What a German packaging licence actually costs

There is no official German tariff

Unlike markets with a single scheme and a published rate card, Germany has ten competing systems that price bilaterally. Nothing is published by the state, and the central agency may not comment on prices. Any euro-per-kilogram figure in circulation is computed by comparison portals from provider offers, not issued by an authority.

Read that as a range with a date attached. We publish observed figures only with the date they were checked, and we never present them as a tariff. What you will pay is what your chosen system contracts.

Visual explainer

Two shapes of price

For small quantities the systems sell prepaid flat licences through webshops. Entry prices observed across the ten systems on 18 August 2026 ranged from roughly €12 to €89 per year, each covering a capped quantity of packaging. Above that, pricing follows the system's own tariff by material fraction.

The two dominant fractions for e-commerce are paper and board, and plastics. Observed 2026 market averages sat near €0.20 to €0.43 per kilogram for paper and board and around €1.17 per kilogram for plastics, roughly 12 per cent above 2025. The remaining fractions have no reviewed public average, so they are quoted rather than estimated.

Why the licence is the small number

For a typical cross-border e-commerce seller the annual licence is a two-figure or low three-figure cost. The register entry is free. The costs that actually move are the ones attached to being a foreign producer: an authorised representative established in Germany, a mandate in a specific legal form, and a registration session that has to be right first time.

That is the honest shape of the German market. Anyone selling you a licence as though it were the whole obligation has left out the part the law changed in August 2026.