PPWR and cosmetics: what really applies from 12 August 2026

• The PPWR — Regulation (EU) 2025/40 — applies from 12 August 2026. It covers all packaging placed on the EU market, whatever the material and whatever is inside it. There is no cosmetics exemption.
• The regulation's application article is Article 71, and it is two sentences long. It defers exactly one provision. Every other staged date lives inside the individual articles — which is why the summaries disagree with each other.
• What genuinely bites on 12 August 2026 for a cosmetics business is not recyclability or recycled content. It is a heavy-metals ceiling, a ban on false bottoms and double walls, and a documentation chain — conformity assessment, technical documentation, EU declaration of conformity — that you must be able to produce for every packaging item.
• If your product ships under your brand, Article 3(13)(a) makes you the manufacturer, even if a third party designs, produces and fills the packaging. That is a different legal role from the Responsible Person under the Cosmetics Regulation, and it can be a different company.
• Cosmetic packaging is contact-sensitive packaging by definition — Article 3 builds that definition by listing Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009. That single cross-reference changes which recycled-content target you get in 2030.
• Cosmetics is named three times in the text: as glass "cosmetics pots" in Annex II, as the hotel-miniature restriction in Annex V point 5 (from 2030), and in Article 24(6), where the Commission is told to assess empty-space ratios for cosmetics specifically by 2032.

1. Why a packaging regulation is now a cosmetics problem

Regulation (EU) 2025/40 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 December 2024 on packaging and packaging waste was published in the Official Journal on 22 January 2025, entered into force on 11 February 2025, and applies from 12 August 2026. It repeals Directive 94/62/EC.

The move from a directive to a regulation is the whole story. Directive 94/62/EC was transposed twenty-seven times, each Member State with its own thresholds, its own labelling and its own timing. Regulation (EU) 2025/40 is directly applicable: the same text, the same dates, in every Member State, with no national implementing law in between.

For a cosmetics business this means packaging stops being a procurement topic and becomes a regulatory file — with a defined role holder, a defined conformity procedure, defined documentation and a defined retention period. That is the same structural pattern as Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009: a person responsible, a technical dossier, records to produce on request.

There is no cosmetics exemption anywhere in the text. Medicinal products and medical devices get several targeted carve-outs — Article 7(4), Article 12(11) — and cosmetics appears in none of them.

2. Read Article 71 before you read anything else

This is where almost every summary goes wrong, so here is the text in full:

Article 71 — Entry into force and application

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from 12 August 2026.

However, Article 67(5) shall apply from 12 February 2029.

That is the entire application regime. One general date, and one deferred provision — Article 67(5), an amendment to the Single-Use Plastics Directive that has nothing to do with cosmetics.

So the common claim that "Article 6 applies from 2030" is, strictly, wrong. Article 6 applies from 12 August 2026. What happens in 2030 is that specific conditions inside Article 6 switch on. The staging is written into the substantive articles as internal date clauses — "By 1 January 2030…", "Point (a) of the first subparagraph shall apply from…" — and you only find them by reading each article to the end.

This matters practically. An obligation that "applies" but whose technical criteria are not yet in force is not a dead letter: it still constrains you through Article 15(1), which says manufacturers shall only place on the market packaging conforming to the requirements laid down in or pursuant to Articles 5 to 12, and through the declaration of conformity that has to say so in writing.

3. What actually bites on 12 August 2026

Three things, for a cosmetics business.

3.1 A heavy-metals ceiling on all packaging — Article 5(4)

"…the sum of the concentrations of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium resulting from substances present in packaging or packaging components shall not exceed 100 mg/kg."

No date clause, so it runs from the general application date. Note the drafting: it is a sum across four metals, it applies to packaging components — closures, pumps, decoration, inks, metallised films, printed cartons — and compliance must be demonstrated in the technical documentation under Annex VII (Article 5(6)). This is a supplier-data problem, not a lab problem you can solve in August.

The PFAS restriction in Article 5(5) is often reported alongside it as a general packaging ban. It is not. It applies expressly to food-contact packaging, at 25 ppb for any individual PFAS, 250 ppb for the sum, and 50 ppm total fluorine. Cosmetic packaging is contact-sensitive but it is not food-contact, so this paragraph does not reach it.

3.2 The end of packaging that only looks bigger — Article 10(2)

Article 10 is titled "Packaging minimisation" and is routinely filed under 2030. Read the two paragraphs side by side:

10(1) — "By 1 January 2030, the manufacturer or importer shall ensure that the packaging placed on the market is designed so that its weight and volume is reduced to the minimum necessary…"

10(2) — "The manufacturer or importer shall ensure that packaging which does not comply with the performance criteria set out in Annex IV of this Regulation and packaging with characteristics that aim only to increase the perceived volume of the product, including double walls, false bottoms and unnecessary layers, is not placed on the market, unless: …"

Paragraph 1 carries a 2030 date. Paragraph 2 carries none. On the face of the text, the prohibition on false bottoms, double walls and unnecessary layers applies from 12 August 2026.

