Your guide to U.S. packaging EPR regulations, state by state.

Tier 1 is not the general rule, and it is not the same rule everywhere. In Washington, Maryland, Minnesota and Maine it catches only manufacturer-own-brand goods and packaging with no brand identification. California is broader: PRC 42041(w)(1) reaches a manufacturer that owns or is the licensee of the brand, so a contract manufacturer holding a trademark license and selling under it is tier 1 there and never reaches the brand-owner fallback. Oregon is broader again by rule: OAR 340-090-0860(1)(a) counts a person who directs the manufacturing, including setting the packaging specifications, as the manufacturer, which is how a brand owner is reached in a state with no brand-owner tier. Reading tier 1 as “the manufacturer always pays” is as wrong as assuming the narrow own-brand version applies in all seven.

Being unable to see your volumes is not the same as being exempt. Every tonnage test is per state, so you have to estimate before you can know whether you fall under it.

A bare contract clause does not move the obligation, but four states let a properly executed assignment do it. Washington (RCW 70A.208.020(29)(a)(vi)(A)), Minnesota (Minn. Stat. 115A.1441 subd. 26(a)(6)(i)) and Maine (38 MRSA 2146) each need the same three formalities: a signed agreement, the assignee registering with the PRO or stewardship organization as the responsible producer, and written certification to that organization. Maryland (COMAR 26.04.14.02B(25)(p)) needs two, an executed agreement and the other entity assuming responsibility by written certification, and it works differently: it excludes the first entity from the definition of producer rather than naming the assignee as one. California, Colorado and Oregon have no assignment provision at all, so there the statute decides whatever the supply agreement says.

A missed window is recoverable, and exposure increases with each subsequent reporting cycle. What to do if you are behind.

U.S. packaging EPR regulations are state laws, not federal ones. Seven states have enacted comprehensive packaging extended producer responsibility programs: Maine, Oregon, Colorado, California, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington. Each state sets its own producer definition, de minimis exemption, reporting calendar and fee schedule, so a company selling nationally faces seven separate obligations rather than one. As of September 2026, only Oregon and Colorado are invoicing regular program fees; California invoices a separate flat early fee for 2026 ahead of its full program in 2027. Compare all seven side by side.

The law is the statute the legislature passes, such as California SB 54 or Oregon SB 582. The regulation is the rule the state agency writes to operationalize it, such as California’s SB 54 regulations approved May 1, 2026 or Maryland’s COMAR 26.04.14. In practice the two terms are used interchangeably to mean a state’s packaging EPR requirements. The distinction matters when a statute is in force but its implementing regulation is not final, because the obligations that bind you day to day usually live in the regulation.

No. There is no federal packaging EPR law and no bill before Congress would create one. The federal bills in play are labeling and recycled-content measures, not EPR programs: the PACK Act (H.R. 6832), which would preempt state labeling laws; the Truth in Labeling Act (H.R. 10048 / S. 5302, introduced August 6, 2026), which would leave state law in place apart from a narrow carve-out preempting conflicting state resin identification code rules; the Recycled Materials Attribution Act (H.R. 7502); and the CIRCLE Act (H.R. 4466). None has been marked up. Packaging EPR obligations in the United States are created entirely by state law. Track the federal bills.

Seven: Maine, Oregon, Colorado, California, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington. Oregon and Colorado are already invoicing. California charges an early fee in 2026 with the full program from 2027. The other three are later still. See all seven with their laws, thresholds and fee status.

The big ones have passed: the May 31 annual supply reports in six states, the June 1 California registration deadline, and the July 1 Washington PRO membership date. If you missed one, file late rather than staying silent, because none of them expires and the exposure grows with the delay. What remains this year is mostly comment windows, schedule publications and the California final 2027 fee schedule expected in October. See what is still ahead in the next 90 days, and the passed list underneath it.

CAA is the appointed producer responsibility organization in every state that has one. Register once at circularactionalliance.org, sign the Participant Producer Agreement, then add each state. One portal, one reporting deadline, separate state addenda. See what registration through CAA actually covers.

