In Austria, Portugal and Spain a kilogram of commercial packaging pays a fraction of the household rate, so the split decides most of the bill

Three tests for one question

Every producer in the three countries answers the same question: which of my packaging ends up in households, and which in shops, offices, restaurants, warehouses and factories? The answer is not left to the producer’s view of its own trade in the same way in each place (Exhibit 2).

The rest of this piece takes the countries one at a time, with the same packaging profile priced in each. The profile is an SPI assumption for a dry food producer that sells through retail and catering: 40 tonnes of plastic film bags and 30 tonnes of folding cartons that reach consumers, plus 60 tonnes of corrugated shipping cases, 8 tonnes of pallet stretch film and 20 tonnes of one-way wooden pallets. That is 158 tonnes, of which 70 tonnes are consumer packs and 88 tonnes are transport packaging.

Austria: binding quotas by product group

The legal line. § 13h of the Abfallwirtschaftsgesetz 2002 (AWG 2002) treats packaging as household packaging when it meets two tests at once. The first is size: a surface of up to and including 1.5 m², a hollow container with a nominal volume of up to 5 litres, or EPS of up to 0.15 kg per sales unit. The second is place: it usually arises in private households or in sites comparable to households, which the provision lists, from restaurants, hotels, canteens and offices to hospitals, schools, cinemas and very small businesses (WKO extract of § 13h). Paper, board and corrugated sales packaging counts as household regardless of size where the place test is met, and service packaging and carrier bags are household too. Commercial packaging is everything else, plus paper transport packaging, pallets, strapping and adhesive tapes, and the share of household-type packaging that the split ordinance assigns to other sites (§ 13h(3)).

The new ordinance. The ministry re-issued the Verpackungsabgrenzungsverordnung as BGBl. II Nr. 18/2026, dated 27 January 2026. It is based on § 13h(2), aims at a uniform split so that competition among systems is not distorted (§ 1), entered into force the day after publication and expires at the end of 31 December 2029 (§ 7). Each pack is assigned to a product group by the goods it contains (§ 2); each group has a default category, and plastic tray films that carry several small sales units to the point of sale default to commercial (§ 3(1)). For each group, three tables then give household and commercial shares per material: one for packaging that meets the size criterion or is paper sales packaging, one for packaging that fails it or is paper transport packaging, and one for pallets, strapping and adhesive tapes (Exhibit 3). The ministry’s page describes the method as shares set per material, based on size criteria and on where the packaging arises (BMLUK, Abgrenzung). SPI has not yet confirmed which quotas changed against the 2022 version of the ordinance.

The shares cut both ways. A dry food producer cannot declare its film bags as 100% household: 5% of them are commercial by law, because some reach catering and other businesses. Equally, 7% of its corrugated cases count as household, because some cases are taken home or arise at small sites. An earlier industry guide from Interzero, dated 23 November 2020, notes that an individual analysis of a producer’s own sales channels is no longer permitted, so the quota table replaces the producer’s own estimate. The ministry’s page refers to 47 product groups in its spreadsheet, while the 2026 Annex numbers its groups from AT 01 to at least AT 38, several with sub-groups; SPI has not yet confirmed how the two counts reconcile.

What it costs. ARA’s sheets, version of 29 September 2025 for 2026 and 28 September 2026 for 2027, print one household column (codes 1.xx) and one commercial column (codes 2.xx). Every commercial code is the same in 2025, 2026 and 2027: paper EUR 0.07 per kg, ferrous metal 0.07, aluminium 0.09, foils 0.18, moulded containers 0.10, EPS 0.35, other composites 0.10, ceramics 0.10, wood 0.02, textile fibres 0.10 and biodegradable materials 0.10. The household column for 2027 also holds every 2026 rate, with plastic at EUR 1.04 and paper at EUR 0.208. The Austria piece lists the household codes and ratios line by line, so this piece does not repeat them. Both sheets refer readers to Article 13h for the definitions.

