The EU PFAS limit for food-contact paper and board is as much a paperwork test as a chemistry test, and the name on the pack signs for it

What Article 5(5) says, and what it leaves open

The Commission’s guidance quotes Article 5(5) in full in its section 5, and that quotation is the basis for the limits used here. Food-contact packaging shall not be placed on the market from 12 August 2026 if it contains PFAS in a concentration equal to or above the three values in Exhibit 1 (C/2026/3084). Limit (c) carries a duty of its own: if total fluorine exceeds 50 mg/kg, the economic operator concerned must, on request, provide proof of the quantity of fluorine measured as PFAS or non-PFAS, so that the technical documentation under Annex VII can be drawn up.

The paragraph sits in Article 5 on substances in packaging. Article 5(1) requires all packaging to be made so that substances of concern are kept to a minimum, Article 5(2) asks the Commission for a report on substances of concern by 31 December 2026, and Article 5(4) caps the sum of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium (German text reproduced by LX Gesetze; Commission timeline). Only Article 5(5) singles out a chemical family for one use, food contact.

Recital 21 gives the reason. It treats exposure to PFAS through food-contact packaging as a risk that is not adequately controlled, given the non-threshold nature of the hazards, and asks the Commission to evaluate whether the restriction should be amended or repealed so that it does not duplicate other Union acts (Regulation (EU) 2025/40, recital 21, SPI rule note PR-EU-002). Recital 24 recalls that substance restrictions belong mainly to REACH, Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, and that food-contact materials are also governed by Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004.

Three points stay open in the official sources SPI read. First, the definition of PFAS: the German text reproduced by LX Gesetze defines PFAS as substances with at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom without any hydrogen, chlorine, bromine or iodine attached, with listed exceptions; SPI has not yet confirmed that wording against the Official Journal. Second, Article 5(6): the same text says compliance with paragraphs 4 and 5 is to be shown in the technical documentation under Annex VII, which SPI has also not yet confirmed against the Official Journal. Third, the review date, discussed under What to watch.

The tracker holds the rule as PR-EU-002, with the parent regulation as PR-EU-001. The general PPWR picture since 12 August 2026 is in SPI’s PPWR after August 2026 piece, which this article does not repeat.

Why paper and board carry most of the exposure

The rule names no material, yet the SPI rule note for PR-EU-002 points first to papers, boards, moulded fibre, coatings and inks that used fluorinated chemistry for grease and water resistance. Plastic, glass and metal food packaging rarely needed that treatment. Fibre that holds burgers, pastries, pizza or popcorn often did.

The Danish campaign gives the product list a buyer should start from. Its 51 samples, taken from 1 May to 30 June 2024 at 48 companies, covered burger paper, popcorn cups, straws, pizza trays, coffee filters, sandwich paper, air fryer moulds, paper boxes, muffin moulds, paper cups and plates, bagasse trays, baking paper, kitchen roll, napkins, wrapping paper, paper bags and cheese paper (Fødevarestyrelsen, 8 May 2025). The 12 results above the indicator came from delis, pizza trays, straws, muffin moulds, bowls, wrapping paper and a sandwich bag (Exhibit 7).

Two features of fibre make the EU test harder to pass with confidence than the absence of an intentional treatment suggests. One is recycled content. The Commission states that there are no exceptions for packaging containing recycled material (C/2026/3084), and Denmark’s authority lists recycled paper and board and printing inks as possible sources of raised readings. The other is the environment: McDonald’s, which reports on this, says fluorinated compounds in the local environment make it hard to rule out traces of organic fluorine in packaging (McDonald’s, Goal Performance and Reporting).

The test sequence the Commission recommends

The Commission is explicit that no harmonised EU method exists. Its guidance therefore sets out a sequence, to be used from 12 August 2026, that suppliers, brand owners and inspectors can all read in the same way (Exhibit 3).

The sequence matters commercially because it decides how often a grade goes past the first step. The Commission says that, on the evidence currently available to it, all samples compliant with test (1) are also compliant with tests (2) and (3). For a paper mill or converter, a clean total fluorine result is therefore the core document; second and third step results are the exception file.

The guidance adds one limit on the sequence. It applies without prejudice to official controls on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food under Regulation (EU) 2017/625 (C/2026/3084). A food inspector working under food-contact law, rather than a packaging market surveillance authority, may therefore ask other questions about the same item.