Rates are per material category and the spread is wide: aluminum and corrugated sit at the bottom, multi-layer laminates and expanded polystyrene at the top, with more than a twenty-fold gap between them. Only three states have published a schedule. Price your own packaging in the Toolkit, or see which schedules actually exist.

It adjusts your fee up or down for design attributes, and it works differently in every state. Oregon’s current cycle is bonus-only and the bonuses require a life cycle assessment. Colorado applies passive factors automatically and has not published the values of its four active bonuses. No other state has set values yet. Treat any headline percentage you read elsewhere as unverified. See the eco-modulation detail on each state page.

These are statutory maximums, not automatic fines. Oregon is the only state actively enforcing, at up to $25,000 per day, and it named roughly 250 companies on its first quarterly producer status list on April 9, 2026. The second list is overdue. California authorizes up to $50,000 per day per violation, or $25,000 for a small producer, and nothing accrues until 30 days after a notice of violation (PRC 42081). Minnesota’s ceiling is higher still, up to $100,000 per day for a third violation, but no stewardship plan has been approved so nothing can accrue there yet. See the maximum penalty for each state.

New Jersey is the highest-priority pending state, with Illinois next. New York’s PRRIA failed for a second year in June 2026 and returns in 2027; Massachusetts died at the July 31, 2026 session close and must be refiled. Rhode Island and Hawaii have needs-assessment laws rather than full EPR. See active bills and earlier-stage states.

Usually the brand owner, but the ladder differs more than most summaries admit. Only Washington, Maryland, Minnesota and Maine run the familiar five-tier shape of manufacturer, licensee, brand owner, importer of record, first distributor, and only there does an ordinary branded good land on the brand owner at tier 3. Colorado and Oregon have no brand-owner tier at all, running three tiers with the importer last. Oregon closes that gap by rule: a person who directs the manufacturing, including setting the packaging specifications, counts as the manufacturer, so an Oregon brand owner that specifies its own packaging is reached at tier 1. California has no importer tier, and its tier 1 reaches a manufacturer that owns or is the licensee of the brand, so a licensee-manufacturer never falls to a later tier there. See the hierarchy and where your products land.

Two different questions get asked as one, and they have different answers. If you sell empty packaging to a company that fills it and sells it on, as a converter, bottle maker or carton supplier, you are generally not the producer. That is a scope question rather than a B2B exemption: CAA’s California guidance says empty packaging materials not yet used by a good are not covered material, and that a person is not a producer merely because they make or sell them. Maryland says the same in its regulation, and California is the one state with no general B2B exemption, so if the answer holds there it holds elsewhere. Three things pull it back onto you: food serviceware is covered even when sold empty, packaging with no brand on it reaches the manufacturer at tier 1, and anything you sell under your own brand makes you the brand owner for that line. If your finished packaged product only goes to business customers, the answer changes by state. Washington and Maryland reach it by definition, packaging being only what is supplied to a consumer for personal, noncommercial use. Colorado excludes packaging used solely that way, so one consumer-bound unit breaks it for that SKU. Maine counts a business customer on municipal collection as a consumer, and Minnesota has only a narrow industrial-input exemption. Oregon does not exclude transport packaging at all: non-consumer tertiary corrugated is zero rated but still reportable, and non-consumer pallet wrap is priced at 34.0 c/lb. California has no general B2B exemption. Work through it state by state.

Every state exempts small producers, but the test differs and one common shortcut is wrong. Oregon exempts under 1 metric ton placed on market or under $5M global revenue; Washington has three separate prongs and any one qualifies. The revenue tests are global, but the tonnage tests are per state, so you have to work out your volume in each state before you can know whether you are under its line. Not being able to see that number is not the same as being under it. Minnesota makes the split explicit: tonnage measured into Minnesota, revenue measured globally. Oregon is the only state that aggregates associated producers, so a group cannot split itself into qualifying entities there. And California relief is not automatic at all: it must be applied for and approved. See each state’s threshold in the enacted table.

Weight times rate, adjusted for design: your tonnage in each material category, times the state’s per-material base rate, times an eco-modulation multiplier. Material choice dominates, with more than a twenty-fold gap between the cheapest and most expensive categories. Price your own packaging in the Toolkit.

