Glossary

Distributor

Also called: packaging distributor

What it means in practice

Most shops are distributors. It matters more than it sounds, because a distributor can become the producer in a country it ships to, which is how a business that never manufactures anything still ends up on a register.

The rules that give it meaning

• When a business counts as a producer, and in which country

  Applies now

  Producer is the word the rules use for whoever first puts packaging onto a country's market. It is worked out country by country, so one business can be a producer in several countries at once. There are five ways to become one. Two cover selling packaged goods at home. Two cover sending packaged goods straight to customers in another EU country. The fifth catches a business that unpacks goods without being the one who uses them, unless somebody earlier in the chain already counts as the producer.

  Source: Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Art. 3(1), point (15) — read from this source on 12 August 2026

Work out which rules apply to you · The other words