Germany's single-use plastic levy falls on whoever first sells nine item types, and cups, wrappers and cartons decide most brands' bills

Where this piece sits

The SPI Ledger piece on German packaging law in 2026 covers the VerpackDG, LUCID, dual systems and the reported plastic packaging tax, and gives the fund a short section with the rate list and a single takeaway basket. This piece does not repeat that ground. It goes item by item: what each Annex 1 type covers, who the producer is in each supply chain, how the 500 g rule works, what the fireworks rate is built from, and what two different brands pay.

The fund sits beside the VerpackDG rather than inside it. A to-go cup in Germany usually carries a dual system fee under PR-DE-001 and a fund levy under PR-DE-002, because the two finance different costs: household collection and recycling on one side, public litter clean-up on the other. The Germany page of the SPI Regulation Tracker holds both rules, and the PR-DE-002 record holds the fund’s rule note.

The nine item types, one by one

Annex 1 of the EWKFondsG lists the product types that pay, and its wording follows the Directive (Exhibit 2). Each item must also be a single-use plastic product under section 3: made wholly or partly of plastic and not designed for several uses. Plastic means a polymer as defined in REACH, excluding natural polymers that have not been chemically modified. A paper product with a plastic coating or lining therefore counts, as the UBA’s own FAQ on the Directive and the Commission’s guidelines both say.

Three borderline rules matter most for packaging teams. First, rigidity splits food containers from wrappers: the Commission’s guidelines draw the line by how rigid the pack is, so a clamshell pays EUR 0.177 per kg and a film bag of the same snack pays EUR 0.876, nearly five times as much. Second, the drinks container line ends at the material: a glass bottle with a plastic cap is out, while a beverage carton with a plastic layer is in. Third, cups include their lids, so a lid sold with a cup is reported at the cup rate, not the container rate.

Some items sit outside the fund because they are banned rather than charged. Plastic cutlery, plates, straws and stirrers have been banned across the EU since July 2021 under Article 5 of the Directive (PR-EU-014), so they do not appear in Annex 1. The SPI Ledger piece on England’s and Wales’s bans shows how the UK nations drew the same lines differently.

Who the producer is

Section 3 no. 3 defines the producer as any business established in Germany that, commercially and for the first time, places listed products on the German market as producer, filler, seller or importer, whatever the sales channel. A business established abroad is also a producer when it sells listed products by distance contract directly to private households or other users in Germany (Exhibit 3).

The IHK Potsdam, a public-law chamber of commerce, puts the empty product rule plainly: the producer of empty drinks cups must register, but not the kiosk that uses them. It also expects fillers such as the cinema to be the largest group of producers. Section 9 adds the enforcement hook: an unregistered producer may not place listed products on the market, and from 1 January 2025 online marketplaces and fulfilment providers may not support offers from unregistered producers (UBA).

Mass, money and the rate formula

The rates follow litter cost per kilogram, not material cost. The ordinance’s explanatory part, sent to the Bundestag on 25 August 2023 as Drucksache 20/8128, built them in four steps from a UBA cost model: sort litter by collection system, cost each system per inhabitant, share the cost across products by weight, volume and item count, then divide each product’s cost per inhabitant by its mass per inhabitant (Exhibit 4).

Section 14(2) of the Act binds the ministry to four principles when it sets rates: cost coverage, no cost overrun, cost efficiency and transparency. The explanatory part adds that the rates carry no surcharge for steering or safety, and that about EUR 800,000 a year was taken off awareness costs because dual systems already fund packaging awareness work. Data costs of EUR 0.016 and fund administration costs of EUR 0.059 per inhabitant were added to every product’s share.

That formula explains the outliers. Tobacco filters cost EUR 1.941 per inhabitant to clean up, the largest of any type, but weigh only 0.216 kg per inhabitant, so the rate per kilogram is the highest. Deposit containers weigh 4.561 kg per inhabitant, the most of any type, but cost half a euro cent, because few are littered. SPI calculation: a lightweight carrier bag pays 21.5 times the food container rate per kilogram, and a cup 7.0 times.

