A very small business with branded packaging that only sells in its own country

The situation

A business with fewer than ten people puts its own logo on its packaging, buys that packaging from a supplier in the same country, and sells only to customers at home.

What appears to apply

• Packaging that carries a business's own name or logo

  Applies now

  If a business has packaging made carrying its own name or logo, the rules treat that business as the packaging's manufacturer. That is the word the rules use, and it applies even when someone else's brand also appears on the box. Printed tape, a branded mailer or a bag with a logo are enough. Buying plain unbranded boxes is not.

  Source: Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Art. 3(1), point (13) — read from this source on 13 August 2026

  There is one exception, for very small businesses buying packaging from a supplier in the same country. It is described separately.

• The exception for very small businesses

  Applies now

  There is one way out of counting as the manufacturer of packaging carrying a business's own brand. Two things both have to be true: the business is a micro-enterprise, which the rules define by staff numbers and money, and the company supplying the packaging is based in the same country. When both hold, the supplier counts as the manufacturer instead.

  Source: Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Art. 3(1), point (13)(b) — read from this source on 13 August 2026

  The supplier has to be in the same country, not merely somewhere in the EU. This exception only changes who counts as the manufacturer. It says nothing about the separate producer role a business picks up by selling into another country.

• 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 13 August 2026

  The two about sending goods to customers in another country decide whether a representative is needed there. The fifth, about unpacking, is the one most often missed.