Italy packaging EPR fees 2026

Italy's packaging fee is the Contributo Ambientale CONAI (CAC), charged since 1 October 1998 under Legislative Decree 152/2006, which allocates the cost of separate collection, recycling and recovery in proportion to the quantity, weight and type of packaging placed on the national market¹. The CONAI 2026 guide cites Article 221 of the decree: producers and users of packaging take part in the Consorzio Nazionale Imballaggi³. Membership is compulsory for both groups; the fee is 5.16 euro fixed plus a variable part for firms with revenue above 500,000 euro, capped at 100,000 euro, and firms with revenue up to 500,000 euro can join through their trade association³.

The fee is not paid on placing a product on the shelf. It is levied at the first transfer inside Italy of finished packaging from the last producer or trader of empty packaging to the first user, or of packaging material to a self-producer; since 1 January 2019 the first transfer also covers the last trader of empty packaging selling to the first user¹. The seller applies the CAC on its invoice, showing unit weight by material and the fee per band, and it falls within VAT under Articles 12 and 13 of Presidential Decree 633/1972¹. Imported packaging is declared by whoever places it on the market unless a CONAI-registered foreign supplier has already paid¹.

CONAI passes the money to seven material consortia, for steel, aluminium, paper, wood, plastic, compostable bioplastic and glass, and each material invoice is raised separately⁷. The CAC therefore covers household and commercial packaging in one table, with the plastic bands separating the commercial circuit from the domestic one³.

The CONAI Board of Directors sets each value after monitoring the economic and financial position of the material consortia, and announces changes months ahead with a stated effective date²⁵. Rates are per tonne in euro and can change on 1 January, 1 July or 1 October; the 2026 table carries all three columns¹. The 1 October 2026 plastic increase was announced on 25 May 2026 and justified by rising quantities managed, higher collection, sorting and recycling costs, and weak demand for some recycled fractions, about 34% of material handled, mainly in bands B2 and C².

Modulation has applied to plastic since 1 January 2018 and to paper since 1 January 2019¹. For plastic, the guide groups packaging by whether it can be sorted and recycled and from which circuit it comes; for paper, bands follow the share of fibre and certification under the Aticelca 501 method³. Simplified routes exist for importers, including a flat 131 euro per tonne of packaging tare from 1 October 2026 and value-based rates of 0.25% for food and 0.11% for non-food goods⁶.

SPI calculation: the rates are per tonne, so each line is the rate times the weight in tonnes. The total is EUR 3,372.00 before VAT, or about 0.34 euro cent per filled bottle¹. The same purchase invoiced before 1 October 2026 would have carried the B1.2 rate of EUR 228/t, giving EUR 2,394.00 for the bottles and caps, so the October change adds EUR 798.00 to this order².

The guide places tethered caps in band B1.2 alongside the PET bottle³. If the bottler switched to an opaque bottle or a covering sleeve that moved the bottle into band B2.2, the bottle line alone would rise to EUR 7,704.00 at EUR 856/t, which shows how strongly CONAI's bands reward clear, sortable PET.

Periodic declarations are filed with CONAI, and the payment follows the CONAI invoices, one per material consortium for ordinary declarants⁷. Frequency is set each year from the fee declared in the previous year, per material⁷.

The comparison below uses the values in force from 1 July 2025 in the CONAI 2025 guide against the current 2026 rows⁴¹. Plastic rose across every band, most in B1.2 PET (up 33.3% to EUR 304/t) and A1.1 (up 27.5% to EUR 51/t), with band C up 16.7% to EUR 922/t. CONAI gives cost pressure from higher quantities and weak demand for B2 and C fractions as the reason².

Paper moved the other way: the base fell from EUR 65/t to EUR 45/t on 1 October 2025 because recovered paper sold better than expected in 2024 and early 2025, so single-material paper is down 30.8%⁵. Glass rose from EUR 35/t to EUR 40/t on 1 January 2026, wood from EUR 9/t to EUR 10/t, and compostable bioplastic from EUR 130/t to EUR 246/t on 1 July 2026³⁵. CONAI has already announced EUR 48/t for glass and EUR 12/t for wood from 1 January 2027, both 20% increases⁶.