For cosmetics that is not a marginal provision. Weighted false bottoms in serum bottles, double-walled cream jars, and the outer carton sized for shelf presence rather than for the product are ordinary category practice, not abuse.

Two honest caveats. First, the harmonised standards that would let you measure compliance are not there yet: Article 10(3) only requires the Commission to request them from the European standardisation organisations by 12 February 2027. Second, there is a real derogation in Article 10(2)(a): packaging whose design is protected as a Community design, national design right or shape trademark protected before 11 February 2025, where applying the requirement would destroy the novelty, individual character or distinctiveness. That cut-off is the PPWR's entry-into-force date and it has already passed — you cannot create new protection to qualify.

3.3 The documentation chain — Articles 15, 38, 39 and Annex VII

This is the obligation that most consistently surprises people, because it is administrative rather than material. From 12 August 2026 the manufacturer must:

Three details deserve emphasis. The declaration of conformity must be "continuously updated" (Article 39(2)) — it is a live document, not a one-off. Article 39(3) allows a single declaration covering several Union acts, which is worth designing for rather than discovering later. And Article 39(5) obliges competent authorities to check the accuracy of at least part of the declarations each year on a risk basis — so this is a document that gets read.

Importers carry a parallel set under Article 18, including verifying that the manufacturer did the assessment, and adding their own name and address.

4. You are probably the "manufacturer" — and that is not the Responsible Person

Article 3(13):

"'manufacturer' means any natural or legal person that manufactures packaging or a packaged product; however:

(a) subject to point (b), where a natural or legal person has packaging or a packaged product designed or manufactured under its own name or trademark, regardless of whether any other trademark is visible on the packaging or on the packaged product, 'manufacturer' means that natural or legal person…"

If your cream is filled by a contract manufacturer, in a jar designed by a packaging studio and produced by an injection moulder, and it reaches the shelf under your brand — you are the PPWR manufacturer. Every obligation in section 3.3 is yours.

The single exception, Article 3(13)(b): if the brand owner is a micro-enterprise as defined in Recommendation 2003/361/EC as applicable on 11 February 2025, and the packaging supplier is located in the same Member State, the supplier is treated as the manufacturer. Both conditions, or neither.

Then there is a second, separate role. Article 3(15) defines the producer — the party that first makes packaging or packaged products available on a Member State's territory — and that is the role that carries extended producer responsibility, registration in the national register under Article 44, and the financial contributions under Article 45. One company can be manufacturer in the PPWR sense and producer in twenty-seven Member States at once.

Note what none of this is. The Responsible Person under Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 is a third role, defined by a different regulation, with different duties. They frequently sit in the same company; nothing requires it. If you have outsourced the RP function to a service provider — a common and perfectly legitimate arrangement, as set out in our Responsible Person obligations checklist — that provider is not thereby your PPWR manufacturer. Check the contract before assuming the packaging file is covered.

5. The cross-reference that quietly changes your 2030 targets

Article 3 defines "contact-sensitive packaging" as packaging intended to be used for products falling within the scope of a list of Union acts — and that list includes Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009.

So all cosmetic packaging is contact-sensitive packaging under the PPWR, by definition, without any assessment on your part. That flows straight into Article 7:

A cosmetic PET bottle therefore lands at 30 %, and a PP jar or HDPE bottle at 10 % — both below the 35 % general rate. The frequent claim that cosmetics faces 35 % recycled content overstates the obligation by a wide margin.

Three qualifications, all in the text. The 2030 date is "1 January 2030 or 3 years from the date of entry into force of the implementing act referred to in paragraph 8, whichever is the latest", and that implementing act — the calculation and verification methodology — was due by 31 December 2026. The targets are calculated as an average per manufacturing plant and year (Article 7(1)), not per unit. And Article 7(5)(b) excludes any plastic part representing less than 5 % of the total weight of the packaging unit, which for a small pump or a gasket often settles the question.

Cosmetics receives none of the Article 7(4) exemptions given to medicinal products, medical devices and IVDs.

6. The three places the regulation says "cosmetics"

Worth knowing precisely, because they are the only places where the sector is addressed by name.

Annex II, Table 1, category 1 (Glass). The illustrative formats include "bottles, jars, flacons, cosmetics pots, tubs, ampoules, vials made of glass (soda lime silica), aerosol cans". Annex II is the category grid that Article 6 uses for recyclability grading, so a glass cosmetics pot is an explicitly recognised format rather than an edge case someone has to classify.

Annex V, point 5 — from 1 January 2030. Under Article 25(1), economic operators shall not place on the market:

"Single-use packaging for cosmetics, hygiene and toiletry products for the use in the accommodation sector … intended for an individual booking only and intended to be discarded before the next guest arrives."

Illustrative example: "Shampoo bottles, hand and body lotion bottles, sachets around bar soap."

