The Government has laid Statutory Instrument 2025 No. 1369 amending the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024. Made on 17 December 2025 under the Environment Act 2021, the instrument comes into force on 1 January 2026 across the UK with the consent of devolved administrations. It is signed by Mary Creagh, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Material definitions are tightened. “Fibre‑based composite material” now covers packaging made of paperboard or paper fibres with one or more plastic layers, forming a unit that cannot be separated by hand and which is not otherwise classed as paper or board. “Paper or board” expressly includes such items where the plastic layer(s) are no more than 5% by mass and the producer can evidence this. The definition of household packaging is adjusted by removal of a sub‑paragraph in regulation 8 to align treatment of borderline items.
Interaction with deposit return schemes is clarified. Packaging is exempt where it is, or would be but for a low‑volume line exemption, a deposit item under a relevant scheme. A low‑volume line exemption is defined by reference to thresholds in the scheme’s regulations. “Marine installation” is also defined for the exemptions regime. This aims to prevent double charging where deposit systems already apply.
Charities are no longer wholly excluded from the 2024 regime. Instead, they are excluded from producer responsibility obligations and the annual disposal and administration fees. However, the transitional schedule confirms that charities operating as reprocessors or exporters must register from 1 January 2027 (applications open from 1 October 2026), and related offences and civil sanctions do not apply to charities until that date.
Producer scoping is refined. Once the first producer has supplied packaging, no other person becomes a producer merely by further supply, except a seller. If a new packaging component is added later (for example, a label), producer status for that component is determined afresh. Where multiple brands appear, the producer is either the brand owner making the first supply or, if none does so, the brand with the largest area on the external surface; this applies to all parts of the packaging whether branded or not.
Corporate change is now on a statutory footing. New regulations 27A to 27C set rules for mergers and transfers. A merged entity is treated as large if any predecessor was large in the merger year; it inherits continuing obligations and may use PRNs/PERNs obtained by predecessors to meet inherited recycling obligations. On brand or business transfers, acquirers must notify the appropriate agency within 28 days, register or re‑register if thresholds are met, and, for the transfer year and two years after, are sized using adjusted turnover and adjusted packaging supplied that include the relevant proportions of the transferor’s figures.
Data and fee liabilities are explicitly carried across in mergers and transfers. For mergers, disposal and administration fees due in the assessment year starting 1 April of the merger year can accrue to the merged entity, including unpaid amounts that would have been due but for the merger. For transfers where the transferor is a large producer, both parties must submit or re‑submit data for the June and December reporting periods of the transfer year and the previous year; packaging supplied by the transferor with the transferred brand or business is treated as supplied by the transferee for those reports.
Registration and reporting mechanics are amended. Merged entities and brand/business acquirers must apply for registration by the earliest due date or within 28 days of the event. Large producers wishing to report closed‑loop packaging waste must pay an additional registration charge. Producers must inform the appropriate agency within 28 days of ceasing to be a producer. Seller‑specific cross‑references in the reporting and record‑keeping tables are tidied.
Record‑keeping is strengthened. Producers must retain required data and evidence for at least seven years. Closed‑loop packaging waste is defined tightly: it must be food‑grade plastic household packaging supplied as filled packaging on or after 1 January 2024, collected directly from consumers by or on behalf of the same producer, kept unmixed except with qualifying packaging from that same producer, and sent to a single reprocessor for recycling. “Food grade” refers to materials intended to contact food and meeting Commission Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 and, for recycled materials, Commission Regulation (EU) No 282/2008.
Evidence for reporting must be obtained from accredited reprocessors or exporters. Closed‑loop reporting can only aggregate weights from two reprocessors where there is a changeover and no further material is sent to the previous reprocessor; otherwise aggregation across multiple reprocessors is not allowed. Producers must keep evidence that closed‑loop material meets the definition and has been recycled into food‑grade plastics, alongside evidence for relevant packaging waste.
