The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation — Regulation (EU) 2025/40 — has applied in general since 12 August 2026. One of the operator obligations that came with it is the EU Declaration of Conformity: a signed document, per packaging, in which one operator takes responsibility that it meets the applicable requirements. And in the weeks since, the same question has landed in our inbox in a dozen forms: who signs it? The brand? The box supplier? The importer? Everyone in the chain?
The answer is precise, and it is not "whoever owns the factory". This article covers the what briefly, then spends its time on the who — because that is where e-commerce businesses get it wrong, in both directions: brands assuming their converter has it covered, and resellers drafting declarations they were never supposed to sign.
What the declaration is, in one section
Under the PPWR's conformity provisions — Articles 38 and 39, with Annexes VII and VIII — packaging placed on the market goes through a conformity assessment, documented in a technical file, and the conclusion of that assessment is stated in an EU Declaration of Conformity following the Annex VIII structure. Three properties define the document:
- One operator, sole responsibility. The declaration is issued under the sole responsibility of the manufacturer identified in it. It is not a chain of countersignatures; exactly one party owns the conclusion.
- One identified packaging, versioned. It covers a specific packaging unit or clearly controlled family — an ID, a version, a description that leads back to the exact specifications assessed. Not "all company packaging".
- It sits on top of the technical file. The declaration is the signed conclusion; the Annex VII technical documentation is the supporting evidence. Signing before the file is complete reverses that order. Both are kept — five years for single-use packaging, ten for reusable — and produced to authorities on request.
We keep a free, field-by-field Annex VIII template with an annotated example, so this article will not walk the eight fields. The question here is prior to any field: whose name goes in field 2, and whose signature at the bottom.
The duty sits with the manufacturer — which is not who you think
The obligation to draw up the technical documentation and the EU Declaration of Conformity belongs to the manufacturer, whose obligations Article 15 sets out: conformity, documentation, identification of type, batch or serial, traceability and corrective action.
Here is the part that decides everything. Under the PPWR, the manufacturer is the party that manufactures packaging or a packaged product, or has it designed or manufactured under its own name or trademark. That second half is the contract-giver rule, and it deliberately captures the brand, not the workshop. If packaging is made to your order and carries your name or trademark, the PPWR treats you as its manufacturer — the contract giver, not the contract taker.
Two supporting definitions frame the edges. An importer is a party established in the Union that places packaging from a third country on the market. A distributor is any party in the supply chain, other than the manufacturer or importer, that makes packaging available on the market. And one caveat worth stating plainly: a distributor who sells packaging under its own name or trademark, or who modifies packaging already on the market in a way that could affect compliance, stops being a mere distributor — and steps into the manufacturer's obligations.
With those definitions in hand, almost every e-commerce business falls into one of four scenarios.
Which scenario are you in?
1. You buy generic, unbranded packaging from an EU converter
Plain corrugated boxes, stock mailers, unprinted void fill — bought from a catalogue, no customisation, filled with your product and shipped. Here the converter is the manufacturer of that packaging. They made it, under their own name; the conformity assessment, the Annex VII file and the Annex VIII declaration are theirs to draw up.
Filling packaging with your product does not make you its manufacturer. Your job in this scenario is narrower but real: be able to obtain or reference your converter's declaration for the formats you buy, so that when a customer, marketplace or authority asks how your packaging conforms, you can point to a specific document rather than a supplier relationship. If your converter cannot produce one, that is a signal worth acting on — you are relying on their conformity work.
2. Your packaging carries your name, logo or trademark
Custom-printed boxes, branded mailers, tissue with your logo. The moment packaging is designed or manufactured under your name or trademark, the contract-giver rule applies: you are the manufacturer of that packaging, even though a supplier physically made every unit of it. You draw up the declaration, and yours is the signature on it.
This is the scenario most e-commerce brands are in without realising, and the instinct — "my printer is the packaging expert, surely this is their paperwork" — fails exactly the way "my supplier handles EPR" fails. In practice the work is shared even though the responsibility is not: much of the evidence in your Annex VII technical file — material compositions, component weights, substance statements, test reports — will come from your converter. But the responsibility statement is yours. The declaration says "issued under the sole responsibility of the manufacturer", and in field 2 that manufacturer is you.
3. You import packaging — or packaged products — from outside the EU
If you bring packaging from a third country onto the EU market, you are the importer, and Article 18 gives you verification duties before placing it on the market: check that the manufacturer has carried out the conformity work and that the declaration, documentation, labelling and identification actually exist. An importer who cannot show any of that exists has a problem at the border of the obligation, not a paperwork gap to fix later.
