EPR in Ireland: Repak Registration & Fees 2026

Sell packaged goods to shoppers in Ireland and two names decide most of your compliance: Repak, which runs packaging, and Producer Register Limited, the national register for electricals, batteries and tyres. The number most sellers used to check first, the "major producer" test of turnover above €1 million together with more than 10 tonnes of packaging a year, is no longer the test that decides whether you owe packaging EPR.

Updated 19 August 2026: revised now that the PPWR (Regulation (EU) 2025/40) applies, since 12 August 2026, and the Irish €1m/10-tonne major-producer test can no longer be relied on as an exemption.

Assume you are under the line and you can end up placing goods on the Irish market with no valid registration, which is exactly what marketplaces and local-authority enforcement look for first. What the numbers mean now, and the rest of the Irish picture, follow below.

The Irish system is split by body rather than by a single portal. Packaging sits with Repak; electricals, batteries and tyres run through Producer Register Limited; end-of-life vehicles go through ELVES; and drinks containers are handled by the Re-turn deposit scheme, which is not EPR at all. Each part applies differently to an online seller, starting with the one that catches most stores.

Packaging: Repak, and what happened to the major-producer test

Packaging is the obligation almost every online store meets, and in Ireland the collective route runs through membership of the Repak compliance scheme, the body approved to run packaging recovery on producers' behalf. Repak holds a fresh ten-year licence, so it is the scheme you will be dealing with for the rest of the decade.

Ireland used to be distinctive for its threshold. The European Union (Packaging) Regulations 2014, S.I. No. 282/2014, as amended, single out the "major producer": a business with an annual turnover above €1 million that also places more than 10 tonnes of packaging on the Irish market in a year.

Ireland required both tests to be met. Clear them and scheme membership was mandatory; stay under either and you were treated as a minor producer, with lighter segregation and take-back duties rather than full scheme membership. Those are still the numbers written in the Irish instrument, and they are still the numbers Repak's own guidance and most third-party articles quote, which is why sellers keep finding them.

Since August 2026: no turnover or volume threshold under the PPWR

What changed is the law above them. Since 12 August 2026 the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, applies directly in every member state, Ireland included, and it repealed Directive 94/62/EC.

Article 45(1) places extended producer responsibility on the producer that first makes packaging or packaged products available in a member state, and the Regulation sets no turnover or volume de minimis for that obligation. Article 44(2) requires the producer to be registered in each member state where it first makes packaging available, and Article 44(4) makes selling without that registration prohibited. A national "you are exempt below X" rule can no longer be relied on to remove the duty, and Ireland's 10-tonne relief is being phased out with the PPWR.

Below 10 tonnes, Ireland's rule gives lighter paperwork, not silence. Article 44(8) gives a producer that first made available less than 10 tonnes of packaging in a member state in a calendar year the reduced data set of Annex IX Part B point 2, still filed annually, by 1 June for the preceding year. A member state may set a lower threshold for a given year but never a higher one. So the honest answer to "am I exempt below €1 million and 10 tonnes?" is no: you register and you report, and under 10 tonnes you report less.

Repak membership, fees, and the representative rule

The practical route into that obligation is still national. The PPWR's harmonised national registers under Article 44(1) are only due 18 months after the Article 44(14) implementing act on their format, and that act, due in February 2026, had not been adopted as of August 2026.

Until it exists, registration and reporting in Ireland run through the existing Irish arrangements, which for a collective route means Repak. Article 46(1) lets a member state make membership of a producer responsibility organisation mandatory, and Article 46(5) requires a scheme to treat producers equally regardless of size and not to place a disproportionate burden on small producers.

What nobody can tell you yet is that every small producer is automatically a Repak member from 12 August 2026: the Regulation creates the obligation, and Ireland decides the mechanics. Confirm your route with Repak or your local authority rather than assume it either way.

The self-compliance alternative is gone in any case. Producers used to be able to self-comply directly under local-authority oversight instead of joining a scheme; that option was removed, so an approved body is the route, and Repak is the only one.

Repak fees are calculated on the material type and weight of the packaging you place on the market, layered with your turnover band, so glass, plastics and cardboard each carry different rates and your bill scales with your material footprint. You report granular, material-specific data rather than a flat estimate.

Note one more PPWR consequence if you sell into Ireland from another country: Article 45(3) requires a producer that first makes packaging available in a member state without being established there to appoint, by written mandate, an authorised representative for extended producer responsibility in that member state. For a distance seller shipping into Ireland from abroad, that is now an EU-law requirement on the packaging side too, not only the EPA's authorised-representative rule for electricals and batteries.

Electricals, batteries and tyres: Producer Register Limited

Three streams share a single national register. Producer Register Limited is Ireland's register for electrical and electronic equipment, batteries and tyres, and producers of any of the three register there on an annual basis.

