40 — C/2026/3702, OJ C, C/2026/3084 of 10.06.2026, ELI: data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/3084/oj, CELEX 52026XC03084.
• European Commission FAQ on the PPWR — published 30 March 2026.
• Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment communiqué, 08.06.2026 — announcement describing the EUNR's role (in Polish).
• European National Registers (EUNR) — common positions from the national registers.