Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR) has applied since 12 August 2026. In Spain it sits on top of Royal Decree 1055/2022 on packaging and packaging waste and Law 7/2022 on waste and contaminated land, which created the plastic packaging tax. Together they turn packaging into a documented product: measured, declared, registered and filed.
Every figure and date below is taken from the article cited next to it. Where the legal text leaves a value to a delegated or implementing act that has not been published, this page says so instead of quoting a number.
These reach anyone placing packaging on the Spanish market as manufacturer, importer, packer or distributor. Being small does not exempt you; only the specific exemptions written into each text do.
Lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium may not exceed 100 mg/kg in total, in all packaging whatever the material. Food contact packaging is limited on top of that to 25 ppb for any single PFAS, 250 ppb for the sum of PFAS and 50 ppm for total PFAS. No phase-in and no grace period: this bound from the day the regulation started to apply.
Before packaging goes on the market you carry out the conformity assessment, compile the technical documentation behind it, and issue an EU Declaration of Conformity. Both have to be produced for market surveillance authorities on request, years after the packaging shipped.
You must be listed in the producer register of every member state where you first make packaging available, and a producer not established in that state has to appoint an authorised representative there. Registration is per member state, not once for the whole EU.
Packaging is graded on the share of its weight that is recyclable: grade A from 95%, grade B from 80%, grade C from 70%. From 1 January 2030 packaging below grade C may not be placed on the market. From 1 January 2038 only grades A and B remain. The design for recycling criteria behind the grades come from a delegated act still to be published.
Each plastic part of packaging must carry a minimum share of post-consumer recycled plastic: 30% for single-use PET beverage bottles, 30% for contact sensitive packaging whose main component is PET, 10% for contact sensitive packaging in plastics other than PET. The remaining categories and the 2040 step are set in Annex II of the regulation.
Grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging may not exceed a 50% empty space ratio. Filling material counts as empty space rather than as product: air cushions, bubble wrap, foam, paper cuttings, wood wool and polystyrene chips all fall on the empty side of the calculation.
At least 40% of transport packaging has to be reusable within a reuse system by 2030, rising to 70% by 2040. It is a portfolio target measured across what you place on the market, not a pass or fail on a single item.
Member states must separately collect at least 90% by weight per year of single-use plastic beverage bottles up to 3 litres and single-use metal beverage containers up to 3 litres, and set up deposit and return systems to get there. Anyone selling drinks in those formats ends up inside the resulting scheme.
Producers register in the packaging section of the Registro de Productores de Productos and supply a certificate of membership of an individual or collective producer responsibility scheme. The registration number then has to appear on invoices and on the documentation accompanying the goods through to the point of sale.
If the separate collection targets of Article 10.4 are missed, producers of single-use plastic bottles up to 3 litres of water, juice, nectar, freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable mixes, concentrates, soft, energy, isotonic and alcoholic drinks have two years from the ministry's notification to run a deposit and return system, with cans and beverage cartons included alongside the bottles. The deposit is set by the scheme at 10 cents or more per container. The decree fixes the two year clock, not a calendar date, so the start follows from that notification.
0.45 euro per kilogram of non-recycled plastic in non-reusable packaging. Recycled content only reduces the taxable weight when it is certified by a body accredited under UNE-EN 15343. Taxpayers enter the tax's territorial register before starting the activity, self-assess quarterly, or monthly if their VAT period is monthly, and keep the prescribed stock accounts. Imports and intra-EU acquisitions of up to 5 kg of non-recycled plastic per month are exempt.
Law 7/2022 sets the sanction bands for packaging and waste infringements in Spain, and a separate set for the plastic packaging tax. These are the amounts written in the law.
| Infringement | Article | Fine |
|---|---|---|
| Minor infringement | Law 7/2022 Art. 109.1.c | Up to 2,000 euros |
| Serious infringement | Law 7/2022 Art. 109.1.b | 2,001 to 100,000 euros |
| Very serious infringement | Law 7/2022 Art. 109.1.a | 100,001 to 3,500,000 euros |
| No entry in the plastic tax territorial register, or no tax representative appointed | Law 7/2022 Art. 83 | 1,000 euros, fixed |
| Tax underpaid through false or incorrect recycled content certification | Law 7/2022 Art. 83 | 50% of the amount not paid, minimum 1,000 euros |
| Exemption claimed for a use the goods were not actually put to | Law 7/2022 Art. 83 | 150% of the benefit wrongly taken, minimum 1,000 euros |
| Incorrect tax data on an invoice or certificate | Law 7/2022 Art. 83 | 75 euros per document |
Where a fine would come to less than the benefit obtained from the infringement, Article 109.2 raises it to up to twice that benefit. Repeated tax infringements carry a further 25% on top of the sanction.
PPWRsolution holds your packaging specifications and the compliance evidence built on them. It does not file on your behalf and does not replace your producer responsibility scheme; it keeps the data each obligation asks for in a shape you can hand to an auditor.
| Obligation | What PPWRsolution does |
|---|---|
| Restricted substancesPPWR Art. 5 | Heavy metal and PFAS values are held per packaging component and checked against the 100 mg/kg, 25 ppb, 250 ppb and 50 ppm limits. One component over its limit fails the whole packaging, and a food contact component counts as cleared only once all three PFAS values have actually been measured. |
| Declaration of ConformityPPWR Art. 38 and 39 | A register of declarations with the document file attached, linked to the SKUs and suppliers each one covers, with review reminders and an append-only audit log of every change. |
| Producer registrationPPWR Art. 44 and 45, RD 1055/2022 Art. 15 | EPR registration records per market, with the member states pre-listed, registration numbers, status and renewal dates, plus a report of SKUs sold into a market with no active registration behind them. |
| Recyclability gradePPWR Art. 6 | A weight-weighted recyclable share across a SKU's components, turned into grade A, B, C or below, and checked against whether that grade may still be placed on the market at a given date. |
| Minimum recycled contentPPWR Art. 7 | Recycled content per component against the category thresholds. Categories the regulation leaves to Annex II stay unset and are reported as unknown rather than as a pass, and can be filled in per workspace once you have a figure you trust. |
| Empty space ratioPPWR Art. 24 | A calculator that takes box dimensions and product volume and returns the empty space ratio against the 50% limit. Filler is never an input, because the regulation counts it as empty space. |
| Reuse targetsPPWR Art. 29 | Reusable share per packaging category against the 40% and 70% targets. The app holds specifications rather than volumes placed on the market, so the share is a SKU count proxy and is labelled as one. |
| Deposit and returnPPWR Art. 50, RD 1055/2022 Art. 47 | Each SKU is tested against the deposit scope in the decree, by format, material and the 3 litre ceiling, and covered items get a deposit value and a printable label. |
| Supplier due diligencePPWR Art. 18 and 19 | Supplier records tracking whether their conformity documents and their EPR registration have been verified, so an importer or distributor can show the check actually happened. |
| Plastic packaging taxLaw 7/2022 Art. 67 to 83 | Non-recycled plastic weight and tax per unit at 0.45 euro per kilogram, computed over the taxable components only, and totalled into a report per filing period. |
This page summarises the texts cited above. Several PPWR requirements still depend on delegated and implementing acts the Commission has not published, in particular the design for recycling criteria under Article 6 and the empty space measurement method under Article 24, so those dates are the earliest that can apply rather than a guarantee. This is a summary of the law, not legal or tax advice.
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