For electricals, the rules sit under S.I. 149/2014, the Irish WEEE regulations in force since 4 July 2012. Batteries follow the EU Batteries Regulation, whose core producer-responsibility obligations apply from 18 August 2025 and reach batteries built into devices, laptops and toys as well as loose cells. Tyres came into scope more recently: a national tyre EPR scheme run by Circol ELT has been in force since 1 January 2025, with producers and importers reporting the quantities they place on the market.

If you sell electricals or batteries into Ireland from abroad and have no establishment here, the EPA's distance-seller guidance is unambiguous: you have to appoint an authorised representative in Ireland. That representative is an Irish-based entity that registers you with Producer Register Limited, joins a compliance scheme such as WEEE Ireland or ERP Ireland, files your placed-on-market data and provides the free take-back the rules demand. It is a mandatory appointment, not a convenience, and without it your electricals cannot be legally placed on the Irish market.

Vehicles, single-use plastics and the streams still to come

A few streams matter only for particular catalogues. End-of-life vehicles fall under the ELV Directive, in force since 21 October 2000 and managed in Ireland by the ELVES compliance scheme; it is relevant to producers and importers of cars and light commercial vehicles rather than most online retailers. Certain disposable plastics are caught by the Single-Use Plastics Directive, in force since 3 July 2021, which restricts and marks items such as food containers, cups, carrier bags and some flexible wrappers - worth a catalogue check if you sell disposables.

Two obligations are coming but not yet live. A mandatory textiles EPR scheme applies from 17 April 2028 under Directive (EU) 2025/1892, which will require fashion sellers to fund the collection and sorting of used clothing.

EPR for fishing gear that contains plastic is also expected under the Single-Use Plastics Directive but is not yet in force in Ireland, so there is nothing to file for it today. For furniture, toys, graphic paper, DIY and garden goods and similar categories there is no Irish EPR scheme at all, so your only packaging concern for those products is the box they ship in.

Re-turn: the deposit scheme that is not EPR

Ireland's newest producer-responsibility system is not an EPR scheme at all. The Re-turn deposit-return scheme went live on 1 February 2024, one of the most recent launches in Europe, and it covers single-use drinks containers: PET plastic bottles and aluminium or steel cans between 150ml and 3 litres. A refundable deposit is added at the till - 15 cent for containers from 150ml to 500ml, and 25 cent for those over 500ml up to 3 litres - which consumers reclaim when they return the empty container.

The scheme changed behaviour fast. Re-turn's own published figures put the total at more than 2.5 billion cans and bottles returned since launch, with the national recycling rate for in-scope drinks containers up from 49% to over 90%. For a seller, the point is that Re-turn is ring-fenced from packaging EPR. Even if you are fully signed up with Repak and paying material fees on your shipping boxes, any single-use drinks containers you place on the Irish market carry their own separate deposit obligation. Repak membership does not cover it, and the two systems are managed independently.

Repak's turnover-banded fees, and the delisting that hits first

Budgeting for Ireland means a handful of distinct lines. Repak packaging fees vary by material, weight and turnover band, so a store shipping in heavy rigid plastic pays more than one using cardboard for the same product. Electricals, batteries and tyres each carry their own scheme contributions based on the volumes you report to Producer Register Limited. If you are a foreign seller, add the commercial cost of retaining the authorised representative your electricals or batteries require.

The sharper cost is non-compliance. The packaging regulations are enforced by local authorities, which can prosecute, while the EPA oversees WEEE and batteries. But for most online sellers the first blow lands sooner: marketplaces now check for valid Irish registration numbers and suspend or delist offers without them, cutting revenue well before any regulator makes contact. Registering before your goods reach Irish buyers is far cheaper than being pulled from a platform mid-season.

Key dates and how the picture is changing

Ireland's framework keeps expanding. The milestones that matter to sellers are below.

Selling into Ireland alongside the UK and the rest of the EU? Gramta turns your real orders into the packaging reports each scheme asks for, mapped to each country's registers and fees. Connect your sales channels to your compliance duties.

Sources:

• Repak compliance scheme and major-producer FAQ
• Producer Register Limited
• EPA guidance for distance sellers of EEE and batteries
• Circol ELT tyre scheme
• ELVES end-of-life vehicles scheme
• Re-turn deposit-return scheme
• EU Batteries Regulation 2023/1542
• Single-Use Plastics Directive (EU) 2019/904
• Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Articles 44 and 45 (registration, simplified reporting under 10 tonnes, EPR authorised representative)
• European Union (Packaging) Regulations 2014, S.I. No. 282/2014 (the Irish major-producer test)
• Ireland's 10-tonne packaging EPR threshold phased out
• European Commission: packaging and packaging waste
• European Commission: PPWR guidance document
• Textiles EPR Directive (EU) 2025/1892