Method. Each line is household kg times the household code plus commercial kg times the commercial code. Film bags: 38,000 x 1.04 + 2,000 x 0.18 = EUR 39,880.00. Folding cartons: 26,100 x 0.208 + 3,900 x 0.07 = EUR 5,701.80. Corrugated cases: 4,200 x 0.208 + 55,800 x 0.07 = EUR 4,779.60. Stretch film: 320 x 1.04 + 7,680 x 0.18 = EUR 1,715.20. Pallets: 20,000 x 0.02 = EUR 400.00, since wood pays the same in both columns.

Two comparisons show what the quotas do. If every item were declared household, the bill would be EUR 69,040.00, or 31.6% more. If the producer instead put consumer packs 100% household and transport packaging 100% commercial, the bill would be EUR 53,880.00, which is 2.7% more than the quota result, because the quotas move 5% of the film bags and 13% of the cartons to the cheaper column. SPI analysis: in Austria the split is not a judgement call but a lookup, so the risk sits in assigning the right product group and the right table to each pack element, and in the open question of how pallet stretch film is treated, which moves this example by EUR 3,302.40.

Austria’s market is also two markets. The ministry’s list, as read in the Austria piece, names six systems licensed for household packaging and five for commercial packaging. A producer may use different systems for the two columns, and an annual minimum fee of EUR 90 and a flat fee of EUR 150 for placers of up to 1,500 kg of household and 1,500 kg of commercial packaging apply at ARA in both 2026 and 2027 (ARA tariff sheets).

Portugal: the flow in which the waste arises

The legal line. Portugal does not split packaging by format or by legal category but by the waste flow it ends up in. The Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (APA) describes the SIGRE integrated system as covering urban-flow packaging from producers of waste below 1,100 litres a day; urban-flow packaging from producers above that line, and the non-urban flow, go from the holder to a licensed operator outside SIGRE (APA, relatório SIGRE 2023). The embalador, as defined by Decree-Law 152-D/2017, still declares both flows to its managing entity, which charges two tables. SPV’s FAQ ties the fee to the type of waste the packaging produces, urban or non-urban, and asks importers to declare all packaging in either flow (SPV, Questões frequentes).

What it costs. Exhibit 5 sets out the 2026 base values of the two largest packaging entities in SIGRE. SPV had 729,024 tonnes and Novo Verde 76,003 tonnes in APA’s 2023 count; Electrão, the third, had 99,015 tonnes, and SPI has not yet confirmed its 2026 values.

Values are rounded to four decimals in Exhibit 5; Novo Verde prints five, for example EUR 0.59261 for urban plastic from 1 August 2026 and EUR 0.00433 for non-urban plastic. Novo Verde’s table moved urban plastic from EUR 0.46734 per kg at the start of 2026 to EUR 0.51408 from 22 February and EUR 0.59261 from 1 August, a rise of 26.8% within the year, while urban steel fell from EUR 0.46164 to EUR 0.39277 on 1 August. SPV’s 2026 table, by contrast, appeared in December 2025 and was reissued in June 2026 with the same values. Novo Verde sets a minimum fee of EUR 150 a year for contracting parties under 1 tonne a year in both flows; SPV’s 2026 table sets a EUR 120 minimum for the simplified declaration regime (SPI fee-market notes).

The non-urban values are close to a handling charge. At SPV, 60 tonnes of non-urban corrugated cases cost EUR 462.00, against EUR 18,624.00 in the urban flow. SPI analysis: the Portuguese line is therefore worth more per kilogram than in Austria or in Spain’s household and commercial split, and it depends on evidence of where the waste arises rather than on a quota table.

Method. At SPV: film bags 40,000 x 0.5432 = EUR 21,728.00; cartons 30,000 x 0.3104 = EUR 9,312.00; cases 12,000 x 0.3104 + 48,000 x 0.0077 = EUR 4,094.40; stretch film 1,600 x 0.5432 + 6,400 x 0.0051 = EUR 901.76; pallets 4,000 x 0.0599 + 16,000 x 0.0045 = EUR 311.60. Novo Verde uses its own 2026 average urban values and non-urban values in the same way. On Novo Verde’s values from 1 August 2026, the same profile would cost EUR 38,387.39, 7.9% more than on its 2026 average, almost all from the urban plastic step.