In practice, the cleaner analysis usually short-circuits this. Most EU businesses importing packaging from third-country suppliers commission it to their own specification, under their own brand — and suppliers who have never heard of Annex VIII are not drawing up EU declarations. The own-name-or-trademark rule then does its work: the EU importer is treated as the manufacturer, and the duty is not to verify someone else's declaration but to draw up your own, on your own technical file. If you import third-country goods, assume this is your scenario until the facts say otherwise.
4. You are a pure distributor of already-placed packaging
You buy packaging — or packaged goods — that another operator already placed on the EU market, under that operator's brand, and you resell it unchanged. You have no declaration to draw up. Distributors carry due-diligence duties, not conformity-assessment ones: someone upstream is the manufacturer, and their declaration covers the packaging.
The caveat bites fast, though. Sell that packaging under your own name or trademark, or modify it in a way that could affect its compliance, and you stop being a mere distributor — the manufacturer's obligations, declaration included, become yours. Private-label retail is not a shield here any more than it is for EPR.
Manufacturer is not producer — the confusion this article exists to kill
If you have read our piece on the PPWR producer definition, some of this sounded familiar — the own-brand rule, the distributor caveat. Same regulation, same defined terms. But the manufacturer and the producer are different roles, from different chapters, carrying different duties:
- The manufacturer owes the conformity work: the Annex VII technical file and the Annex VIII declaration. The role is fixed by who made the packaging or commissioned it under their own name or trademark — and it does not change country by country.
- The producer owes the EPR machinery: registration, volume declarations and fees. The role is fixed by who first makes packaging available on the market of each Member State — and it is assessed per country, per flow.
For a brand commissioning its own packaging and selling it DTC, the two usually land on the same company — you are the manufacturer for conformity and the producer for EPR. But not always, and not everywhere. A brand can be the manufacturer for conformity and the producer for EPR in one country, and a mere distributor in another flow — reselling a supplier's branded goods domestically, say, while commissioning its own boxes for DTC orders. The question is always about the transaction, not "what kind of company are you". Assess each packaging and each flow on its own facts, and do not let a conclusion about one role settle the other by association: a converter's declaration of conformity does nothing for your EPR registration, and your EPR registration proves nothing about conformity.
What to do now, by scenario
These obligations are not on the 2028–2030 timetable that governs much of the PPWR's design requirements — the operator obligations apply since 12 August 2026. The practical work, per scenario:
- Generic packaging buyers: request the declaration of conformity from each converter, for each format you buy, and keep the documents retrievable against your packaging IDs. A one-line addition to your reorder emails does most of this.
- Own-brand packaging: draw up your own declaration, resting on an Annex VII technical file you actually hold. Start with the evidence — supplier specifications, compositions, weights, test reports — and sign only when the file supports the conclusion. Our technical documentation checklist sequences that work.
- Importers: make declaration and documentation availability a purchasing requirement before goods ship — and where the own-brand rule makes you the manufacturer, treat scenario 2 as yours and build the file accordingly.
- Distributors: confirm your upstream manufacturer holds the declaration, and flag any private-label or modification plans as the role change they are.
For a broader walkthrough of what the regulation asks of a small team, our PPWR guide for SMEs covers the full obligation set beyond conformity documents.
Bottom line
The declaration of conformity has exactly one author per packaging: the manufacturer — and the PPWR assigns that role by whose name or trademark the packaging carries, not by who ran the machine. Generic packaging: your converter's declaration, your job to hold it. Branded packaging: your declaration, on your technical file. Imports: verify — and usually, become the manufacturer. Pure distribution: no declaration, until your brand touches the packaging. Work out which of the four you are per packaging and per flow, and the rest is document assembly, not legal doubt.
Get the free Annex VIII declaration template →
If your packaging bills of materials already live in Pack Declare, you do not have to start from a blank template: the app now drafts the Annex VIII declaration from them, pre-filled with your actual components, weights and evidence — and it asks this article's manufacturer question explicitly, per packaging, before treating the declaration as yours to draw up. Review and signature remain your responsibility: the draft prepares the document, it does not sign it.
Not sure which countries and schemes you owe on the EPR side? The obligations check maps your markets to registrations in a few minutes.
Related reading: Are you a "producer" under the PPWR? · Annex VII technical documentation checklist · PPWR guide for SMEs