China's packaging duties moved into a new Code in August 2026, but the standards that decide a pack's fate did not change

What the Code changed, and what it kept

The Code is China’s second law titled a code (China Daily, carried by the Henan Provincial Government, 21 August 2026), and its five parts run from general provisions through pollution control, ecological protection and green, low-carbon development to legal liability (Jiangmen government summary). The order promulgating it states that it was adopted on 12 March 2026 and applies from 15 August 2026 (Presidential Order No. 70). The NPC Standing Committee announced a bilingual edition with an English text on the NPC website on 21 August 2026, under the English title Ecological and Environmental Code (Henan Provincial Government, carrying China Daily, 21 August 2026).

Article 1242 is the hinge for packaging. It repeals the Environmental Protection Law, the Environmental Impact Assessment Law, the Marine Environmental Protection Law, the Air, Water, Soil, Solid Waste, Noise and Radioactive Pollution laws and the Cleaner Production Promotion Law, all from 15 August 2026 (Jiangmen government summary). Every packaging rule that named the Solid Waste Law as its parent lost that parent on that day.

The packaging duties now sit in Part 4, Chapter 2 on developing the circular economy. Articles 968 to 974 form the cleaner production section, which ends with the two packaging articles, Article 975 opens the waste recycling section, and Article 998 sits in the green consumption section (Xinhua authorised text of Part 4). Exhibit 2 sets the old and new wording side by side.

Three changes deserve a packaging team’s attention. First, Article 973 states that producers “不得进行过度包装” (must not over-package), where Article 68 asked them to avoid it, and adds a duty to reduce packaging waste. Second, Article 974 now opens with “应当减少包装物的使用” (shall reduce the use of packaging), a stronger order of priorities for platforms and couriers. Third, Article 998 adds that substitutes for single-use plastics should be harmless as well as recyclable or degradable, which gives regulators a new hook for testing degradable mailers and tableware.

Article 959 opens with “国家建立健全生产者责任延伸制度” (the state establishes and improves an extended producer responsibility system). The 2020 law’s EPR article, Article 66, named electrical and electronic products, lead-acid batteries and vehicle traction batteries and did not name packaging. SPI has not yet confirmed whether the rest of Article 959 names product groups, so this piece does not treat it as a packaging EPR duty.

How China's packaging rulebook is built

Most readers outside China look for one packaging law. There is none, and the Code does not create one. SPI groups the instruments into a five-layer stack, because each layer answers a different question for a compliance team (Exhibit 3).

Read from the top, the stack shows where the August 2026 change bites. Layers 1 and 4 are current: the Code is new and the standards still apply. Layers 2 and 3 are in force but three of their texts still name the Solid Waste Law as their parent or penalty source, and SPI has not yet confirmed whether the State Council, the Ministry of Transport or MOFCOM has amended them to cite the Code. Layer 5 has run out of dated targets, because the 2021 action plan and the 2023 express plan both aimed at the end of 2025.

The stack also explains why a single product can face several regulators. A mooncake gift box shipped by courier answers to market supervision departments for its sales packaging under GB 23350-2021, and to postal administrations for the parcel around it under the Ministry of Transport measures and GB 45186-2024 (PR-CN-002 rule notes, Article 3). The commerce department enters if the platform that sold it supplied a plastic bag or mailer.

Who carries which duty

Exhibit 4 turns the stack into a role map. It is built from the role sections of SPI’s three China rule notes and the four instruments outside the tracker, and each cell names the article that places the duty.

GB 23350-2021: the three tests, and two amendments

GB 23350-2021, Requirements of restricting excessive package: foods and cosmetics, was issued by SAMR and SAC on 10 August 2021 and took effect on 1 September 2023 (PR-CN-003). It is a mandatory standard, and clause 6 treats a pack as excessive if it fails any one of three tests: number of layers, void ratio or the cost of packaging other than the layer touching the product (PR-CN-003 rule notes). Exhibit 5 sets the base standard against its two amendments.

