Belgium packaging EPR fees 2026

Belgium regulates packaging through an interregional cooperation agreement of 4 November 2008 between the Flemish, Walloon and Brussels regions, amended by an agreement signed on 5 March 2020, published in the Belgian State Gazette on 15 July 2020 and in force from 3 September 2020⁸. The 2020 text extended the definition of packaging responsible to foreign sellers making distance sales to Belgian consumers, let them appoint an authorised representative established in Belgium, and raised household plastic recycling targets to 65% for 2023 and 70% for 2030⁸. The regional administrations named in it are OVAM, SPW ARNE and Bruxelles Environnement, and the Interregional Packaging Commission oversees approved bodies⁸.

Fost Plus is the approved body for household packaging, re-accredited by the Interregional Packaging Commission for 2024 to 2028 with targets including a 25% rise in out-of-home selective collection, a 5% cut in single-use packaging and a 5% increase in reusable packaging⁷. Commercial and industrial packaging goes to its sister body Valipac³. Joining is optional in law, since a company may run its own take-back, but members hand Fost Plus their take-back, information and recycling obligations³.

The fee funds door-to-door PMD and paper-cardboard collection, glass bottle banks, sorting centres and contributions to recycling parks, plus general operating costs³. Since April 2026 Belgian producers of litter-prone single-use packaging also pay a separate litter levy collected by Fost Plus on top of the Green Dot contribution, which the three regions introduced to transpose Directive 2019/904⁶.

Fost Plus sets one rate per material category on a cost-deficit basis: the budgeted collection, sorting and recycling cost for each material, minus revenue from selling the bales, divided by the tonnage members place on the market³. The board approves the budget and rates each June, sends them with the method to the Interregional Packaging Commission, and the general meeting confirms them; surpluses or deficits from earlier years flow back into the same material's later rates³. For 2026 Fost Plus cited rising collection and sorting costs, volatile material markets, contract renewals and investment in recycling post-sorted residual waste⁴. The rates were renamed Packaging EPR rates because the PPWR bans the Green Dot logo on packaging from 12 February 2027².

The 2026 sheet runs to four decimals in euro per kilogram excluding VAT, while billing uses six digits¹. Members can also declare per unit through fixed-price tables that include a 15% surcharge, or per parcel for e-commerce with a 10% surcharge¹.

SPI calculation: the contribution is EUR 4,042.71 excluding VAT, above the EUR 100 minimum¹⁵. Fost Plus requires each element to be declared under its own material, so the cap goes in as rigid PP and the tray as paper-cardboard rather than as part of the bottle¹. The bottles are 65.6% of the weight and 79.3% of the cost.

The same 4,000 kg of bottles in PVC would fall under code 014-03 at EUR 4.4190/kg and cost EUR 17,676.00, more than five times the HDPE figure. On the 2027 table published by Fost Plus, HDPE rises to EUR 0.8403/kg and rigid PP to EUR 1.1409/kg, which would lift these two lines to EUR 3,361.20 and EUR 684.54 for the same weights².

Fost Plus runs on one annual declaration filed in MyFost, followed by advance invoices based on it⁵. The litter levy has its own invoicing calendar from 2026⁶.

SPI has not yet confirmed the 2025 Fost Plus rate table against the 2026 rows, so no prior-year rows are shown. What Fost Plus has published is the forward step: its rates page sets 2026 and 2027 side by side². Glass (EUR 0.1052/kg), paper-cardboard (EUR 0.1503/kg), beverage cartons (EUR 0.8080/kg), colourless PET bottles (EUR 0.3604/kg) and the EUR 4.4190/kg non-recyclable rate are unchanged for 2027.

The largest 2027 increases are steel, up 77.6% to EUR 0.3310/kg, EPS and cork, both up 57.2% to EUR 1.9373/kg, PE films, up 17.7% to EUR 1.2721/kg, and rigid PP, up 12.3% to EUR 1.1409/kg². Several rates fall: plastic beverage capsules by 38.8% to EUR 2.3519/kg, transparent PET bottles in other colours by 17.7% to EUR 1.0346/kg and aluminium of at least 50 micron by 18.7% to EUR 0.0399/kg². For 2025 itself, Fost Plus noted that opaque PET trays left the non-recyclable category and gained their own rate⁹.