The EU plastic levy would rise 38% in 2028 under the Commission plan, and by up to 82.5% where rebates end

What the EU plastic levy is, and who pays it

Decision 2020/2053 is the Own Resources Decision for the 2021 to 2027 budget. Article 2(1)(c) adds a revenue category to customs duties, VAT and the GNI resource: a uniform call rate applied to the weight of plastic packaging waste generated in each Member State that is not recycled. The rate is EUR 0.80 per kilogram. Article 2(2) defines plastic by reference to REACH, takes packaging waste and recycling from Directive 94/62/EC, and sets the base as the weight generated minus the weight recycled in the same year (legislation.gov.uk copy of the Official Journal text).

The design is deliberate. Recital 7 links budget revenue to a policy goal, reducing single-use plastic and raising recycling, and leaves each government free to choose its own measures (PR-EU-017). The Commission’s page on the resource says Member States can pick the policies they find most suitable, in line with subsidiarity. That is why the levy appears in national budgets and not on company invoices.

Who pays. Only Member States. The Decision imposes nothing on a producer, converter, retailer or importer. A company pays something linked to the levy only when its own government adopts a national tax or fee and cites the EU charge as a reason, as Spain did with Law 7/2022 (PR-ES-001). The UK left the EU before 2021 and pays no EU own resource; its Plastic Packaging Tax is a domestic tax, covered in the plastic packaging taxes piece.

How it is called. The Commission first sets each state’s contribution on forecasts agreed with that state, and states pay monthly. Once final data arrive, about two years later, the Commission adjusts the figure (Commission, Plastics own resource page). Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2021/770, published in OJ L 165 on 11 May 2021, sets the calculation, the making-available procedure and cash-flow rules, and requires states to send periodic statements and keep documents that support the amount. It applies from 1 January 2021.

What states report. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/595 of 16 March 2023 fixes the statement form. Each state sends Eurostat a statement for year n minus 2 no later than 31 July each year, starting with 2021 data. Table 1 gives kilograms generated (A), recycled (B) and not recycled (C = A minus B); Table 2 gives the own resource (D = C x 0.8), the lump-sum reduction (E) and the amount after reduction (F = D minus E). Table 3 covers how complete the estimates are and how they were checked (Exhibit 2).

Two consequences follow for anyone in the packaging chain. First, every kilogram that counts as recycled leaves the charged base, so a tonne moved from incineration or landfill into recycling saves its government EUR 800 today and would save EUR 1,000 from 2028. Second, the base is plastic packaging only. Paper, glass and metal packaging waste never enter the sum, which is why governments that want to cut the bill look first at plastic formats, plastic EPR fees and plastic taxes.

How big is the EU plastic levy, state by state

The 2025 EU budget gives the most recent full table of the levy by state. Council document 14878/25 ADD 1, the technical annex to draft amending budget No 3 for 2025 dated 17 November 2025, sets out gross contribution, lump-sum reduction and net contribution for all 27 states. Its footnote says own resources for 2025 rest on forecasts adopted at the 194th meeting of the Advisory Committee on Own Resources on 26 May 2025. Exhibit 3 reproduces the figures and adds SPI’s 2028 calculation.

The table settles three common questions. The levy is not small: EUR 6,848.15 million net in one year. It is also not evenly spread. France’s gross charge is the largest, at EUR 1,395.28 million on 1,744.1 thousand tonnes, because its unrecycled plastic tonnage is the largest in the EU; Eurostat’s 2024 data put France’s plastic packaging recycling rate at 27.4%. And the four largest payers, France, Germany, Spain and Italy, hold 61.5% of the net total and 60.0% of the charged tonnage, by SPI’s calculation.

The totals reconcile. The 27 gross lines add to EUR 7,559,405,360, the 17 rebates to EUR 711,253,200 and the net to EUR 6,848,152,160, exactly as the Council document prints them, and every gross line divides by EUR 0.80 into a whole number of kilograms, by SPI’s check.

The rebates, and why ending them matters most

Article 2(2) of Decision 2020/2053 entitles 17 states to annual lump-sum reductions, expressed in current prices: Bulgaria EUR 22 million, Czechia EUR 32.1876 million, Estonia EUR 4 million, Greece EUR 33 million, Spain EUR 142 million, Croatia EUR 13 million, Italy EUR 184.048 million, Cyprus EUR 3 million, Latvia EUR 6 million, Lithuania EUR 9 million, Hungary EUR 30 million, Malta EUR 1.4159 million, Poland EUR 117 million, Portugal EUR 31.322 million, Romania EUR 60 million, Slovenia EUR 6.2797 million and Slovakia EUR 17 million. The Commission’s page describes this as a mechanism to avoid excessive contributions from less wealthy Member States.

The cash size and the relative size tell different stories (Exhibit 4). Italy’s rebate is the largest in euros, but it covers 19.5% of Italy’s gross bill. Slovakia’s EUR 17 million covers 31.5% of its gross charge, and Bulgaria’s EUR 22 million covers 31.4%. For those states, the 2028 proposal does more than raise the rate: it removes almost a third of the bill’s cushion at the same time.