The amendments did not wait for the base standard. Amendment No. 1 was approved on 24 May 2022 and applied from 15 August 2022 to mooncakes and zongzi, more than a year before the rest of GB 23350-2021 took effect, with goods made before that date allowed to sell through their shelf life (Amendment No. 1 text). Amendment No. 2, organised by MIIT as drafting department, has a planned implementation date of 1 March 2025 on the national standards plan record, and Xinhua, carrying a Guangzhou Daily report of a Guangdong market regulator reminder, reported that its tea coefficient changes applied on release in late March 2024 and its layer limit from 1 March 2025.

The Code did not touch these numbers. SPI has not yet confirmed any amendment to GB 23350-2021 after Amendment No. 2, and found no Code article that sets layer, void or cost limits itself. Article 973 points to “限制商品过度包装的强制性标准” and leaves the content to the standards.

What a lower coefficient does to box size

The void ratio is calculated as X = (Vn minus k x V0) / Vn, where Vn is the package volume, V0 is the contents counted at 1,000 cubic millimetres per gram or millilitre, and k is the category coefficient from Appendix A (PR-CN-003 rule notes). Solving for Vn at the void ratio ceiling gives the largest box a product may ship in. Exhibit 6 runs that for 500 g of product and 250 g of tea, where the ceiling is 30% because net content is above 50 g.

SPI calculation: for 500 g of mooncakes the maximum package volume is 7.0 x 0.5 litres / 0.7 = 5.00 litres, against 12.0 x 0.5 / 0.7 = 8.57 litres under the old pastry coefficient. A 5-litre box is, for example, 25 cm by 20 cm by 10 cm. The three-layer cap removes the usual answer to a small outer box, which was another inner tray or sleeve.

Where the cost cap bites

The cost test divides the cost of layers 2 and above by the sales price. Amendments No. 1 and No. 2 lower that share to 15% above price thresholds, which creates a band in which a dearer product is allowed less packaging money than a cheaper one (Exhibit 7). The scenario uses three price points in each category, all in CNY.

SPI calculation: below CNY 100 a mooncake box may spend up to 20% of its price on outer packaging, so a box at CNY 99.90 is allowed just under CNY 20.00. Above CNY 100 the cap is 15%, which reaches CNY 20.00 again only at a price of about CNY 133.33 (20 / 0.15). For tea the same gap runs from CNY 200 to about CNY 266.67 (40 / 0.15). A brand that prices a gift range just above a threshold should cost its outer packaging against the lower cap, not the price.

The standards family beyond food and cosmetics

GB 23350-2021 is one of four mandatory national standards that now set packaging tests in China. Exhibit 8 lists them with the dates on the national standards records. The topic is sometimes summarised with GB 43284-2023 as the express standard; the national standards record shows GB 43284-2023 covers fresh edible agricultural products, and the express standards are GB 43352-2023 and GB 45186-2024.

GB 43284-2023 brought the excessive packaging tests to fresh produce. SAMR’s question-and-answer note, published on gov.cn on 22 September 2023, says it covers the sales packaging of vegetables (including edible fungi), fruit, livestock and poultry meat, aquatic products and eggs, caps vegetables and eggs at three layers and the other groups at four, and allows six months from release to effect. The national standards record gives the dates as 8 September 2023 and 1 April 2024. SPI has not yet confirmed its numeric void ratio and cost limits from the standard text.

GB 45186-2024 is the parcel counterpart. Xinhua reported on 2 July 2026 that it sets three core indicators, box fit, number of layers and tape use, each with three control tiers, sorts contents into two major classes and 25 subcategories with limits of two, three or four layers, and controls tape by both width and length. People’s Daily, carried by Xinhua on 4 July 2026, reported that tape use for a box whose length, width and height sum to 700 mm or less should not exceed three times a stated reference, and four times between 700 mm and 1,000 mm. SPI has not yet read the reference length in the standard text.