If every item were declared urban, the SPV bill would be EUR 55,207.60, 51.9% more. If all 88 tonnes of transport packaging were non-urban, it would be EUR 31,632.80. Meeting every eco-modulation criterion on the consumer packs would save another EUR 3,102.00 at SPV, from the 10% bonificado on film and cartons. SPI analysis: in Portugal the 20% urban share of transport packaging is worth EUR 4,714.96 at SPV in this example, more than the bonificado, so the flow evidence for cases and film is the larger lever.

Spain: three categories and separate scheme markets

The legal line. Real Decreto 1055/2022, published on 28 December 2022 and covered in the SPI tracker as PR-ES-002, defines three categories in article 2. Household packaging is packaging of products for use or consumption by private persons, whether primary, secondary or tertiary, as long as consumers can buy it in shops, wherever it is sold or used (2.m). Commercial packaging is packaging that, without being household, is used in wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and bars, offices, markets and the rest of the services sector (2.h). Industrial packaging is used in industry, farming, livestock, forestry and aquaculture, excluding commercial and household packaging (2.n). The definitions run in that order: household first, then commercial, then industrial as the residual.

The practical test is consumer access. Ecoembes’ guidance, as reported by Corresponsables on 18 March 2025, treats as commercial packaging made in a format, size or weight for sale in the trade channel and not available for purchase by consumers: a large box carrying yogurts to a supermarket, a 5 kg sugar sack sold only to catering, a fish crate delivered to a fishmonger. A shrink wrap grouping cans in a multipack, or a catering milk bottle that differs from the retail one only by its label, stays household.

The start date. MITECO’s producer register page states that the duty to meet obligations through a scheme applies to commercial and industrial packaging from 31 December 2024, under the decree’s third transitional provision. Producers declare the categories they place on the market when they register, can change categories and schemes from 1 October to 31 December each year, and must show their ENV registration number on invoices down to the end user for commercial and industrial packaging (MITECO register page). Data for 2026 is due from 2 January to 31 March 2027. Since 12 August 2026 the decree applies only where the PPWR is silent or compatible, according to MITECO’s note of 19 May 2026, and the Spain piece covers that interaction and the plastic tax.

The commercial market looks like the household one, with one dominant scheme. The industrial market does not: the four largest schemes hold 86.3% between them and none holds two fifths. Commercial packaging is 28.3% and industrial 20.4% of the 7.03 million tonnes of single-use packaging in the resolution, by SPI’s calculation.

What it costs. Exhibit 8 sets the three categories side by side for paper, film and pallets. Ecoembes publishes its commercial prices in the same PDF as household prices, but the material headings in both tables are images. Ecoembes’ 2026 commercial table prints six per-kg prices for establishments without their own management: 0.192, 0.177, 0.041, 0.161, 0.020 and 0.192. A third-party guide published by scraps.es lists the same six figures as rigid plastics, flexible plastics, paper and board, steel, wood and other materials, which matches the line order; SPI has not yet confirmed the labels from Ecoembes’ own text. The 2027 table prints seven: 0.173, 0.164, 0.037, 0.132, 0.020, 0.132 and 0.173. Read in the same order, rigid plastics fall 9.9%, flexible plastics 7.3% and paper and board 9.8%, with wood flat at EUR 0.020; SPI has not yet confirmed which material the added seventh value covers.

Ecoembes’ commercial table also has two special lines. Commercial kilograms that reach final holders managing more than 85% of their own waste, mostly outside the municipal channel, under a signed agreement with Ecoembes, with large retail outlets given as the example, paid EUR 0 per kg in 2026 and pay EUR 0.0025 per kg in 2027; the list of such holders is updated until 30 September each year. And from 2027, commercial packaging handled as hazardous waste through municipal clean points pays an extra EUR 0.052 per kg (Ecoembes Precios 2026 and 2027).

