What an EU Authorized Representative Actually Does — and What Happens If You Skip It

“Appoint an authorized representative” sounds like a box to tick. It isn’t — it’s an ongoing role someone performs on your behalf, all year. Here’s what that role actually involves, and what it costs you to skip it.

What the representative does

Under Article 45 of the PPWR, your authorized representative for extended producer responsibility stands in for you, locally, on the packaging-waste obligations you can’t meet from the US. In practice that means:

• Holding your written mandate. The appointment is formal — a documented mandate authorizing them to act for you in that member state.
• Registering you with the national packaging register or eco-organization, and obtaining your registration number.
• Reporting the quantities of packaging you place on that market, in the categories the national scheme requires.
• Managing the EPR fees — the payments that fund collection and recycling of your packaging.
• Being the authority’s point of contact in-country, and keeping the technical documentation and declarations retained and producible, because retrospective audits are possible.

It repeats. Reporting cycles, fee changes, and new obligations phasing in through 2040 mean this is a standing relationship, not a one-time filing.

What happens if you don’t appoint one

The consequences aren’t theoretical, and they stack:

• Fines. Penalties are set nationally and vary by member state, but non-compliance with EPR obligations carries real financial penalties — and missing documentation is itself treated as non-compliance.
• Your goods can be stopped. Products placed on the market without meeting the rules are non-compliant, which exposes them to market-surveillance action.
• Marketplaces suppress your listings. Amazon and other platforms are already required to check EPR compliance and will restrict or remove listings that lack valid registration numbers — a de facto sales ban that arrives faster than any regulator.
• The liability lands on you. Assuming a distributor or a branch office “has it covered” doesn’t transfer the obligation if they aren’t legally the producer. When it unravels, it unravels back to you.

That last point is why some US retailers chose to pause EU sales rather than keep shipping non-compliant — a voluntary loss of revenue, taken because the alternative was worse.

The reassuring part

None of this is unusually harsh — it’s unusually administrative. The duties are knowable, the paperwork is finite, and the representative carries the in-country burden so you don’t have to build a presence in every market. Sequence your priority markets, get a representative appointed, and the risk turns back into routine.

See how the role works in practice on our EU authorized representative service page, or start with the PPWR self-check for US sellers.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Penalties and enforcement are set at the member-state level and depend on your specific circumstances.