Who is the importer under Regulation (EU) 2025/40?

The Commission guidance for the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation defines an importer as “any natural or legal person established within the Union that places packaging from a third country on the market”. Two words in that definition decide most arguments.

“Established within the Union” means a registered address in a Member State. The Commission guidance adds a point that catches groups with a light European footprint: a branch without separate legal personality cannot be the importer. If your European presence is a representative office rather than an incorporated entity, you do not have an importer, and the operator placing the goods on the market will be whoever does have one.

“Places packaging on the market” means the first making available in the Union. That is an event, not a location. It happens once per consignment and fixes which entity carries the duty for that consignment. A second sale down the chain is making available, not placing on the market.

The short answer, then, is that the obligation does not travel with the pallet. It attaches to the entity that first puts the pallet into the EU market, and that entity is on your side of the water.

Does the obligation follow the goods or the importer?

It follows the operator. Regulation (EU) 2025/40 is built on the standard EU product law architecture, which assigns duties by role rather than by material.

Article 15 sets the manufacturer duty: “Manufacturers shall only place on the market packaging which is in conformity with the requirements laid down in or pursuant to Articles 5 to 12.” Articles 5 to 12 are the substantive product requirements, including the substances of concern rules in Article 5 and the labelling rules in Article 12.

Article 16(1) is the hinge for a buyer sourcing from outside the EU, because it is the provision under which suppliers pass information and documentation up the chain. The Commission guidance describes the EU declaration of conformity as drafted by the manufacturer “based on the information and documentation provided by suppliers pursuant to Article 16(1)”, or by an authorised representative under Article 17. Article 17 allows a manufacturer to appoint that representative by written mandate, which is the mechanism that lets an Indian manufacturer keep authorship of the conformity file while giving a named EU entity the standing to present it.

Article 38 sets the conformity assessment procedure. Article 39 requires the EU declaration of conformity, and Annex VII sets what the technical documentation must contain.

When does an importer become a manufacturer?

This is the trap in private label and the most expensive misunderstanding in the cluster.

The Commission guidance states that importers and distributors “may be considered manufacturers” under Article 21 when they place packaging on the market under their own name or trademark, or when they modify packaging in a way that affects compliance. The consequence is not administrative: it moves the full manufacturer duty set in Article 15 onto the European entity. Three worked cases make the line visible.

If you are running a private label palm leaf tableware programme for a European brand, assume the third row until your own counsel tells you otherwise, and price the documentation work into the programme rather than discovering it at onboarding.

What does the buyer actually have to hold?

The file is smaller than most onboarding checklists suggest, but each item has to be real and name the SKU.

The substances of concern evidence deserves its own specification, and the thresholds and test sequence are set out in the analysis of PFAS limits and substances of concern under PPWR. What the wider vendor pack should contain is covered in the guide to the EU-specific documents a European buyer adds to a standard vendor pack.

The sequence, and where your own delay costs a week

The dependencies run one way. Each step needs the one above it.

1. Decide which legal entity will be the operator placing the goods on the market. Nothing else can start until this is fixed, because the declaration names it.
2. Fix the SKU list. Declarations naming a material rather than a product get rejected at onboarding and have to be reissued.
3. Request the composition statement and the substances of concern evidence against that SKU list. This is the long pole: laboratory turnaround plus sample despatch from India is the step most likely to move a shipping date.
4. Have the manufacturer, or its authorised representative under Article 17, draft the technical documentation and the EU declaration of conformity.
5. Register for extended producer responsibility, the national schemes that fund packaging waste collection, in each destination Member State. This runs in parallel to step 4, so start it early. See who registers for EPR when you import from India.
6. Clear customs. The file must exist by the time the goods are placed on the market.

Buyers routinely leave step 1 until the contract stage and step 5 until after arrival. Step 1 late means the declaration names the wrong entity and has to be redone. Step 5 late means goods land in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden or Ireland with no scheme registration in place, which is a national enforcement problem rather than a PPWR one.

When you should leave the obligation with a European distributor

Some buyers should not be the importer, and it is worth saying so.

If you are placing a single trial container, have no in-house regulatory resource, or are buying for one site rather than a network, buying from an established European distributor who is already the operator of record is usually the better route. You give up margin and some control over specification, and you gain a counterparty who already holds the conformity file and the scheme registrations. The trade-off is set out in the comparison of buying from the Indian manufacturer or a European importer.

If you are running volume across several Member States, own-brand, and already file EPR returns, being the operator yourself is cheaper and more controllable. The data you will need from the factory to file those returns is covered in the guide to the supplier data you need before you can file an EPR return.

Regulation (EU) 2025/40 assigns roles. It does not tell you which role to take. That is a commercial decision, and your own counsel and customs broker should confirm the consequences before you sign.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• PPWR is in force: what changed for imported foodservice packaging
• You or your supplier: who registers for EPR when you import from India
• Indian manufacturer or European importer: the real difference in cost and control
• The EU-specific documents a European buyer adds to a standard vendor pack

References