The 500 gram line

The UBA introduced a quantity threshold for food containers and for bags and wrappers by administrative rule, first published on the DIVID platform on 3 November 2025 and now in a version of 23 March 2026. It rests on section 22(2) of the Act and reads the Annex test of food for immediate consumption: a pack whose food content weighs more than 500 g is not meant for immediate consumption, so it is not a food container or wrapper under Annex 1 and no levy is owed on it (Exhibit 5).

The empty container point needs care. The UBA’s November 2025 announcement says empty food containers such as takeaway boxes and salad bowls also fall under the threshold. The administrative rule spells out what that means: for containers first sold empty, the food content is not yet fixed, so the threshold cannot be applied and the containers remain liable, although a producer may show in a single case that a container with a possible fill above 500 g is in fact filled above it.

The annual cycle

The levy runs on a fixed calendar (Exhibit 6). A producer registers on DIVID before it starts, using an ELSTER certificate; producers active before 2024 had until 31 December 2024. By 15 May each year it reports the kilograms of each Annex 1 type first placed on the market in the previous year, confirmed by an accredited expert or by a registered auditor, tax adviser or chartered accountant with a qualified electronic signature (section 11).

Section 11(4) gives one relief. A producer that placed less than 100 kg of Annex 1 products in the previous year, or only deposit bottles, is exempt from the confirmation duty, though the UBA can ask for it at any time. The IHK Potsdam stresses that registration, reporting and payment still apply at small quantities.

The UBA then sets the levy by notice: reported mass times the rate. Section 13 fixes the rest. If no report arrives, the UBA estimates the mass from earlier reports and other data. Payment is due one month after the notice arrives unless the notice says otherwise. A late payment of more than three working days carries a surcharge of 1% for each month or part month, on arrears above EUR 50. An objection does not suspend payment, and the claim lapses after five years.

Fines sit in section 26. Breaches such as failing to register or placing products on the market unlawfully carry fines of up to EUR 100,000; other breaches carry up to EUR 10,000, and the UBA is the fining authority. SPI knows of no published fine under the Act as of 27 October 2026.

Fireworks: the tenth rate

Fireworks are already item 9 of Annex 1, but they have had no rate. Section 14(1) tells the ministry to set one by 31 December 2026. On 30 September 2026 the federal environment ministry, BMUKN, sent the Länder and associations a draft first amending ordinance, with comments due by 16 October 2026; its explanatory part sets the rate from the UBA’s special report, Texte 150/2026, published in September 2026 (Exhibit 7).

SPI calculation: 15,086,000 kg at EUR 0.691 per kg is EUR 10,424,426, the draft’s own revenue figure, so the rate and volume tie out. The draft says adding fireworks has only a very small effect on the existing rates, which therefore need no change. The ministry’s page adds that the Einwegkunststoffkommission, the 12-member advisory body with six producer seats, gave no recommendation on the draft.

Two official pages disagree on the start year. The UBA’s EWKF page says fireworks become levy-liable from 2027 in one place and from 2026 in another, and the IHK Potsdam page also says 2026. The draft ordinance and the UBA special report both point to 2027 as the first levy year, and SPI follows them.

A framework: the levy intensity ladder

The ten rates fall into four bands, and each band calls for a different response (Exhibit 8). The bands are SPI’s grouping of the EWKFondsV rates, with a cost per item at an assumed weight so that buyers can see the levy on a unit they recognise.

Band 1 is a reporting duty more than a cost: 60 million deposit bottles at 25 g carry EUR 1,500 a year. Band 2 is where most packaging mass sits, and lightweighting pays in direct proportion. Band 3 is where a brand’s choices move the bill most: a cup is 7.0 times the food container rate, and a flexible wrapper 4.9 times, so a format that is rigid rather than flexible, or reusable rather than single-use, changes the levy class rather than trimming it. Band 4 is small in packaging, but a retailer still offering very light produce bags pays EUR 3.801 per kg on them.