Twice, and they are two different instruments that get confused constantly. The 2026 Early Fee Schedule is published and is what CAA invoices this program year: six flat per-pound rates, issued July 20, 2026 and revised August 25, 2026, with the revision restating the same rates in dollars per pound and moving no rate and no category. The full program starts January 2027 on a per-material-category schedule that is still draft; the published 2027 figures are midpoints of a low-to-high range, not final rates, and the final schedule is expected October 2026. The fee calculators on this site price the 2027 draft rather than the 2026 early fee, so do not reconcile a calculator output against this year’s invoice. See which fee schedules actually exist.

No, and the biggest one has now been answered. Oregon won. On August 27, 2026 the court upheld the Recycling Modernization Act against both the dormant Commerce Clause and the due process challenge in NAW v. Feldon, and final judgment was entered the next day. No appeal had been docketed as of September 7, and the deadline is September 28, 2026. Six cases remain live across three states: one more in Oregon, two in Colorado, both of which now seek injunctions, and three in California, none of which disturbs registration, reporting or the 2026 early fee. Fees remain due everywhere they are active. One thing to know if you are an NAW member. The February 6, 2026 preliminary injunction reached only members as of that date, and neither the opinion nor the judgment mentions it. It has not been dissolved on the docket, and a preliminary injunction does not ordinarily outlive a final judgment against the party that obtained it. Take advice rather than planning around it either way. See every case and what it changes for you.

It can. Carbon black and other dark colorants most sorters cannot see make PET effectively non-recyclable, and recyclability is what the fee factors read. Removing it strengthens an Oregon LCA bonus and lowers future-cycle malus risk rather than earning a flat credit; Oregon pays no standalone carbon-black credit this cycle. See the design features that raise the fee.

Per-SKU packaging data underneath, filed as category totals. The report itself is weight by reporting category (60 categories in Oregon, 61 in Colorado, California's covered material categories, a shorter simplified list in Minnesota, Maryland and Washington) plus the brands covered and your methodology; no state files per SKU. To build those totals you need the full component list with weights by material and the units supplied into each state in the reporting year. Design attributes like whether a dark colorant is detectable to a near-infrared sorter matter only where you claim an eco-modulation adjustment. Use the supplier data request to ask for exactly these fields.

Sometimes. Packaging that meets California’s SB 54 reuse criteria is treated as exempt from fees there, though fees have not started and specifics should be confirmed with CalRecycle. Oregon rewards reuse through one of its three LCA bonuses instead of exempting it. No other state has set values yet. See the eco-modulation detail on each state page.

Deadlines, thresholds, fee rates and exemptions change as rules are finalized, and several programs are currently subject to litigation. Verify all information with the Circular Action Alliance, the relevant state agency, or qualified legal counsel before taking any compliance action.

Figures labeled Signaled or Speculative are planning estimates drawn from draft rules and filed program plans. They are not rates you will be invoiced, and they should not be used as the sole basis for a budget or a filing. The three labels are defined at the top of this page.

One polymer family

Mono-material is rewarded. Mixed and multilayer constructions are penalized.

Clear or light PET

Clear unpigmented, or transparent light blue or light green only. Carbon black and other near-infrared-undetectable dark colorants make PET non-recyclable, because most sorters cannot see them at all.

No problem resins

PVC and PVDC, PS and EPS, and rigid PETG are flagged by APR and targeted for elimination by the U.S. Plastics Pact.

Compatible, separable components

Closures, pumps, labels, sleeves and liners are recyclability-determining, not accessories. Metal springs and full-body sleeves are flagged.

The small-format test

Parts two inches or under in two dimensions must pass APR's size-sortation protocol or they fall through the screens at a materials recovery facility.

Compatible inks and coatings

Heavy inks, dark pigments and wash-resistant coatings contaminate the recycled stream and interfere with optical sorting.

Real on-pack instructions

How2Recycle is the standard North American label, and APR Preferred designs are likelier to qualify as widely recyclable.

Features that push a plastic package into higher fees

A plastic package may be labeled recyclable in California only if its material type and form is collected by programs serving at least 60 percent of Californians and is sorted by facilities serving at least 60 percent of the state's programs, consistent with CalRecycle's covered material category determination. A material can alternatively qualify with a demonstrated recycling rate of at least 75 percent.

The 60 percent test is about access, not the recycling rate. There is no simple weight cutoff, but a detractor that pushes an item out of a recyclable type and form, a full-body sleeve or carbon black for instance, can disqualify it on its own.

The covered material category determination is category-level and does not clear an on-pack claim by itself. SB 343's population-coverage test applies on top of it, with a compliance date of October 4, 2026.

That date is a manufacture test, not a sale test, and the distinction decides how much of your inventory is ever in scope. CalRecycle states the restrictions apply to products and packaging manufactured after October 4, 2026, which is 18 months after publication of the Final Findings Report, and that packaging manufactured before that date is not subject to them regardless of when it is sold. Stock already made is therefore permanently outside the rule, and the question to ask your converter is when a run was produced, not when it ships. Source: CalRecycle, Accurate Recycling Labels, read August 12, 2026. Note that CalRecycle's own page still presents the October date without reference to the injunction below.

Enforcement is currently paused. On July 14, 2026 a federal court granted a preliminary injunction barring the Attorney General from enforcing SB 343 until further order, finding four provisions unconstitutionally vague and holding the law fails First Amendment scrutiny. Those four provisions were severed, so the 60 percent collection-and-sorting threshold survives on paper. The ruling is preliminary and a Ninth Circuit appeal is expected, so design to the test rather than to the pause. With SB 343 enforcement enjoined, the covered material category list is the operative recyclability determination in California. See the California litigation detail.

How2Recycle is the leading North American on-pack recycling label, run by the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, covering plastic, glass, fiber and metal. It uses the same access-to-recovery logic as SB 343: the format must be collected from a meaningful share of households, sortable at a materials recovery facility, reprocessable, and sold into an end market. APR-preferred design helps a package qualify. Real-world collection access is what sets the tier.

How2Recycle is voluntary and national. SB 343 is mandatory and California-specific. They usually point the same way and they are assessed separately, so label with How2Recycle and confirm the SB 343 determination before selling in California.

Glass is optically sorted, and the sorter reads each piece as glass or as a ceramic, stone or porcelain contaminant based on how much light passes through it. For decorated cosmetic glass, opacity rather than color is what usually causes rejection.

Light transmission

Target 5 percent or above. Below roughly 2 percent a package is rejected as a contaminant; 3 percent is the observed minimum that passes. This one number covers lacquering, silk-screen and dark or feeder color.

Opacity, not color

All colors can sort as glass. Opacity is what makes the sorter read a piece as a contaminant.

Soda-lime only

The only container-glass chemistry with a North American curbside stream. Borosilicate, opal and aluminosilicate contaminate the cullet.

Metallization is chemistry

Metallic coatings contaminate cullet at parts per million and must be blended down even when the piece sorts correctly. Use as an accent or remove.

Small formats

Containers and closures at or under about 2.5 inches, sample and perfume vials, drop out of recovery regardless of the glass.

Sorting as glass is not the same as being recycled into glass. Mixed and tinted cullet has weaker end markets and often becomes landfill cover or aggregate; clear flint glass has the strongest bottle-to-bottle demand. Labels and sleeves separate during crushing and do not impede recovery. Ceramic swing-top closures are a contaminant.

Clean fiber is among the most recyclable packaging in the U.S. What kills it is what gets added to it: plastic coatings, lamination and heavy metallization.

Uncoated and clean

Uncoated paperboard is recyclable in California at about 30 percent; corrugated at about 68 percent, the strongest recyclable secondary pack there is.

No plastic coating or lamination

California treats poly-coated paperboard as non-recyclable, recycled at under 6 percent, and reclassifies double-sided poly-coated board as a multi-material laminate, which raises the fee.

Limit foil and metallization

Solid metal foil and heavy metallized decoration move fiber toward non-recyclable, on the same coverage logic as plastics.

Cartons are their own stream

Aseptic and gable-top cartons are collected in some programs, Oregon's statewide list among them, but are not on California's recyclable list. Check by state.

A mono-aluminum or mono-steel can, bottle, tube or closure recycles at close to its full weight, and standard decoration is separable in reprocessing rather than disqualifying. For aerosols the gating question in the U.S. is collection access, not design.

Keep it mono-metal

Only metallic aluminum counts as recyclable value. Laminates are defensible, since the plastic burns off in reprocessing, but true mono-aluminum maximizes recovered weight.

Coatings

Eliminate PFAS coatings, which are targeted by state packaging bans, and vapor-deposited metallized layers, which count as loss rather than recyclable content. Carbon black is a plastics sorting problem, not a barrier to metal recycling.

Small size is not a barrier

Modern sorters recover even very small metal items. Any minimum-metal-content rule is economic rather than a recyclability determinant.

Aerosols

Solve access, not design. Cans must be empty. The industry initiative targets 85 percent recycling access by 2030. Non-aerosol aluminum is recyclable in California at under 39 percent.

The per-format design detail is European; the physics translate, but the U.S. recyclability determination comes from the CalRecycle category list and aerosol collection access from the industry initiative. Signaled

Decoration is where design most often quietly breaks recyclability, and the rules differ by substrate.

The exact plastics metallization limit sits in an APR sorting resource. The 12 mm and 16 mm figures come from APR program guidance rather than the primary document, which is why they are marked signaled.

CalRecycle's January 2026 covered material category list is the authoritative California reference under SB 54. For the first time it publishes an estimated recycling rate for each category alongside the recyclable determination. The gap between the two is the point: a format can be deemed recyclable and still be recycled at a single-digit rate. This is a working subset of 95 categories.

Almost always you, not the supplier. The obligation follows the brand on the package. Your packaging manufacturer generally has data duties rather than a filing duty. The exception worth checking is where you sell unbranded packaging or components onward, which can put you in the producer tier for those items.

Possibly, and the tests are more generous than people assume, but they differ. Colorado and Oregon exempt a producer meeting any one of several criteria, and both operate automatically. California has no tonnage exemption and its small producer exemption must be applied for and approved. Critically, the Colorado and Oregon revenue thresholds are measured on company-wide revenue, not sales in that state.

In California, yes. SB 54 reaches primary, secondary and tertiary packaging placed on the California market whether the sale is to a consumer or a business, so a company selling only to business customers is still an obligated producer there. Colorado excludes it only where the packaging is used SOLELY that way, so one consumer-bound unit breaks the exclusion for that SKU. Oregon does not exclude it at all: non-consumer tertiary corrugated is zero rated but still reportable, and non-consumer pallet wrap is priced. Do not assume transport packaging is out of scope anywhere without checking the state.

Weight by material category, adjusted for recyclability. Well-sorted high-value materials such as aluminum, clear PET and corrugated sit at the low end. Flexible film, multi-material laminates and foam sit at the high end, sometimes by an order of magnitude. That spread is why component-level material data matters more than total tonnage.

In Oregon, sometimes yes, in two different ways. The voluntary eco-modulation bonuses all require an LCA conducted to ISO 14040 and 14044 with third-party critical review. Separately, Oregon requires its largest producers to submit mandatory life cycle evaluations on DEQ templates, first due December 31, 2026. Neither is a general requirement in California or Colorado today.

No. Six challenges are live, including a seventeen-state action against California filed in June 2026, and the seventh, the Oregon case tried in July 2026, is over: the court upheld the Recycling Modernization Act on August 27, 2026 without disturbing any producer obligation. None has produced an injunction reaching producers generally, nothing is stayed, and deadlines and penalties remain in force. A program under challenge is still a program in force. The litigation tracker carries every active case and what each one does and does not pause.

Less than people hope. CAA runs the portal, validates submissions, files with the agencies and invoices you, but it cannot tell you which entity is obligated, cannot build your bill of materials, and has no view on whether your packaging should change. The judgment and the data stay with you.

Importing a rule from somewhere else. European mechanisms applied to U.S. states, one state's bonus assumed to exist in another, or last year's threshold assumed to still hold. The programs look similar and differ in exactly the places that cost money.