Extended Producer Responsibility reporting requirements apply to companies that sell packaged goods into any of the seven states with packaging EPR laws on the books: California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington. If your business meets a state’s definition of a producer and clears its size threshold, you generally have to register with a Producer Responsibility Organization, submit an annual supply report detailing every piece of packaging you put on the market, and pay eco-modulated fees based on that data. Missing a deadline or skipping registration can trigger daily fines and, in some states, a ban on selling covered products.
Are You a Producer Under These Laws
State EPR laws generally define a producer as the brand owner, the manufacturer that puts goods into packaging, or the importer who first introduces a packaged product into the state. You don’t need to run a factory. Import goods from overseas and sell them domestically, and most state laws treat you as the producer. Sell private-label products at retail, and the brand on the box makes you responsible, not the contract manufacturer inside it.
Online marketplace operators are increasingly pulled into these definitions too. Where a third-party seller has no presence in a regulated state, some laws assign the obligation to the platform enabling the sale.
Small Business Exemptions Vary by State
Every state with a packaging EPR law carves out an exemption for smaller businesses, but the thresholds are not the same across states. Revenue cutoffs generally fall between $2 million and $5 million in annual gross revenue or in-state sales. Weight-based cutoffs target the amount of packaging material introduced into the state, often starting around one ton per year.
Some states phase their exemptions. A business under $2 million in revenue might be permanently exempt, while one between $2 million and $5 million could be exempt only during the program’s early years and then become obligated as the program matures. The common mistake is assuming a blanket exemption applies everywhere. Check each state’s statute rather than assuming any single dollar figure carries across borders.
What Data You Have to Collect
EPR reporting requires a detailed inventory of every piece of packaging your company places on the market in each regulated state. At minimum, you need to track:
- Material type. Each packaging component classified by material: paper or cardboard, corrugated cardboard, plastics broken down by resin type (HDPE, PET, and so on), glass, aluminum, steel, or wood.
- Packaging class. Whether the packaging is primary (the container the consumer handles), secondary (the box that groups products for display), or tertiary (shipping and transit packaging like pallets or stretch wrap).
- Weight per unit. The weight of each packaging component, typically reported in kilograms, at the component level rather than the finished product level.
- Volume sold per state. The number of units sold or distributed into each regulated state, or a defensible estimate based on population share or shipment data if state-specific sales figures aren’t available.
- Recycled content. The percentage of post-consumer recycled material in each packaging component, when available.
The granularity can be surprising. California uses roughly 95 distinct material categories. Oregon and Colorado use fewer, but still require separating flexible plastics from rigid plastics and distinguishing coated from uncoated paper. Some states also require reporting whether plastic components are detachable from non-plastic components, because that affects recyclability assessments.
Building this dataset means pulling bills of materials from your packaging suppliers, cross-referencing them against sales invoices and shipping records, and assigning weights at the component level. Most companies don’t have this data sitting in one place, and pulling it together takes longer than the reporting window allows if you start late.
Registering With a Producer Responsibility Organization
In most states with packaging EPR laws, you don’t file directly with the state government. You join a Producer Responsibility Organization, which collects your data, calculates your fees, and manages the recycling and waste diversion programs those fees fund. The Circular Action Alliance is the designated PRO for packaging in California, Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota, Maryland, and Washington. Maine is expected to designate its own stewardship organization separately.1Circular Action Alliance. Circular Action Alliance
Registration is not optional. In several states, selling or distributing products with covered packaging materials without belonging to an approved PRO is itself a violation. Colorado has prohibited unregistered producers from selling covered products in the state since July 2025. The process involves signing a participation agreement and any state-specific addenda, then gaining access to the reporting portal where you submit your supply data.2Circular Action Alliance. Producer Resource Center
2026 Filing Deadlines
EPR reporting deadlines are not uniform, and they shift as programs mature. For 2026, six states share a May 31 reporting deadline. California, Colorado, and Oregon require a full annual supply report. Minnesota, Maryland, and Washington require a simplified supply report for their newer programs.3Circular Action Alliance. Producer Resource Center – Section: Important Dates for Producers
Portals for Oregon, Colorado, California, and Minnesota opened on March 31, 2026. Washington and Maryland followed on April 23. Treat the portal opening date as the submission window and have your dataset ready before it arrives; waiting until then to start compiling data is how deadlines get missed.
Fee schedules follow later in the year. For 2026, fee and due schedules for California, Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota, and Washington are expected to be published in October. The data in your supply report is what determines your fee obligation, so classification errors don’t just risk an audit, they can inflate or deflate what you owe.
How Fees Are Calculated
EPR fees are not a flat charge. Most programs use eco-modulation, meaning the fee varies with how recyclable, reusable, or environmentally harmful the packaging is. Uncoated cardboard costs less per tonne than multi-layer plastic laminates that recycling facilities can’t process.
The general formula: the weight of each material you report is multiplied by a base fee for that material category, then adjusted by a factor reflecting recyclability. Materials with strong recycling infrastructure get lower multipliers; materials that effectively become landfill waste get higher ones. Some states also factor in toxicity, post-consumer recycled content, and whether packaging is designed for reuse.
Minnesota’s law states the policy goal directly: producer fees must incentivize eliminating toxic substances, reducing unnecessary material, increasing post-consumer recycled content, and enhancing recyclability or compostability. The practical effect is that packaging design decisions you make today will affect your EPR costs for years.
Penalties for Non-Compliance
Fines are typically assessed per violation, per day, so a missed deadline compounds fast. Across states, penalties run from $1,000 per day at the low end to $50,000 or even $100,000 per day for repeat offenders, depending on the jurisdiction and prior violations.
Some states escalate on a tiered schedule. A first-time violation might start at $5,000 for the initial day and $1,500 for each additional day, then jump to $10,000 plus $3,000 per day for a second violation within the same year, and climb further from there. Other states set a flat cap of up to $25,000 per day per violation regardless of offense count. A reporting gap left open even a few weeks can generate five- or six-figure liability.
Fines are only part of the picture. Several states have enacted sales bans that prohibit non-compliant producers from legally selling or distributing products containing covered materials in the state. Colorado’s sales ban has been in effect since mid-2025. Minnesota’s ban for most covered materials takes effect by 2029, with certain product categories banned sooner. Losing market access in an entire state is harder to absorb than the fine itself, especially for brands with retail relationships that can’t simply be unwound.
Regulators also run audits, comparing reported data against internal sales records and warehouse inventories. Discrepancies can trigger investigations and higher penalty tiers, particularly when the gap looks intentional. Keep a clear audit trail: the methodology behind your weight calculations, the source data for your state-level sales allocations, and any assumptions baked into your estimates.
Packaging Isn’t the Only EPR Category
If your product line goes beyond packaging, you may have EPR obligations under other statutes in the same state. Approximately 24 states have EPR laws covering electronic waste, requiring manufacturers to fund collection and recycling and submit annual recovery-rate reports. Paint stewardship programs exist in about a dozen states. Mattress recycling, tire management funds, and battery take-back requirements each have their own state-by-state patchwork and their own reporting obligations.4US EPA. Extended Battery Producer Responsibility (EPR) Framework
Each program has its own PRO, its own reporting portal, and its own deadlines. Sell electronics in branded packaging, and you can face overlapping obligations under separate statutes in the same state. Inventory every product line against every state where you have sales, then map each one to the applicable EPR program before any deadline arrives.