The Court of Auditors’ Opinion 04/2026, adopted on 22 January 2026, puts the total of the reductions at EUR 711 million a year, fixed in current prices, ranging from EUR 1 million for Malta to EUR 184 million for Italy (Annex II, paragraph 12). It notes that the proposal discontinues them.

What Eurostat's data say about next year's adjustments

Budget figures are forecasts. The final bill for each year is set later, from the statement each state sends by 31 July of year n plus 2. That makes Eurostat’s env_waspac dataset, which carries the same generated and recycled tonnages, the best early signal of where adjustments will fall.

Eurostat’s 2024 data in env_waspac show the EU generated 16,169,651 tonnes of plastic packaging waste and recycled 6,861,826 tonnes, a rate of 42.4%. That leaves 9,307,825 tonnes unrecycled; at EUR 0.80 per kilogram, EUR 7,446.26 million gross, by SPI’s calculation. Exhibit 5 shows the same sum for the 23 states with 2024 figures and sets it beside the tonnage in the 2025 budget.

Three readings stand out. Italy’s 2024 unrecycled tonnage, 1,181.2 thousand tonnes, is within 0.1 thousand tonnes of its 2025 budget tonnage, so its forecast and its data agree. Spain’s 2024 figure, 1,311.4 thousand tonnes, is 10.5% above its 2025 budget tonnage, and carries a Eurostat break-in-series flag; if final data stay near that level, Spain’s net bill would be higher than the budget shows. Poland’s 2024 figure is 23.7% below its budget tonnage and Latvia’s 49.5% below, both on provisional or newly high recycling rates (56.0% and 71.0%).

The Court of Auditors is cautious about all of this. Its opinion cites its own earlier work and says only 18 states sent data using both required compilation methods, and only one balanced the two results (paragraph 34). It adds that plastic data may be under-reported, as with e-waste, because small producers are left out and other gaps remain (paragraph 37). SPI reads Exhibit 5 as direction, not as a forecast of any adjustment.

The Eurostat news piece covers the 2024 recycling rates against the 50% target for end 2025; this piece uses the same data only for the tonnage the levy is charged on.

What the 2028 proposal changes

COM(2025) 574 final, dated 16 July 2025, is the Commission’s draft of the next Own Resources Decision (Council document 11705/25). For plastic it keeps the base and changes the parameters (Exhibit 6).

The rate. Proposed Article 3(1)(e) applies a uniform call rate to the weight of plastic packaging waste generated in each state that is not recycled, and says the uniform call rate shall be EUR 1 per kilogram. Proposed Article 3(2) measures that rate in 2028 prices and adjusts it to current prices by applying the most recent EU GDP deflator. The explanatory memorandum gives the reason: the rate was fixed at EUR 0.8 per kilogram, and inflation has cut the real value of the revenue.

The rebates. The memorandum says the lump-sum reductions applied to the plastic resource and the GNI resource will be discontinued, and recital 16 repeats it. SPI’s PR-EU-018 rule note records the same point.

The definitions. Proposed Article 2 points (7), (8) and (9) define plastic, packaging waste and recycling by reference to Regulation (EU) 2025/40, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, rather than Directive 94/62/EC, which was generally repealed on 12 August 2026 (PR-EU-013). The charged base would therefore follow PPWR terms.

The timing. Proposed Article 13(1) repeals Decision 2020/2053, subject to transitional paragraphs. Proposed Article 14 says the Decision enters into force on the first day of the month after the last national notification, and applies from 1 January 2028 (bracketed in the draft).

The plastic change is a small part of a larger package. The Legislative Observatory summary lists five new resources from 1 January 2028: 30% of ETS auction revenue, a CBAM resource, EUR 2 per kilogram of non-collected electrical and electronic waste adjusted annually for inflation, a 15% call rate on tobacco excise, and an annual flat contribution from companies with net turnover above EUR 100 million. The share of customs duties states keep for collection costs would fall from 25% to 10%.

The Court of Auditors sets the plastic resource in that context (Exhibit 7). It reports the Commission’s estimate that all plastic changes together add EUR 2.8 billion a year in constant 2025 prices, or EUR 3.2 billion in current prices (Annex II, paragraph 13). By SPI’s calculation on 2025 tonnages, the step from today’s net bill to the proposal is EUR 2,601.10 million, close to the Commission’s estimate.

Plastic’s share of own resources would fall, from 4.4% to 3.5% by SPI’s calculation, because the new resources grow the total faster. For governments, though, the plastic bill itself rises, and unlike the GNI resource it can be lowered by a domestic policy choice: more recycling.

Where the proposal stands on 2 November 2026

The Own Resources Decision is a Council act adopted after Parliament is consulted, and the Legislative Observatory summary notes the Council is not obliged to follow Parliament’s opinion. Under paragraph 133 of the Council’s negotiating box, the new system will enter into force on the first day of the month after the last Member State notifies its adoption, and all its elements will apply retroactively from 1 January 2028.

