Ship to Europe? A New EU Rule Could Get Your Products Pulled From Shelves

If your small business ships anything to a customer in the European Union — a boutique selling on Etsy, a manufacturer with a distributor in Germany, an online store with EU customers — a new packaging law now applies to you, whether you've heard of it or not.

What's Happening

The EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, known as the PPWR (formally Regulation (EU) 2025/40), applies to every company that places packaged goods on the EU market. It doesn't matter if your business is headquartered in Ohio instead of Berlin — a US exporter shipping a product to a customer in Rotterdam carries the same legal exposure as a manufacturer based in Germany.

The regulation's biggest structural changes don't land until 2030. But several binding requirements are already in effect as of August 2026, and businesses that haven't prepared are at risk of having products pulled from shelves, delisted from online marketplaces, or blocked at the border.

What Took Effect in August 2026

Two requirements matter most right now for small businesses shipping to Europe:

• A near-total ban on PFAS ("forever chemicals") in food-contact packaging. If your packaging touches food — takeout containers, wrappers, coated boxes, or similar — it can no longer contain these chemicals if it's placed on the EU market.
• A strict combined cap on heavy metals. Lead, cadmium, mercury, and hexavalent chromium together are now capped at 100 milligrams per kilogram across all packaging types, not just food packaging.

These aren't proposals or future deadlines — they apply to packaging placed on the EU market starting now. And the exposure doesn't end once you've shipped the product. Product liability law allows claims long after a sale, so packaging with legacy chemical issues can create liability for years after the fact.

Who Actually Holds the Legal Responsibility

This is the part most US small businesses get wrong. Under the PPWR, the "producer" is generally whichever company first makes the packaging or packaged product available in a given EU country. For goods made outside the EU, that responsibility typically shifts to whoever imports or distributes the product into the bloc.

In practice, that means you can't just take your overseas supplier's word that packaging is compliant — as the importer or seller of record, you're expected to verify it yourself. Depending on your packaging type, you may need to maintain technical documentation for five years (single-use packaging) or ten years (reusable packaging), and register in the national producer registry of every EU country where you sell.

For a small business selling into just one or two EU countries, that's manageable with some upfront work. For a business selling across the EU through a marketplace like Amazon or Etsy, it becomes an ongoing compliance program, not a one-time filing. Non-EU businesses without a physical presence in the EU often need to appoint an authorized representative based in the bloc to hold documentation and respond to regulators on their behalf.

What's Coming by 2030

The PPWR's structural targets phase in over the next several years, and the lead time to prepare is shorter than it looks:

• By January 1, 2030, all packaging must meet minimum recyclability grades of A, B, or C. Packaging that falls below Grade C faces restrictions, and recycling fees scale based on how recyclable your packaging design actually is.
• Plastic packaging will need minimum recycled-content thresholds — single-use plastic beverage bottles, for example, must contain at least 30% recycled content by 2030.
• E-commerce and shipping packaging will be capped at a maximum 50% empty space ratio. If you've been shipping small items in oversized boxes with a lot of void fill, that practice becomes a compliance violation, not just an inefficiency.
• Online marketplaces will be required to verify that sellers on their platforms are properly registered under the EU's Extended Producer Responsibility rules, or risk having to suspend those sellers. This rolls out gradually as individual EU countries stand up their registries.

What This Means for Your Business

If you sell physical products to EU customers

Start by mapping which of your packaging types are actually affected — food-contact materials and anything containing lead, cadmium, mercury, or chromium are the most urgent to check. If you're using any of these in your current packaging, you need a reformulation plan now, because supply chain audits, testing, and documentation take months, not weeks.

If you use a fulfillment partner or dropshipper for EU orders

Don't assume your fulfillment partner has this handled. Confirm in writing who is taking on "producer" responsibility for your packaging under the regulation, and get documentation of their compliance rather than a verbal assurance.

If you're a US-only business today but considering EU expansion

Build compliance into your expansion plan from the start rather than retrofitting it later. It's far cheaper to design compliant packaging before you launch in a new market than to redesign and re-certify after you're already selling there.

Why This Isn't Just a "Big Company" Problem

It's tempting to assume EU regulators are focused on large multinational manufacturers, not a small US business shipping a few hundred orders a year to Europe. But the PPWR doesn't have a small-business carve-out based on company size — it applies based on whether you're placing packaged goods on the EU market, period. A single non-compliant shipment can trigger the same enforcement exposure for a small seller as for a large one.

If your business carries product liability coverage, this is also a good moment to check whether your policy addresses regulatory compliance issues tied to packaging, since a delisting or border block can disrupt revenue even without a lawsuit attached. Reviewing your business insurance coverage alongside your packaging compliance plan is a reasonable next step. If you're operating through an LLC or considering how your business entity affects liability exposure in a case like this, it's also worth revisiting your LLC formation structure with an advisor familiar with cross-border sales.

What to Do Now

• Identify every packaging type you use for EU-bound shipments, starting with anything that touches food.
• Check whether your packaging contains PFAS or exceeds the new heavy-metal limits, and get written confirmation from suppliers if you're not sure.
• Determine who holds "producer" responsibility in your supply chain — you, your fulfillment partner, or your distributor.
• If you're a non-EU business without a physical EU presence, look into whether you need an authorized representative based in the bloc.
• Start planning now for the 2030 recyclability and recycled-content requirements, since redesign and testing take time.

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash