New Packaging and Textile Waste Law is Crushing Small Businesses

Today is a really difficult day for small businesses operating and selling across the EU.

The new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) is putting businesses like ours in an incredibly difficult position. As a result of these new requirements, we may have no choice but to stop shipping to some EU countries. This is especially frustrating for us because we're an EU-based business ourselves. We moved from North America to the Netherlands specifically so we could build our business here and sell directly to customers across Europe.

Sadly, it's the smallest businesses that are likely to feel the biggest impact. Under the new rules, businesses are required to register, report, and pay fees for packaging entering each individual EU country. For businesses like ours, certain countries also require us to report textiles.

We can understand the need for businesses to take responsibility for their packaging and waste. That's not really the issue.

The problem is what comes next.

We are required to have a legal representative in every EU country where we sell. The costs we're seeing range from around €100 to €900 per country, every single year. On top of that, there isn't a straightforward, centralized system that tells businesses exactly who they should register with or pay. As a small business, that's incredibly concerning. How are we supposed to know that we're paying the right organization and that we're actually compliant?

It would make so much more sense to have one official EU portal where a business could simply select the countries it sells to, complete the necessary registrations, and pay the required fees. The EU already has centralized systems for things like VAT through OSS, so it's difficult to understand why something similar isn't available here.

There are 27 EU countries potentially affected, and these costs have to be prepaid in order to continue selling into each market. Whether you send one package or 100,000 packages into a particular country, the cost isn't that different. This means the burden isn't just falling on huge companies like Shein or Amazon. In many cases, it's the small businesses with limited sales that will feel it the most an in effect disappear.

These rules come into effect on 12 August 2026.

We've already lost more than 50% of our US market over the past year due to Trump's tariffs. Now we're facing another major setback in the market where we actually live and operate. This doesn't feel like something that benefits EU consumers or small EU businesses.

I can understand policies designed to protect local businesses from unfair competition from outside companies. But this feels like it creates another barrier for small local businesses trying to grow and sell online.

We're now having to go through each EU country and work out whether continuing to sell there is financially viable. The potential fines are significant, and failing to meet the requirements could even result in being completely banned from selling in a country.

At the moment, we still ship throughout the EU, but over the coming days we'll be working through everything and will clearly communicate which countries we can no longer ship to.

If you'd like to sign the petition calling for these rules to be changed, click here.

You can also send your concerns and feedback about the regulation directly to the European Commission click here.

Small businesses need a voice too. Let's use ours.