Fee design is recalibrated. Liability for disposal and administration fees attaches to any person who is a producer in all or part of the assessment year and, in the preceding calendar year, was a large producer supplying household packaging as a brand owner, packer/filler, importer or first UK owner, distributor, online marketplace operator or service provider. In calculating disposal fees, the scheme administrator must off‑set reported relevant packaging waste and closed‑loop packaging waste, but no closed‑loop off‑set is applied if the additional registration charge has not been paid; off‑sets cannot exceed reported household supply.
Price signals are sharpened. Modulation now expressly allows higher charges where packaging exceeds what is reasonably necessary to perform its function, adding an explicit minimisation criterion. The administration fee can include payments the scheme administrator expects to make to any delegated body. When assessing relevant authority disposal costs, the scheme administrator must do so as far as possible while facilitating the environmental effects set out in the policy statement referenced in regulation 127.
A new late assessment power is introduced. If a previously unrecognised liable producer is identified, the scheme administrator may estimate data using the best available evidence, serve a notice of liability, and charge interest backdated to the date payment would have fallen due. Notices must be issued within four years of the end of the assessment year, or within ten years where the administrator could not calculate fees due to a failure to comply with obligations.
Enforcement provisions are adjusted. It is an offence for a producer to report closed‑loop packaging waste without having paid the additional registration charge for the relevant year. In Scotland, licensors and pub operating businesses commit an offence if they fail to collect, retain, or report data under Schedule 10. Reprocessors and exporters must not issue PRNs or PERNs where one has already been issued for the same packaging waste, and cross‑references on accreditation conditions are corrected. Compliance notices are now available for specified registration failings.
Charges across the regime are uprated and a new closed‑loop reporting fee is introduced. Examples include large producer registration rising from £2,620 to £2,842 and the additional charge of £2,548 for large producers wishing to report closed‑loop packaging waste. Compliance scheme, reprocessor and exporter registration and accreditation fees are also increased, and the annual inflation uplift mechanism is rolled forward to 2027.
Transitional reporting is detailed. Large producers may amend 2024 and first‑half 2025 reports to reclassify fibre‑based composites and paper/board using the new definitions and, where evidence exists, include previously eligible closed‑loop packaging waste within relevant packaging waste for those periods. Amended reports for June and December 2024 are due by 28 January 2026; for June 2025 by 1 April 2026. A £2,548 charge applies for submitting such amendments and/or for including eligible material in the December 2025 report as relevant packaging waste (not as closed‑loop).
For the 2025 assessment year, recalculations must ignore one of the new mathematical adjustments, and where amended 2024 data reduces a liable producer’s fees, other producers’ fees are not increased in consequence. For 2026, the rule that blocks closed‑loop off‑sets unless the additional charge is paid is deemed satisfied if the producer pays the transitional £2,548 charge by 28 January 2026. Producers who applied for 2026 registration before commencement and intend to report closed‑loop data must also pay the additional registration charge by that date.
A new governance option is created. Where the Secretary of State or a statutory body is the scheme administrator, it may appoint a not‑for‑profit body corporate (but not a charity) as a Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO) to carry out specified functions, with the consent of the appropriate authorities. Appointments are time‑limited, cannot be directed in the performance of conferred functions, and can be extended or varied with consent; grounds for revocation include mandatory and discretionary exclusion grounds under the Procurement Act 2023 and other compliance failings. On revocation or expiry, minimum necessary assets-including data, IT, contracts and staff-may be transferred to the scheme administrator or a new PRO to maintain continuity.
Information‑sharing gateways are widened. Data provided to an appropriate agency, the scheme administrator, or a PRO may be shared among those bodies. Complaints procedures are extended to cover how a PRO or any delegated body exercises conferred functions. Together with late assessment and the PRN/PERN safeguards, the framework strengthens auditability and enforcement while signposting cost‑modulation towards reduction and recyclability.
For producers and compliance officers, the immediate priorities are to confirm material categorisations against the 5% plastic threshold for paper or board, review evidence chains for closed‑loop claims, decide whether to amend 2024/2025 reports by the statutory deadlines, and budget for uprated fees and the £2,548 closed‑loop charge where applicable. Organisations involved in mergers, acquisitions, or brand transfers should plan for the 28‑day notifications, re‑registration where necessary, and the re‑submission of historic data that follows from the transfer rules.