Single-use plastics: the 2025 milestones

Opinion No. 80, signed by NDRC and MEE on 16 January 2020, set three stages, and its last deadline fell on 31 December 2025 (PR-CN-001). The 2021 action plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan period added dated 2025 goals for e-commerce and express parcels. Exhibit 9 lists the packaging-relevant milestones and what official sources say about them.

The 2025 goals were written as a system, not only as bans. The 2021 action plan’s headline aim reads that by 2025 the plastic pollution control mechanism should run more effectively and “白色污染得到有效遏制” (white pollution is effectively curbed), with source reduction, recycling and disposal goals beneath it (NDRC, 15 September 2021). The policy texts do not publish a national outturn for each item, and SPI has found no NDRC or MEE release that scores the 2025 plastics goals one by one.

The legal basis for the bans moved with the Code. Until 15 August 2026, Article 69 of the Solid Waste Law made the bans binding and Article 106 set an order to correct and a fine of CNY 10,000 to 100,000 for breaching them or failing to report (PR-CN-001). Code Article 998 now carries the bans and the reporting duty. SPI has not yet confirmed the Code penalty article or its amount from the official text.

What comes after 2025 is open. The 15th Five-Year Plan period runs from 2026 to 2030, and SPI has found no national plastics action plan for it on the NDRC or MEE sites by 22 October 2026. Readers comparing markets will find a sharper contrast with India, which set one nationwide date for a fixed list in 2022 and now runs recycled-content targets; the India piece sets out those rules.

E-commerce and express packaging rules

Parcels carry most of the weight in China’s packaging policy because of their number. The State Post Bureau reported 198.95 billion express items in 2025, up 13.6%, and express revenue of about CNY 1.5 trillion, up 6.5% (State Post Bureau, carried by Xinhua, 22 January 2026). SAMR noted in February 2024 that annual express volume had grown from about 10 billion items a year to about 10 billion a month.

Three instruments now govern how a parcel is packed. The Ministry of Transport measures of 2021 set duties on box size, tape width, filler and staff training, with fines from CNY 1,000 to 10,000 (PR-CN-002). State Council Decree No. 806, signed on 13 April 2025 and in force from 1 June 2025, wrote packaging into the Interim Regulations on Express Delivery: Article 37 requires parcels to avoid excessive packaging and meet mandatory national standards, Article 40 promotes shipping goods in their original packaging to avoid a second layer, Article 42 requires a recovery and reuse system, and Article 43 requires reports on single-use plastics in packaging. GB 45186-2024 then supplied the numbers from 1 July 2026.

Platforms carry the reporting load. The MOFCOM and NDRC measures in force since 20 June 2023 require retail venue operators, e-commerce platforms (including food delivery platforms) and food delivery firms to report single-use plastics use and recovery to the county-level commerce department through a national system, with first-half reports due by 31 July and second-half reports by 31 January of the following year. E-commerce platforms report express plastic packaging use and must obtain self-discipline commitments from merchants (MOFCOM and NDRC Order No. 1 of 2023, Articles 12, 16 and 18).

Exhibit 10 sets the end-2025 express packaging targets against what the State Post Bureau reported in December 2025.

Fines in CNY: what SPI can and cannot state

Exhibit 11 lists the fines SPI can tie to an official text, in CNY, and marks which ones rested on the repealed law. Nothing here is summed: each row is one instrument’s range for one breach.

Decree No. 806 shows the problem in one sentence. Article 56(1) sends courier breaches of mandatory standards and plastics reporting to the Standardization Law and the Solid Waste Law for penalties, and the second of those laws no longer exists. Article 45 of the Ministry of Transport measures does the same. SPI has not yet confirmed whether the State Council or the ministries have amended these cross-references, or how enforcement bodies are applying them since 15 August 2026.

SPI’s three rule notes recorded the same gap on 14 October 2026, and the tracker records for PR-CN-001, PR-CN-002 and PR-CN-003 give the Solid Waste Law fines only as the position before 15 August 2026. This piece follows that rule.