EPR in Latvia: The Natural Resources Tax

Sell packaged goods to a Latvian consumer and, by default, every kilogram of packaging you place on the market is taxable under the Natural Resources Tax (Dabas resursu nodoklis), collected by the State Revenue Service. Contract a licensed recovery organisation to hit the state's targets on your behalf and that tax is lifted, though the 300-kilogram-a-year mark still brings a State Environmental Service registration duty within three months.

Updated 19 August 2026: revised now that the PPWR (Regulation (EU) 2025/40) applies, since 12 August 2026, and national weight thresholds no longer remove the EPR obligation.

Latvia is one of the few EU markets where extended producer responsibility starts as a tax you owe rather than a scheme you join. Grasp that single inversion and the rest of the Latvian system follows from it.

The Natural Resources Tax, and the exemption you earn

In most EU countries producer responsibility is a positive duty: you register with a compliance scheme, pay a fee scaled to what you sell, and that fee is the whole of it. Latvia runs the logic in reverse. The baseline is the Natural Resources Tax, a per-kilogram environmental levy the State Revenue Service (VID) charges on packaging and other listed goods placed on the Latvian market. Doing nothing does not leave you merely unregistered; it leaves you owing the tax.

There are two lawful ways to settle it. You can declare your packaging weights to VID and pay the tax on every kilogram of paper, plastic, glass or metal you supply, at a rate set high enough to make waste genuinely expensive. Or you can contract a licensed producer responsibility organisation (PRO), which takes on the recovery obligation for your share of the market; once it meets the state's targets on your behalf, the tax is lifted and you pay the PRO a weight-based management fee instead.

That management fee sits well below the tax it replaces, which is why almost every commercial seller takes the exemption route. Current per-material rates and declaration forms come from Latvia's State Revenue Service tax guidance.

There is a weight threshold for packaging, and its clock is unusual. Under Cabinet of Ministers Regulation No. 983, point 5, a packer whose packaging waste exceeds 300 kilograms in a calendar year registers with the State Environmental Service (VVD) within three months of the day the figure is exceeded. There is no turnover test alongside it, and the number lives in the regulation rather than in the Packaging Law, whose 15. pants sets the duty but leaves the amount to the Cabinet.

What the 300 kg figure does and does not do now

Read that 300 kg as a national administrative trigger, not as permission to stay out of the system. Since 12 August 2026 the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (EU) 2025/40 applies directly in Latvia, and its Article 45(1) puts extended producer responsibility on whoever first makes packaging available on the market with no turnover or volume de minimis attached. A national rule saying "below X you are outside the regulations" cannot be relied on to remove that EU obligation.

What the Regulation does give small sellers is lighter paperwork rather than none. Under Article 44(8), a producer that first made available less than 10 tonnes of packaging in a member state in a calendar year reports a reduced data set, still annually. That is simplified reporting, not an exemption.

The practical route into Latvia has not changed: you register and file through VVD, VID and your PRO, because the harmonised registers the PPWR envisages are not yet in place. So keep the 300 kg number in view as the date-stamped VVD trigger, and treat the underlying producer duty as live from your first shipment. If you are still mapping where your obligations begin across the EU, confirm which EPR duties apply to your business before you ship into Latvia.

Textiles: a EUR 0.50 per kilogram levy since July 2024

Latvia moved on clothing waste well ahead of the wider EU timetable. Since 1 July 2024 the Natural Resources Tax has treated textile products as a taxable object, at a flat EUR 0.50 per kilogram on the clothing, footwear and other textiles placed on the market, administered by VID exactly as packaging is.

Cabinet of Ministers Regulation No. 359, adopted on 11 June 2024, set up the producer-responsibility route alongside the levy, so the pay-the-tax-or-join-a-scheme choice runs through textiles too: a seller who joins an approved textile scheme meets the obligation through it rather than paying the per-kilogram tax to the state, and online sellers are named in scope. For an apparel brand shipping real volume the arithmetic of the scheme route matters as much here as it does for cardboard. The textile Natural Resources Tax guidance sets out the taxable object and the rate.

Electronics and batteries run on Elektroregistrs, not the tax

Two streams sit outside the tax model entirely. Electrical and electronic equipment has carried producer duties since Latvia transposed the WEEE Directive on 4 July 2012, and batteries came under tightened rules when the core producer obligations of the EU Batteries Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 applied from 18 August 2025. Both are register-based rather than tax-based.

