WEEE producer obligations across the EU + UK

WEEE registration country by country: Germany, France, Spain

Registration is national, and the mechanics differ more than most sellers expect. Germany runs a producer-facing authority with a published fee schedule; France offers collective and individual compliance routes; Spain runs a ministry register plus quarterly declarations. The corrected facts have individual citations; remaining details are not newly verified. For the other member states, see WEEE registration across the EU, country by country.

Germany — stiftung EAR

Germany charges EUR 9.50 per producer/brand/equipment type and EUR 32.80 per registration number per started quarter, net of VAT. Other confirmed schedule items are EUR 50.60 for AR confirmation and EUR 3.80 for guarantee review. The existing illustrative model of one to three registrations and four quarters therefore gives EUR 140.70–159.70, excluding those additional items, guarantee funding and eco-contributions. It is an illustrative estimate, net of VAT, not an official total. Household-use equipment requires a guarantee; purely professional use has different evidence requirements. A foreign producer without a German establishment needs an AR; the tool does not infer the seller’s establishment.

Sources: stiftung EAR — costs and fees · stiftung EAR — registering as a foreign company

Full walk-through: WEEE registration in Germany with stiftung EAR — the authorised-representative mandate, the insolvency guarantee and the fee schedule, step by step. Selling packaged goods into Germany as well? The packaging register is separate: LUCID packaging registration in Germany.

France — SYDEREP and the IDU

Under collective compliance, the eco-organism registers the producer in ADEME’s SYDEREP and communicates the IDU. Individual systems also exist. An IDU identifies registration for a given EPR stream. ADEME states that contractual processing times depend on each eco-organism; there is no confirmed universal one-to-three-week delay.

Sources: ADEME — l’identifiant unique (IDU) · ecosystem — producer obligations · Ecologic — joining the DEEE scheme

Spain — RII-AEE and the SCRAPs

RII-AEE is the EEE section of the Registro Integrado Industrial under RD 110/2015. The Ministry confirms that registration itself is free (EUR 0); this does not include financing or scheme contributions. Producers report placed-on-market data quarterly. Article 39 covers individual systems and Article 40 covers collective systems. The tool does not infer a complete document checklist or personal AR obligation from units and EU category alone.

Sources: Ministerio de Industria — registro RAEE · RII-AEE FAQ: free registration · Sede electrónica — RII-AEE inscription

Correction sources: RD 110/2015, Articles 8, 39 and 40; ADEME EEE categories and systems; EAR registration and conditional guarantees; ElektroGGebV fee schedule.

How the six categories drive what you pay

Since 15 August 2018 Annex III of Directive 2012/19/EU defines six open-scope EU categories: temperature exchange; screens over 100 cm²; lamps; large equipment over 50 cm; small equipment with no dimension over 50 cm; and small IT/telecommunications. Categories 4 and 5 exclude the earlier categories, and category 5 also excludes category 6. Pocket calculators belong to category 6. National classifications differ: Spain adds category 7, France adds photovoltaic panels (7) and pedal-assisted cycles and motorised personal-mobility devices (8), and the UK uses 15. See Code de l’environnement, Article R543-172(II) (source consulted 15 October 2026). This selector is an EU taxonomy reference, not an automatic national-category mapping.

Registries also slice the taxonomy differently. Germany registers per brand and equipment type, so each combination is its own €9.50 registration and its own guarantee review; French schemes price per product family inside each category and revise the scales annually; Spain’s quarterly declarations break every category down in units and kilograms. Getting the category wrong is not cosmetic: it changes the fee line, and a mismatch between your declared category and the physical product is one of the findings market-surveillance authorities record in registry audits.

Source: Directive 2012/19/EU, Art. 2(1)(b) + Annexes III–IV (EUR-Lex) Official DOUE publication, Annexes III–IV

What WEEE compliance actually costs: the three fee layers

The third layer is the one that matters at volume, and it is exactly the layer this tool’s ledger deliberately excludes: the checker collects annual units, not kilograms, so it can triage the administrative burden but cannot quote your tonnage bill. Non-established sellers add a fourth line — the authorised-representative service itself, on top of official charges such as Germany’s €50.60 appointment-confirmation fee.

Sources: stiftung EAR fee schedule · Spanish authority: WEEE producer obligations

The crossed-out wheelie bin: marking duties on the product itself

Registration is only half the duty — the equipment must carry the crossed-out wheeled bin of Annex IX to Directive 2012/19/EU, and the marking must be visible, legible and indelible on the product. Only in exceptional cases, where size or function makes on-product marking impossible, may the symbol move to the packaging, the instructions and the warranty documents instead. The European standard EN 50419 adds two further elements: a producer identification mark, and a date element showing the equipment was placed on the market after 13 August 2005 — either the solid black bar under the bin or an explicit date. France: Triman is not universally required in addition to the bin. Article R541-12-20 permits replacement by mandatory EU or Member-State sorting signage; the sorting instructions remain a separate requirement. Check the applicable product instructions in the official REP guidance and Article R541-12-20 (consulted 15 October 2026).

Sources: Directive 2012/19/EU, Art. 14(4) + Annex IX · Your Europe — WEEE label requirements · ecosystem — French marking obligations

What marketplaces check before you can sell EEE

In Germany, since 1 July 2023 the ElektroG obliges operators of electronic marketplaces and fulfilment service providers to verify that a producer is properly registered with stiftung EAR before enabling its offers; enabling an unregistered producer is an administrative offence with fines of up to €100,000, so platforms delist first and ask questions later. In France the lever is liability rather than a checking duty: since 1 January 2022, under the AGEC law (Art. L.541-10-9 of the environmental code), a platform itself assumes the producer obligations for any third-party seller that cannot show an IDU — which is why French marketplaces collect and verify identifiers so insistently.

Unconfirmed: Amazon’s current implementation and charging policy have not been verified. The previous description was: sellers submit their German stiftung EAR registration and their French unique identification numbers per EPR category, and Amazon states it “may need to deactivate any non-compliant listings you have — or comply on your behalf” and recharge those costs. From 12 August 2026, Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging (PPWR) extends the same verify-before-listing model to packaging EPR in every EU country, so sellers already registered for WEEE should expect identical document checks to appear for their packaging registrations across all EU marketplaces.

Sources: Umweltbundesamt — ElektroG marketplace obligations · Amazon — EPR compliance for sellers (FR/DE) · Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR), applicable 12 Aug 2026