The industrial schemes publish less. Trade press (Interempresas, 23 September 2026) reports that Envalora cuts pallets and secondary and tertiary industrial plastics from EUR 15 to EUR 6 per tonne for 2027 and keeps IBCs at EUR 15; Envalora’s own announcement of 16 September 2026 gives no figures, and SPI has not yet confirmed these rates against Envalora’s 2027 tariff sheet. Cartón Circular’s own announcement of 1 September 2026 sets its 2027 tariffs at EUR 3 to EUR 6 per tonne for non-hazardous packaging. Implica approved 2027 tariffs with an adjustment for transport packaging, and GENCI splits general tariffs for packaging under 60 litres from large-format tariffs, but SPI has not yet confirmed their per-tonne values.

Method. Each line is kilograms times the rate in Exhibit 8, divided by 1,000 where the rate is per tonne. On 2026 Ecoembes rates the household and commercial lines would total EUR 56,377.00 (film bags EUR 49,720.00, cartons EUR 3,450.00, commercial cases EUR 1,845.00, commercial film EUR 1,062.00, commercial pallets EUR 300.00), with Envalora’s 2026 rate as reported in trade press adding EUR 105.00 for industrial film and pallets; SPI has not yet confirmed Cartón Circular’s 2026 rate for the industrial cases.

The listed-holder line is a real lever. If 60% of the commercial cases, 27,000 kg, went to large retailers on Ecoembes’ list, they would pay EUR 67.50 in 2027 instead of EUR 999.00. Declared wrongly as household, the 88 tonnes of transport packaging would cost EUR 17,772.00 in 2027 instead of EUR 3,081.00. SPI analysis: Spain combines the two other models’ risks: the category is the producer’s own call, as in Portugal, and each category may sit with a different scheme, so the producer runs two or three contracts and declarations for one product.

The plastic tax does not follow the category. The EUR 0.45 per kg on non-recycled plastic in non-reusable packaging applies to the stretch film and the film bags alike, EUR 21,600.00 on 48 tonnes of virgin film in this example, whatever scheme takes the EPR fee (PR-ES-001, via the Spain piece).

A framework: who sets the split, and where the money goes

SPI places the three countries on two questions drawn from Exhibit 2 (Exhibit 10). The first asks who sets the household share of a pack: a binding public table, or the producer’s own declaration backed by evidence. The second asks whether household and commercial kilograms go to the same entity under two tables, or to separate scheme markets.

Model A, quota table. In Austria, the producer’s discretion is small. The shares are fixed until the ordinance expires at the end of 2029, so the bill moves with the tariff and with the assignment of each element to a group and a table. Audits by the Verpackungskoordinierungsstelle look at exactly that, as the Austria piece records.

Model B, flow declaration. In Portugal the gap per kilogram is the widest of the three, so the evidence behind each non-urban kilogram carries the most money. Two entities with different 2026 timetables, SPV with one table and Novo Verde with three urban steps, mean that the choice of entity also matters for urban plastic in late 2026.

Model C, category markets. In Spain the producer chooses the category and the schemes. The cost per commercial or industrial kilogram is low, but the work is in contracts, data and the listed-holder evidence. The industrial market, with 16 schemes and per-tonne prices in single euros, is where scheme choice is most open.

Scenarios: how much rides on the transport packaging

Exhibit 11 isolates the 88 tonnes of transport packaging in the example, because that is where the split lives. The floor charges all of it at the cheapest available line, the base uses each country’s rule as in Exhibits 4, 6 and 9, and the ceiling charges all of it at the household or urban rate, the cost of getting the split wrong.

The ceiling shows the exposure. In each country, declaring the transport packaging as household packaging would add EUR 14,305.20 to EUR 18,859.84 on 88 tonnes, or EUR 163 to EUR 214 per tonne of transport packaging. The floor shows the room left. In Portugal and Spain the base is EUR 2,800 to EUR 4,700 above the floor, which is the value of better flow evidence or of shipping more cases to listed final holders. In Austria the floor is not open to the producer, because the quotas are binding.

SPI calculation: for Austria, the pallet stretch film question alone moves the base by EUR 3,302.40, from EUR 6,894.80 to EUR 10,197.20, if table 2 rather than table 3 applies. For Portugal, each 10 points of transport packaging moved from urban to non-urban saves about EUR 2,357 at SPV. For Spain, moving 10% of the commercial cases to listed final holders saves EUR 155.25 in 2027.