Producers of electronics and batteries must be entered in Elektroregistrs, the national producer register run by the LETERA industry association under the Ministry of Climate and Energy. You list your brand and your equipment or battery categories before placing goods on the market, then report the weights and types you supply so Latvia can evidence its collection rates. Account creation and reporting both run through the Elektroregistrs producer portal. A foreign seller without a Latvian entity reaches this register through an authorised representative, the same intermediary the tax-based streams require.

Two more streams are technically live but rarely touch an online store. Single-use plastics have carried reduction, marking and awareness duties since the SUP Directive on single-use plastics took effect on 3 July 2021, and duties under the end-of-life vehicles directive have run since 21 October 2000 under the Ministry of Climate and Energy, mostly concerning vehicle and parts importers. Latvia runs no active producer-responsibility scheme for furniture, tyres, waste oils and several other categories, so those sit outside what an online seller files here.

Registering from abroad: the authorised representative and VID

Because the system is anchored in a state tax, Latvia wants a clearly accountable party inside its borders. A foreign business with no branch or subsidiary cannot simply log in and file. It appoints an authorised representative established in Latvia, holding a written mandate to register the producer, obtain a Latvian tax identification number, and submit declarations to VID and, for electronics and batteries, to Elektroregistrs.

With representation and tax status in place, the ongoing work is data. You measure the weights of packaging, textiles, electronics and batteries you place on the Latvian market, split them by material, and report them to your PRO or register, which keeps the Natural Resources Tax exemption live. Reporting cadence follows the scheme contract and volumes, and typically runs quarterly or annually.

The Natural Resources Tax, the PRO exemption, and VID's assessments

Costs come in three layers. For the tax-based streams your outlay is either the Natural Resources Tax paid to VID or, far more often, the lower weight-based fee a PRO charges for the exemption. Textiles add the EUR 0.50 per kilogram levy or its scheme equivalent, and electronics and batteries carry registration plus volume-based recovery fees through Elektroregistrs. A foreign seller also pays an annual retainer to the authorised representative who holds the mandate.

Enforcement reaches both the state and the sales channel. VID can pursue undeclared placements and assess the unpaid tax, and online marketplaces increasingly ask sellers to evidence EPR registration before listings stay live, so a gap in Latvian compliance can quietly cost you sales access as well as a tax bill.

How the DIO deposit replaces the packaging tax on drinks

If you sell drinks, a separate system sits alongside your packaging duties. Latvia launched a national deposit-return system for beverage containers in February 2022, run by the deposit packaging operator (DIO). It covers PET plastic bottles, metal cans and glass beverage bottles, which carry the national deposit marking and collect a refundable deposit at the point of sale.

The deposit is not part of the Natural Resources Tax. Containers handled through the deposit system are covered by it rather than the packaging tax, so the deposit replaces the packaging duty on those items instead of adding to it. Your transit boxes and other secondary packaging still flow through your ordinary PRO exemption.

Dates shaping Latvian packaging compliance

The framework tracks the EU calendar while keeping a few distinctly Latvian dates. The PPWR has applied since 12 August 2026; the textile levy went live before the bloc's own deadline.

Producer responsibility for plastic-containing fishing gear is expected under the SUP Directive but carries no confirmed Latvian start date, so it stays off the table above until one is set. Holding a PRO exemption, tracking tax rates and hitting reporting deadlines across several markets pulls time away from the shop; if you would rather not run that on spreadsheets, you can put your EPR reporting on autopilot and file the right figures for every market. The PPWR is now the layer above all of it, so it is worth reading how the PPWR rules reshape packaging duties.

Sources:

• Latvia's State Revenue Service tax guidance
• Cabinet of Ministers Regulation No. 983 (registration threshold, three-month window, annual report)
• Iepakojuma likums (the Packaging Law)
• Textile Natural Resources Tax guidance
• Elektroregistrs producer portal (WEEE and batteries)
• LETERA electronics industry association
• SUP Directive (EU) 2019/904 on single-use plastics
• ELV Directive 2000/53/EC on end-of-life vehicles
• Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR), Articles 44-45