A brand can outsource the production of every box and still be its manufacturer under the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). The same brand may also be the producer responsible for packaging waste in a particular EU country. These roles assign different responsibilities: the manufacturer addresses packaging conformity, while the producer handles extended producer responsibility, or EPR. For a business buying custom packaging, the distinction determines where the technical evidence belongs and who must arrange the national waste-management obligations.

Regulation (EU) 2025/40 entered into force on 11 February 2025 and generally began applying on 12 August 2026. Particular design, labeling and reporting measures have separate implementation dates, so conformity work must address the requirements applicable to the packaging at the relevant time.

The manufacturer may be the brand commissioning the box

Article 3(1)(13) starts with the person manufacturing packaging or a packaged product. It then assigns manufacturer status to a business that has packaging or a packaged product designed or manufactured under its own name or trademark, subject to the micro-enterprise exception. A skincare brand commissioning its branded retail boxes can therefore be the PPWR manufacturer even though a packaging factory performs the printing, wrapping and assembly.

Look at the commissioning arrangement as well as the artwork. The provision covers both the packaging and the packaged product, and expressly says that another visible trademark does not change the own-name rule. Adding the box supplier’s mark does not displace the commissioning brand’s responsibility. Equally, a box without a printed logo can still form part of an own-brand packaged-product arrangement.

Article 21 also assigns manufacturer obligations to an importer or distributor that places packaging on the market under its own name or trademark, or modifies packaging already on the market in a way that could affect compliance. An importer developing a private-label presentation may therefore have a different role from one reselling the original brand’s unchanged boxed product.

Micro-enterprises: who takes on the conformity work? The exception concerns the business commissioning packaging or a packaged product under its own name or trademark. It must qualify as a micro-enterprise under Recommendation 2003/361/EC, as applicable on 11 February 2025. The headline thresholds are fewer than 10 employees and annual turnover or an annual balance-sheet total of no more than €2 million. Eligibility must be assessed under the Recommendation’s rules, including those governing data from partner and linked enterprises.

For a qualifying business, the packaging supplier’s location determines how the two PPWR provisions work:

• Supplier in the same Member State: Article 3(1)(13)(b) makes the supplier the manufacturer under the definition. Article 15(12) also places the manufacturer obligations in Article 15 with that supplier.
• Supplier in a different EU Member State: the commissioning business remains the manufacturer under Article 3’s own-name rule, while Article 15(12) treats the supplier as the manufacturer for the obligations in that article.
• Supplier outside the EU: buying directly from a supplier in China meets neither supplier-location condition. The commissioning business retains manufacturer status and the Article 15 obligations.

For example, a qualifying French micro-enterprise commissions its branded retail boxes from a German packaging supplier. The French brand remains the manufacturer under Article 3, but the German supplier must carry out or arrange the conformity assessment, prepare the technical documentation and draw up the EU declaration of conformity once conformity with the applicable requirements has been demonstrated. This is the practical effect of Article 15(12)’s broader EU location test.

These exceptions allocate manufacturer responsibilities. Producer status and EPR obligations still follow their own rules on packaging type and supply route.

Producer status follows the market and the sales route

The manufacturer’s role concerns packaging conformity on the EU market. The producer definition in Article 3(1)(15) asks a different set of questions: what packaging is being supplied, where the business is established, where the first supply takes place and whether the recipient is an end user. Moving unchanged packaging into another Member State can change the producer without changing the manufacturer.

• For ordinary sales and grouped packaging: the domestic rule identifies the business established in a Member State that first supplies the packaged products from within that country onto its market.
• For transport, service and primary production packaging: the domestic rule concerns the first supply of the packaging itself. That supply can take place while the packaging is empty.
• For direct cross-border supply to end users: a seller established in another Member State or outside the EU can be the producer in the destination country. Separate provisions cover transport, service and primary production packaging, and other packaged products.

There is also a fallback rule for an EU-established business that unpacks packaged products without being the end user, unless another person is already the producer under the preceding provisions. This can matter when incoming transport packaging is removed during distribution. The definition applies regardless of the selling technique, including distance sales.

Follow the roles through two sales arrangements

Consider a skincare company established in Germany. It commissions rigid retail boxes under its own brand from a supplier in China, fills them in Germany and falls outside the micro-enterprise exception. The German brand is the PPWR manufacturer for that sales packaging. Its producer role depends on how the boxed skincare reaches customers.

The packaging specification can remain identical across these routes. A brand using both French distribution and direct online sales needs to distinguish those flows in its records: the distributor’s role for its own supplies does not cover the brand’s separate direct sales.

Now consider a fragrance brand established in the UK that commissions its own branded packaging from China and sells boxed products directly to consumers in France. The UK brand is the manufacturer under the own-brand rule and the producer in France for those direct supplies. The brand’s establishment and sales arrangements determine those roles; the boxes’ Chinese manufacturing origin is a separate fact.

If that brand instead supplies a French-established importer, which places the unchanged packaged goods on the EU market and first supplies them in France, the UK brand remains the manufacturer and the French importer is the producer for that French supply. The importer also has its own Article 18 duties: before placing the packaging on the market, it must verify that the manufacturer has completed the required conformity assessment and technical documentation, alongside the applicable labeling, identification and accompanying-document requirements.