Total fluorine counts both organic and inorganic fluorine, so a grade with mineral fillers or pigments that contain fluorine can screen above 50 mg/kg without any PFAS. Step 2 exists for that case. SPI analysis: the 50 mg/kg screen is the same number as limit (c), but it measures fluorine, not PFAS mass, so a result above it is a reason to test further and to ask the supplier for the proof Article 5(5)(c) requires, not evidence of a breach.

When a pack is caught: placing on the market

Article 5(5) bites at placing on the market, defined in Article 3(1), point (10), as the first making available of packaging, empty or with a product, on the Union market (C/2026/3084). The guidance turns that definition into four practical tests, and they place the trigger at different points in a paper and board supply chain (Exhibit 4).

The stock rule follows from the same definition. Packaging placed on the market before 12 August 2026 may remain on the market and does not need to be withdrawn, but there is no transitional period for selling off stock placed after that date (C/2026/3084). The guidance also notes, citing the Blue Guide, that a manufacturer can place packaging on the market by a mere transfer of legal possession.

Who is the manufacturer of a paper pack

The question that decides who signs the declaration of conformity is not who makes the board. The PPWR defines the manufacturer, in Article 3(1), point (13), as a natural or legal person that has packaging or a packaged product designed or manufactured under its own name or trademark, and the Commission adds that this is not necessarily the person that physically produces the packaging (C/2026/3084, sections 2 and 5).

The Commission is equally clear on the consequences. The conformity assessment procedure under Article 38 can be carried out by the manufacturer or by someone else on its behalf, but the EU declaration of conformity under Article 39 must be drafted by the manufacturer, which is the sole economic operator bearing legal responsibility (C/2026/3084, section 2). Exhibit 5 maps that onto a typical paper and board chain.

What converters and brand owners must document

The documentation duties come from five provisions. SPI read the Commission’s guidance in English and Articles 15, 16, 38 and 39 in the German text reproduced by LX Gesetze, which is not the official text; points taken only from that text are marked in Exhibit 6.

Three practical consequences follow for paper and board. The first is scope. The declaration covers Articles 5 to 12, so the same signature that covers PFAS will later cover recyclability and recycled content. For recyclability the Commission says manufacturers need not run the conformity assessment until the delegated acts under Article 6(4) enter into force (C/2026/3084, section 6); for PFAS no such delay exists, because Article 5(5) already applies.

The second is the lot. The single-use retention period is five years, so by SPI’s calculation a declaration for a lot placed on the market on 12 August 2026 must be held until at least 12 August 2031. A batch number on the pack, or in accompanying documents for items too small to mark, links that file to the item an inspector picks up.

The third is the language of the evidence. A total fluorine result names a method, a laboratory and a sample. The Commission’s step 1 threshold gives that result its meaning, but SPI makes no claim about any method or laboratory, and the guidance itself is a recommended approach. Food-contact law adds its own documents: in Denmark, every food-contact material sold wholesale, including paper and board, must already carry a declaration of conformity with Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 and the national order (Fødevarestyrelsen, August 2024). SPI analysis: businesses that already hold a food-contact declaration under Regulation 1935/2004 have a template, but the PPWR declaration follows its own Annex VIII model and is signed by the manufacturer as the PPWR defines it, which may be a different company.

Denmark: six years of a stricter paper and board ban

Denmark is the only EU market SPI has found with a national PFAS ban for paper and board food-contact materials and a published enforcement record. Since 1 July 2020 it has been banned to market such materials where PFAS has been added, under Danish executive order 681/2020 on food-contact materials alongside Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004. The indicator value is 20 micrograms of organic fluorine per gram of paper, or 10 micrograms per square decimetre for paper weighing 0.5 g per square decimetre, and content below it is treated as unintended background (Fødevarestyrelsen, August 2024).

The 2024 campaign shows how often real paper and board items cross those lines (Exhibit 7). Of 51 samples, 39 (76%) were below the indicator and 12 (24%) above it. The highest reading, 440 micrograms per gram in a sandwich bag, was 22 times the indicator and, by SPI’s calculation, 8.8 times the EU’s 50 mg/kg screening value. The other 11 ran from 22 to 51.