The hotel miniature, then, is banned — but from 1 January 2030, not 2026. If you supply the hospitality channel you have a product line with a known end date and three and a half years to convert it to dispensers or a reuse system. Article 25(6) requires the Commission to publish guidelines explaining Annex V by 12 February 2027.

Article 24(6) — a signal, not yet an obligation. By 12 February 2032 the Commission must review the empty-space ratio and "assess the possibility of establishing empty space ratios for sales packaging, particularly for toys, cosmetics, do-it-yourself kits and electronic products". The legislator has recorded, in the binding text, that cosmetics sales packaging is a suspected over-packaging category. Meanwhile Article 24(4) already requires, by 12 February 2028, that operators filling sales packaging reduce empty space to the minimum necessary for functionality — no percentage attached, but a real obligation with a real date.

7. The calendar, from the text

Producer registration deserves a line of its own because it is widely misdated. Article 44(1) does not say "by 12 August 2026". It says each Member State shall establish its national register "within 18 months of the date of entry into force of the first implementing act adopted pursuant to paragraph 14". The binding rule for you is Article 44(4): a producer shall not make packaging or packaged products available in a Member State if it is not registered there. So the deadline is set by each national register's opening, and it is a per-Member-State obligation, not a single European date.

8. Four claims to check before you act on them

These are all in wide circulation in the compliance press. All four are contradicted by the text:

• "Article 78 sets the application date." The regulation ends at Article 71. There is no Article 78.
• "Recyclability applies from 12 August 2026" / "…from 2030". Both are half-right and therefore misleading. Article 6(1) applies from 12 August 2026; the conditions in Article 6(2)(a) apply from 1 January 2030 or 24 months after the delegated acts, whichever is later, and Article 6(2)(b) from 1 January 2035.
• "Grades A and B only from 2035." Article 6(3) says 1 January 2038. 2035 is the recycled-at-scale date in Article 6(2)(b) — a different provision.
• "The declaration of conformity is Article 11" / "Article 15". Article 11 is Reusable packaging; Article 15 is Obligations of manufacturers. The EU declaration of conformity is Article 39, and the conformity assessment procedure is Article 38.

None of this is nitpicking. If your compliance plan cites the wrong article, the person who eventually has to defend it — to a competent authority, an auditor or a customer — is reading the Official Journal, not the summary.

It is also the reason we build the way we do. A secondary source can be accurate, well-intentioned and still out of step with the act it describes, and you cannot tell by looking at it. The only durable answer is to record, for every regulatory statement, which act it came from, in which version, retrieved when — the same discipline we apply to the Cosmetics Regulation annexes and to monitoring regulatory change.

9. What to do in the next four weeks

1. Decide who the manufacturer is, in writing, for every brand and every SKU. If it is you, say so and accept Articles 15, 38 and 39. If you believe Article 3(13)(b) applies, document both conditions.
2. Ask suppliers for the heavy-metals figure now — the sum of lead, cadmium, mercury and hexavalent chromium, per component, against 100 mg/kg. Closures, pumps, inks and metallised films are where this fails, not the bottle.
3. Walk your range against Article 10(2). Double walls, false bottoms, unnecessary layers. Where a component exists to make the product look larger, either justify it functionally or plan the change. Check whether any registered design or shape trademark protected before 11 February 2025 covers it.
4. Build one technical documentation template to Annex VII and one declaration of conformity to Annex VIII, then instance them per packaging item. Set the retention clock: 5 years single-use, 10 reusable.
5. Add the packaging identifier and manufacturer address to artwork now, alongside the labelling changes you already have queued for 2027 and 2028 — artwork revisions are the expensive step, and batching them is the only real saving available.
6. Check the hospitality channel. If you supply hotel amenities, 1 January 2030 is a product-line end date.
7. Register as a producer in each Member State where you first make product available, as each national register opens.

10. In short

12 August 2026 is a real date, but not for the reasons it is usually given. It does not make your packaging recyclable-by-grade, it does not impose recycled content, and it does not ban hotel miniatures — all of that is 2030. What it does is make you the legally identified manufacturer of your own packaging, oblige you to prove conformity in writing for every item, cap four heavy metals across every component, and remove the false bottom from your product range.

The pattern is the one this sector already knows from Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009: the obligation is not only to be compliant, it is to be able to demonstrate it, on request, within ten days, for up to ten years. Packaging has just joined the regulatory file.

Keeping that file true — across a catalogue, a supply chain and fifteen years of staged dates from four different articles — is the part that does not scale by hand. That is what we automate.

Sources

All article numbers, quotations and dates in this guide are taken from the official text:

• Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste — EUR-Lex
• European Commission — Packaging waste
• Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 on cosmetic products — EUR-Lex

This guide is informational and does not constitute legal advice. Implementing and delegated acts under the PPWR are still being adopted and can move the dates that depend on them; always check the current consolidated text before acting.