The retail box and mailing carton need separate answers

A rigid presentation box sold with a skincare set is normally sales packaging: it forms part of the sales unit offered to the end user. The outer corrugated carton used to dispatch that boxed set is transport packaging; when used for online delivery to an end user, it is e-commerce packaging. These functions matter because the producer rule can attach to the first supply of empty transport packaging, while the ordinary sales-packaging rule follows the packaged product.

For example, the German skincare brand might buy finished, unbranded stock mailing cartons from a German carton manufacturer that first supplies them there, then use them for domestic deliveries. In that arrangement, the carton maker is the manufacturer and domestic producer for the mailing cartons. The skincare brand holds both roles for its own branded retail boxes inside them.

Commissioning an own-brand mailer can instead bring the brand within the manufacturer rule for that mailer. And when the brand first supplies the transport packaging directly to consumers in another Member State, the cross-border producer rule applies to that packaging in the destination market. Recording the retail box and dispatch carton separately makes these differences visible.

The manufacturer needs evidence for the agreed packaging

Article 15 requires the manufacturer to carry out the conformity assessment, or have it carried out on its behalf, and prepare the technical documentation before placing packaging on the market. Once conformity with the applicable requirements has been demonstrated, the manufacturer draws up the EU declaration of conformity. The declaration records the conclusion; the technical documentation provides the basis for it.

The responsibility continues into production. Procedures must keep series production in conformity, and changes that could affect conformity require reassessment. Article 15(3) requires the technical documentation and declaration to be retained for five years from placing on the market for single-use packaging, or ten years for reusable packaging. A useful file therefore needs a clear connection to the packaging version actually supplied.

Article 16 gives the packaging supplier an important supporting duty: provide the information and documentation the manufacturer needs to demonstrate conformity, including the relevant technical documentation. The brand’s legal role therefore comes with a corresponding need for substantive information from the businesses supplying its packaging.

For a custom rigid box, we can help turn the approved sample into a shared specification covering the board, wrapping paper, printing, finishes, adhesives, insert and other components. At CMIC, our contribution can include gathering supporting material information and coordinating appropriate project-specific testing. Matching each report to the materials and configuration it covers gives the manufacturer usable evidence and helps the purchasing team understand what must stay consistent in production.

The producer needs national EPR arrangements

The producer’s work under Articles 44–46 covers registration, reporting and responsibility for financing packaging-waste management in the relevant Member State. A producer may entrust EPR work to an authorized producer responsibility organization, commonly called a PRO; Member States may make that arrangement compulsory. National rules determine the applicable procedures and who can submit information on the producer’s behalf.

This requires a different use of packaging information. The manufacturer needs evidence explaining why the agreed packaging meets applicable requirements. The producer needs quantities and material categories connected to the relevant national supplies. For the skincare brand’s retail boxes, the number purchased from China does not by itself establish how much packaging was first supplied in Germany or France. Sales-route records and packaging weights need to work together.

Reporting changes also have their own timetable. For example, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s guidance, reviewed in October 2026, says the increased reporting detail will apply no earlier than reporting in 2029 for the 2028 reference year, with existing information requirements continuing meanwhile. That is guidance for Sweden; it should not be used as a filing timetable for another country.

There are also two different representative roles. A manufacturer may appoint an authorized representative under Article 17 for specified tasks. The manufacturer’s core obligation to ensure conformity, and its obligation to draw up the technical documentation, cannot form part of that representative’s mandate. Specialist assistance can support the work while the manufacturer retains those obligations.

An EPR authorized representative works on the producer’s obligations in a particular Member State. Under Article 45(3), an EU-established producer supplying directly to end users in another Member State must appoint one there by written mandate. For producers established outside the EU, the destination country’s appointment requirements matter: Article 45(3) expressly allows Member States to require representatives for third-country producers. The producer remains responsible for ensuring its obligations are fulfilled when administrative work is contracted out.

As of October 2026, the European Commission’s packaging page describes proposed relief from cross-border EPR representative requirements as still under examination by Parliament and Council. That proposal should be kept separate from the requirements currently applicable to a sales route.

Give each responsibility a clear owner

A change from a paperboard insert to a plastic tray shows how the two responsibilities connect. The manufacturer needs to assess whether the change affects conformity and its supporting evidence. The producer needs the revised material information and weights for the relevant reporting. Both depend on the same current packaging specification, even though they use it for different legal purposes.

For a packaging project, the useful outcome is a named manufacturer for the agreed pack and a named producer for each relevant packaging layer and national supply route, with the supporting work assigned accordingly. Our guide to PPWR labels, technical documentation and EPR explains how these responsibilities connect to the wider set of packaging records and information requirements.

With CMIC, that discussion can begin with your product, packaging concept, destination countries and whether you sell directly or through local partners. Through our EU packaging solutions, we can develop the physical packaging, organize relevant supplier information and coordinate supporting work so your team and market partners have a concrete specification to work from.