The enforcement findings matter as much as the chemistry. Inspectors made 48 control visits between 1 October and 31 December 2024, 45 at wholesalers and 3 at retailers. Nine of 48 companies (19%) were unaware of the rules and could not document PFAS compliance; wholesalers received 4 reprimands and 12 minor findings; two retailers held food-contact documents but nothing on PFAS, and one held none (Fødevarestyrelsen, 8 May 2025). The report compares a 2021 pilot in which 8 of 28 samples were above the indicator, with readings of 26 to 610, and says compliance has improved.

Denmark and the EU measure different things, and the comparison should not be reduced to which number is lower (Exhibit 8). Denmark tests for added PFAS with an organic fluorine indicator; the EU sets concentration limits on PFAS themselves, with a total fluorine screen as the Commission’s first step. SPI has not yet confirmed whether Denmark will amend executive order 681/2020 now that Article 5(5) applies.

The Oregon contrast, from tracker rule PR-US-013, is about the evidence, not the market. A declaration that no PFAS was intentionally added is the natural proof under Oregon’s rule but does not answer a concentration limit in the EU, and an EU fluorine result does not by itself answer a question about intent (SPI rule note PR-EU-002). SPI’s West Coast food service ware piece covers Oregon and Washington in detail.

A grade map for paper and board

SPI groups food-contact paper and board grades on two questions the sources make decisive: whether the grade has a history of fluorinated treatment, and whether its fibre or inks bring in material the producer does not control (Exhibit 9). The first question comes from the SPI rule note’s focus on fluorinated barriers; the second from the Commission’s statement that recycled material has no exception and the Danish authority’s naming of recycled fibre and inks.

The grid tells a buyer where the work concentrates. Group A should need little more than a current total fluorine result and a supplier statement. Group D carries the most evidence, because the producer controls neither the history of the grade nor the inputs of each lot. In Denmark’s 2024 results, the items above the indicator included moulded and boxed formats, straws and wrapping papers, which span all four groups depending on how they were made.

Replacing a fluorinated barrier is also a recyclability decision. The SPI rule note for PR-EU-002 points to the design-for-recycling criteria in PR-EU-010, due on the later of 1 January 2030 and two years after the delegated acts: a plastic or wax barrier that solves a PFAS problem can create a recyclability one. SPI analysis: groups C and D are where the PFAS file and the 2030 recyclability file meet, so the same barrier change should be documented once for both.

Scenarios: how many grades go past the first step

There is no EU-wide data on how many food-contact paper grades screen above 50 mg/kg. The Danish campaign is the only official sample set SPI found, so Exhibit 10 applies its 2024 distribution to a hypothetical portfolio of 100 food-contact paper and board grades, at three screening cut-offs.

The spread is the point. A buyer that applies the Commission’s screen and nothing else would, on the Danish distribution, escalate about 4 grades in 100. A buyer that sets a tighter internal trigger to leave headroom for lot variation would escalate four to six times as many, by SPI’s calculation. Both are lawful choices; the second costs more in testing and supplier time but leaves fewer surprises when an inspector samples a later lot.

The low case is a floor for a second reason. Denmark reported organic fluorine, and total fluorine adds any inorganic fluorine, so a grade below 50 mg/kg organic fluorine could still screen above 50 mg/kg total fluorine. The Commission’s step 2 is designed to clear such grades, but the time it takes belongs in the planning.

In practice: what three brand owners disclose

The SPI Packaging Buyers Database maps food-contact formats to PR-EU-002 for several brand owners. The cases below use only what each company or profile states.

The gaps in this reading

Official text. The articles of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 were read in the German text reproduced by LX Gesetze, not in the Official Journal. Article 5(5) itself is quoted in full in the Commission’s guidance, so the limits are confirmed; the PFAS definition, Article 5(6), the review date and the article-level duties in Articles 15, 16, 38 and 39 are not yet confirmed by SPI against the Official Journal.

Penalties. Sanctions are set in national law. SPI has not yet confirmed the PPWR article on penalties against the official text, and no Article 5(5) case had been published by the Commission as of 30 October 2026 in the sources SPI read.

Labels. PFAS status is not shown on the pack. The harmonised sorting label in PR-EU-003, from 12 August 2028 at the earliest, concerns material composition, while recital 70 of the regulation points to digital marking of substances of concern, which SPI’s labelling piece covers.