Worked example 1: a food-to-go brand

SPI priced a hypothetical German food-to-go brand that imports its own branded paper cups with plastic linings and plastic lids from a converter outside Germany, which makes it the importer and producer of the cups, and fills salads and sandwiches in a central kitchen (Exhibit 9). Every quantity and weight is an SPI assumption; the rates are the EWKFondsV’s.

Three readings follow. Cups are 51.2% of the levied mass but 77.5% of the levy, so the cup decision is the brand’s levy decision. The 500 g rule saves EUR 1,239 on the family bowls, small next to the cups but larger than many brands expect. And the cost per sale is low in absolute terms: 1.36 euro cent per cup, 0.35 euro cent per wrapper and 0.35 euro cent per salad bowl.

If the same brand bought its cups from a German converter instead, the EUR 54,384 would leave the brand’s notice and enter its supplier’s price, assuming the converter passes it on. The brand would still be the producer of the filled wrappers and bowls, because it fills them.

Worked example 2: a drinks brand

SPI also priced a hypothetical German drinks brand that fills single-use PET bottles inside the German deposit, one-litre beverage cartons outside it, glass bottles with plastic caps and aluminium cans (Exhibit 10). Again, quantities and weights are SPI assumptions.

The drinks brand places 24 times the food-to-go brand’s mass but pays only 1.6 times its levy, because most of its mass sits in Band 1. The bill is almost entirely about cartons: at 30 g each, a carton carries 0.543 euro cent, 217 times the levy on a 25 g deposit bottle. Because the brand fills cartons as well as deposit bottles, it is not covered by the section 11(4) relief for producers of deposit bottles only, and needs the auditor’s confirmation.

Scenarios for 2027

The ministry’s draft says all rates and the points system will be evaluated next year, and section 14(3) requires a review at least every three years. SPI cannot forecast the result, but it can size three cases on the two worked examples (Exhibit 11). The high case is a stress test: it asks what happens if rates were rescaled so that reported mass at VKU’s 2024 revenue of about EUR 216 million raised the ordinance’s modelled EUR 436 million, a factor of 2.02.

The low case shows that format choices beat rate risk for both brands. Moving a quarter of cups to reuse saves the food-to-go brand EUR 13,596, and moving a quarter of cartons into the deposit saves the drinks brand EUR 27,025. The high case is unlikely to arrive in one step, since the cost-overrun ban in section 14(2) cuts both ways and costs may also be lower than modelled, but it shows the size of the question the 2027 evaluation must answer. The threshold case shows the 500 g rule is worth little to these two brands, and more to bakeries and delicatessens selling large packs.

Where the money goes

The fund pays public bodies, not producers. Public waste management bodies and other public-law bodies register once with the UBA and report their services each year by 15 May; a late report excludes them for that year (sections 17 and 18). Each service earns points under section 3 of the EWKFondsV, and the UBA publishes a point value by 30 September: the payout amount, after administration costs and reserves, divided by all points (section 20) (Exhibit 12).

The first payout has slipped twice. The UBA’s milestone page had planned it for the fourth quarter of 2025. On 28 August 2026 the UBA set a point value of EUR 0.274 to pay about EUR 205 million; on 2 October 2026 it withdrew the notices after finding a calculation error and moved payment to early 2027, with the total unchanged. The UBA traced the fault to an error in software development that a multi-stage test before launch had not caught, and it is reviewing the DIVID calculation methods with external experts.

For producers, none of this changes the levy. The BMUKN FAQ notes that federal law cannot tell municipalities how to use the money, but the planned evaluation is to look at how they use it, especially for cleaning and fee levels.

Legal challenges and amendments

The levy has been in force for almost three years without a court ruling against it that SPI has found, but it is under challenge (Exhibit 13). On 25 June 2025 the Bundestag’s legal affairs committee listed three constitutional complaints in Drucksache 21/632 and recommended that the Bundestag make no statement in any of them.

The second complaint states the core argument in one line, which the committee report records: the EWKFondsG does not meet the requirements of the financial constitution for setting a special levy. SPI does not assess the merits; check with counsel.

Until a court rules, the levy is owed. Section 13(5) says an objection to a levy notice does not suspend payment, so a producer that disputes its notice pays first and argues later.