Base fees per tonne
Two sets of figures are in circulation and they are routinely confused with each other. The first is the confirmed base fee for the 2025 scheme year. The second is the illustrative figure for 2026-27, published in December 2025 for planning purposes. They are not competing reports of the same number.
| Material | 2025 confirmed | 2026-27 illustrative | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aluminium | £266 | £270 | +1% |
| Fibre-based composite | £461 | £525 | +14% |
| Glass | £192 | £205 | +7% |
| Paper and card | £196 | £210 | +7% |
| Plastic | £423 | £455 | +8% |
| Steel | £259 | £290 | +12% |
| Wood | £280 | £450 | +61% |
| Other | £259 | £225 | -13% |
The 2026-27 column is illustrative, published December 2025. Confirmed rates for 2026-27 follow the April reporting deadline for 2025 data - check the current position with PackUK before committing a budget to these figures.
Wood is the outlier and deserves attention out of proportion to how much of it most producers handle. An illustrative move from £280 to £450 a tonne is a 61% increase in a single year. Fibre-based composite, already the most expensive material on the list, rises another 14%. A producer whose budget was built on the first scheme year's rates and whose portfolio leans on either material is materially exposed.
How modulation changes the rate
The base fee is what amber-rated packaging pays. The rating from your RAM assessment then applies a multiplier: below one for green, above one for red. The published illustrative position for 2026-27 put green rates at roughly a 9% discount to the base and red rates at roughly 20% above it.
The part that matters for planning is that the red multiplier escalates. The framework raises it year on year - the direction of travel is explicit, and it means a red-rated component becomes more expensive each year on flat volumes. A decision to leave a red component alone is not a decision to hold costs steady.
| Rating | Illustrative rate per tonne | Fee on 100 tonnes |
|---|---|---|
| Green | £415 | £41,500 |
| Amber (base) | £455 | £45,500 |
| Red | £545 | £54,500 |
Illustrative 2026-27 figures, rounded. The £13,000 spread between green and red on the same tonnage of the same material is the whole argument for assessing at component level.
That spread is per hundred tonnes of one material. Across a full portfolio, with several materials and a mix of ratings, the difference between a well-rated and a badly-rated range runs into six figures for a mid-sized producer - and none of it is visible from a system that holds packaging weight per product.
What drives your bill
- Household tonnage, by material. Commercial packaging does not attract disposal fees, so the household split is the first thing that decides the size of the bill
- The rating mix across your household components, which sets the multiplier applied to each slice of that tonnage
- Material choice, where the gap between the cheapest and dearest material on the list is more than double
- Component weight, which is the one input that scales linearly and is often the easiest to reduce
- Volumes supplied in the period, the input you are least likely to want to reduce
Of those, only two are genuinely within a compliance team's gift in the short term: getting the household and commercial split right, and getting the ratings right. Both are data problems before they are packaging problems. A producer reporting commercial packaging as household is paying fees on tonnage that never attracted them, and a producer with unassessed components has no idea which of their multipliers is wrong.
How to reduce what you pay
In the order that returns the most for the least effort:
- Correct the household and commercial split. This is free, it is a data exercise, and an error here is charging you fees on tonnage that is out of scope.
- Assess every household component. An unassessed component is a gap, not an amber rating, and gaps are where the surprises live.
- Find the red-rated components with real tonnage behind them. A red rating on a component that ships in tiny volumes is not worth an engineering project.
- Attack the cheap rating fixes first: label coverage, detectable pigments in place of carbon black, an adhesive that releases in the wash.
- Then the structural ones: mono-material in place of laminate, removing a barrier coating, redesigning a closure that does not separate.
- Take weight out. Fees are per tonne, so a lighter component pays less at any rating.
- Re-run the numbers at next year's multipliers, not this year's. A fix that looks marginal today is worth more as the red premium escalates.
Common questions about EPR fees
When are EPR fees invoiced?
Fees follow the reporting cycle: you report packaging data, and the scheme administrator invoices against the tonnage reported. Because rates for a year are confirmed after the reporting deadline for the previous year's data, there is a gap between supplying the packaging and knowing the final cost of it.
Do small producers pay EPR fees?
No. Small producers register and report but do not pay disposal fees. Only large producers are charged per tonne.
Do fees apply to commercial packaging?
Disposal fees apply to household packaging. Commercial packaging is reported but does not attract the disposal fee, which is why the household and commercial split has a direct effect on the bill.
Is there an official EPR fee calculator?
The rates are published per tonne per material, so the arithmetic is straightforward once you know your household tonnage by material and the rating mix behind it. The difficulty is never the calculation - it is having tonnage and ratings you trust to put into it.
Are the 2026-27 rates final?
The figures published in December 2025 were illustrative. Confirmed rates follow the April reporting deadline for the previous year's data. Check the current position with PackUK before treating any figure on this page as an invoice.
How Merchant Packaging helps
Read next
Sources
- Defra and PackUK: illustrative base fees for 2026-27, December 2025
- pEPR producer disposal fees modulation statement
Packaging regulation moves. This page states the date it was last reviewed against its sources, and where a figure is illustrative rather than confirmed the text says so.