Parliament. The procedure file for 2025/0574(CNS) shows status “awaiting committee decision”. The Budgets committee leads, with ECON giving an opinion and ENVI listed for one. Committee referral was announced on 6 October 2025. Contributions and opinions have followed: the Court of Auditors and the European Economic and Social Committee on 22 January 2026, the Portuguese parliament on 4 February 2026, the Committee of the Regions on 4 March 2026 and the German Bundesrat on 18 May 2026. No committee vote, plenary vote or Council act is recorded.

Council. The negotiating box for the 2028 to 2034 framework, Council document 13922/26 of 10 October 2026, prepared under the Irish Presidency, carries the plastic resource in paragraph 136. It keeps the rate at EUR [1] per kilogram in square brackets, puts the annual inflation adjustment in brackets, and offers “[discontinued] OR [maintained]” for the mechanism to avoid an excessively regressive impact on national contributions, which SPI reads as the lump-sum rebates. The European Council had asked the Presidency to take the box forward by the October European Council, with a view to a timely agreement. SPI has not yet confirmed the outcome of the October 2026 European Council on the own resources chapter.

Four kinds of Member State

The levy reaches companies only through national choices, so SPI sorts the 27 states by the two facts that most shape those choices (Exhibit 8). The first test is exposure to the 2028 change: does the state lose a rebate? The second is whether a company-level plastic tax is in force or legislated, which shows a government already willing to pass the cost on.

Taxed and cushioned. Spain and Italy already chose a company-level tax at EUR 0.45 per kilogram and also hold the two largest rebates in cash. Their 2028 step is large, EUR 379.44 million for Spain and EUR 420.18 million for Italy on 2025 tonnages, and their tax designs are the obvious place to recover more. The open question is whether they raise rates, widen bases or end exemptions.

Cushioned, budget-funded. Fifteen states, mostly in central and eastern Europe, pay EUR 1,503.50 million net today with no company-level tax and lose rebates worth 11.9% to 31.5% of their gross bills. Under the proposal their combined bill on 2025 tonnages would be EUR 2,360.89 million, 57.0% more, by SPI’s calculation. This is the group with the steepest rises and no instrument in place yet; SPI has not yet confirmed any national plan in these states to create one.

Budget-funded, no cushion. Ten states, including the two largest payers, face a flat 25.0% rise. Germany’s government has linked a planned plastic tax to the EU charge, as the German packaging law piece reports, and the Netherlands has studied and set aside a broad plastic packaging levy, as the Verpact piece explains. France, the largest payer at EUR 1,395.28 million, has no company-level plastic packaging tax in SPI’s data.

Taxed, no cushion. No state is confirmed in this box today. Germany would move here if its plastic tax is adopted.

How governments pass the levy on

Exhibit 9 sets the national instruments that SPI’s data and the cited sources tie to the EU levy against the EU rate. Every figure is in euros per kilogram, so the comparison stays in one currency.

The ratios show that neither in-force tax is a one-for-one pass-through. A kilogram of plastic taxed in Spain raises EUR 0.45 for the Treasury; a kilogram of plastic packaging waste left unrecycled costs Spain EUR 0.80 in the EU budget, before its rebate. The bases also differ: the Spanish tax applies when packaging is made, imported or acquired within the EU, while the levy applies to waste, after collection and sorting. SPI analysis: the two bases move in the same direction when recycled content rises, but not by the same amount.

The revenue side is harder to pin down. Vozpópuli reported on 29 September 2024, citing Agencia Tributaria collection reports, that the Spanish tax raised about EUR 590.91 million in 2023, its first year. SPI has not yet confirmed that figure, or later years, in the Agencia Tributaria’s own annual report. If it holds, Spain’s tax raised less in 2023 than Spain’s net EU plastic bill in the 2025 budget, EUR 807.75 million, though the two figures are for different years.

Scenarios for 2028

The 2028 bill depends on three things: the rate adopted, whether rebates survive and how much plastic is recycled. Exhibit 10 holds the first and varies the others for the four largest rebate and non-rebate payers and the EU, in euros only.

SPI calculation: for Spain, the proposal is 1,187.19 thousand tonnes x EUR 1,000 per tonne = EUR 1,187.19 million. Keeping the rebate takes off EUR 142.00 million, to EUR 1,045.19 million. Reaching 55% recycling on Spain’s 2024 generation of 2,128.6 thousand tonnes leaves 957.9 thousand tonnes unrecycled, or EUR 957.88 million, which is still 18.6% above its 2025 net bill.

Three readings follow. Recycling is the only lever a government controls alone: at 55% recycled, the EU bill is EUR 2,172.92 million below the proposal case. Rebates are worth less than better recycling at EU level but decide the outcome for small rebate states. And indexation compounds: at 2% a year, the EUR 1 rate would reach about EUR 1.13 by 2034, an SPI assumption, not a forecast. Germany shows that even a state already at 51.3% recycling pays EUR 1,419.48 million at 55%, because its generation, 3,154.4 thousand tonnes in 2024, is the largest in the EU.