Ireland packaging EPR fees 2026

Ireland's packaging obligations come from S.I. 282/2014, whose title is the European Union (Packaging) Regulations, made on 14 June 2014 and in force from 21 June 2014⁴. Regulation 4(3) makes a business a major producer when the packaging material, packaging or packaged products it supplies exceed, or may be expected to exceed, 10 tonnes in a calendar year and its annual turnover is above EUR 1 million⁴. A major producer either complies on its own, registering with the local authority, paying a registration fee of EUR 15 per tonne (minimum EUR 500, maximum EUR 15,000 per premises), taking back packaging waste free of charge and filing quarterly reports, or holds a certificate from an approved body, which exempts it from regulations 10 to 16 and 25 (regulations 10 to 17)⁴. Local authorities enforce the Regulations⁸.

Repak is that approved body. Its current approval under the 2014 Regulations, as amended, runs from 1 January 2026 to 30 September 2035, with reviews planned in the first half of 2029 and of 2032³. The Regulations cap any approval at ten years and set a floor of four (regulation 19)⁴. Repak had 3,521 members at the end of 2025, 41% of them regular members paying by tonnage and 59% on scheduled fees, and its members placed 735,805 tonnes of packaging on the Irish market⁵.

Fees fund household and commercial recycling. Of each euro paid in 2024, Repak puts 54 cents into household recycling, 19 into commercial recycling, 13 into operating costs, 4 each into the rebate and reprocessing, 3 into education, 2 into the single-use plastics litter contribution and 1 into recovery⁷. Members paid EUR 47.9 million before the EUR 1.5 million rebate in 2025⁵.

Repak charges every stage of the supply chain a share of the per-tonne fee, under the shared responsibility model: in 2026 the material manufacturer and converter pay EUR 1.00, the retailer EUR 2.00, and the brand holder or importer carries the variable share that the table on this page shows¹. Invoices go out in January and July and are based on the same half of the previous year, so H1 2026 fees rest on H1 2025 tonnages⁶.

The 2026 approval sets the rules. Fees follow the polluter-pays principle, are spread by the quantity placed on the market, must not exceed the cost of a cost-efficient service, and must be modulated under the Waste Framework Directive and adapted to Regulation (EU) 2025/40; the fee-setting process involves producers and the Department and must satisfy the Minister (section 9), with costs held to net necessary costs (section 10)³. Repak has modulated by recyclability since January 2023 and is working with the Department on a consultant's review of the net necessary cost system⁵.

The brand holder share comes to EUR 4,391.24 for 66 tonnes of packaging¹. Selling direct also makes the brand the retailer, which adds EUR 2.00 a tonne, or EUR 132.00, for a total of EUR 4,523.24¹. The bubble-lined mailer is 3% of the weight but 28% of the bill, because non-recycled composite costs almost 15 times the paper rate.

An all-paper mailer at EUR 41.60 a tonne would cut that line to EUR 83.20 and save EUR 1,149.24 a year. The box line is the one to watch: paper and board rose 45.8% for 2026, so the same 60 tonnes cost EUR 783.60 more than in 2025¹². Because invoices use last year's half-yearly tonnages, a packaging change made in 2026 shows in fees from 2027⁶.

Repak members report twice a year and are invoiced twice a year. Self-compliers follow the separate timetable in S.I. 282/2014, with renewal each January and quarterly reports⁴⁶.

Seven of the nine brand holder rates compared here rose for 2026. Recycled glass rose most in percentage terms, 158.3% from EUR 7.41 to EUR 19.14 a tonne, and non-recycled plastic and composite most in euros, up EUR 170.15 to EUR 616.22 (38.1%)¹². Paper and board rose 45.8% and non-recycled other 46.6%, while steel slipped 0.1% and wood 2.0%. The gap between recycled and non-recycled plastic widened from EUR 304.04 to EUR 450.52 a tonne.

Repak's 2025 annual report explains the direction rather than the 2026 figures: its board aligned material fees with the real cost of collecting, sorting and recycling each material, and the gap between recycled and non-recycled fees widened in 2025 too⁵. The report also shows the deposit return scheme taking PET bottles and cans out of Repak's stream, and in SPI analysis that spreads Repak's fixed costs over fewer tonnes⁵⁹. The fixed shares for manufacturers, converters and retailers did not change between the two sheets¹².