Producer responsibility rules keep changing, and the EU packaging regulation that applies from 12 August 2026 widens them again. You feel changes like that soonest on the big online platforms, because a marketplace like eBay must check that a seller is registered before letting them sell.
This guide is for business sellers shipping into the EU, wherever you are based. By the end, every EPR number eBay wants will be in the right place and no listing hidden for a missing one. eBay asks in four countries, and the number does not always go in the same place.
What to have in front of you
Most of this is form-filling. What actually slows people down is not having the details ready, so pull four things together first.
- Your company details. Legal name, registered address, and your VAT or tax number. Every register asks for these before it will issue anything.
- Your product and packaging data. What each item is made of and what it weighs, packaging included. The registers ask for it, and your fees are calculated from it.
- The list of countries your buyers are in. Not where you are based. That list is what decides which of the four countries below applies to you.
- A computer or a tablet. eBay repeats on every one of their EPR pages that the numbers panel "can only be done on a computer or tablet, not a mobile phone".
Where eBay actually asks for the number
eBay publishes an EPR page for four countries, and they are worth seeing side by side before you register for anything, because the number does not always end up where you expect.
| Country | What eBay wants from you | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | A LUCID number for packaging, a WEEE number for electronics, a battery number for batteries | The EPR numbers panel in your account |
| France | One UIN for each category you sell in, plus one for your packaging | The account panel, then extra fields on every listing |
| Italy | One EPR number for each of the six categories you sell in | The account panel, and eBay copies it onto your listings |
| Spain | eBay's own producer number rather than one of yours | The invoice you send the buyer |
Two things follow from that. Nothing you do for Germany helps you in France, because these are national registrations issuing national numbers. And Spain is not a registration job at all, which is why sellers who go hunting for a Spanish field in their eBay account never find one.
eBay is not being cautious here. Since 1 July 2022, marketplaces have been legally required to make sure their sellers comply with EPR rules, and eBay states that date on their own regulations page.
That duty is why German listings were being hidden years before the EU packaging rules arrived. It is what an online marketplace's EPR obligations amount to in practice.
Not sure if you are registered in every country you sell in?
We will run a demo on a representative product and discuss your specific EPR mix.
- How many EU markets do you sell into?
- Do you import from outside the EU?
Step 1. Work out which countries treat you as the producer
You do not need a number everywhere you ship. You need one everywhere the rules count you as the producer, and eBay sets out four tests for packaging. Any one of them is enough.
- You are the first to make packaged products available in a particular EU country.
- You sell packaged products directly to end users in an EU country from another country.
- You import packaged products into an EU country and are the first to make them available there.
- You sell under your own brand and are the first to place those packaged products on that market.
eBay adds the part sellers miss. In its words, "it's possible to be considered a packaging producer in one EU country but not another", so this is a country-by-country answer, not a yes or no.
Batteries work the same way and catch more people, because the rules cover products containing batteries as well as loose ones. Watches, toys, vehicles and anything electronic are all in scope, and the number is needed in each country where those batteries are first placed on the market.
Write the answer down as a shortlist of countries. Everything below is you working through that list.
One thing to know before you do. eBay only prompts you in four of those countries. Ship anywhere else in the EU and the duty can still be yours, but nobody on the platform will mention it.
If you also sell on Amazon, the same shortlist drives that work too, and we walk through it separately in our guide to getting EPR numbers for Amazon.
Step 2. Register in Germany and paste three numbers into one panel
Germany is the country with the most numbers, because three separate laws reach an eBay seller at once. eBay is blunt about what happens if you skip it. Sellers who do not comply "may have their listings hidden", according to its help page for selling in Germany.
Here is what each of the three asks for.
- Packaging. Licence your packaging with a scheme, then register with the Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister to get your LUCID number. Our page on the LUCID packaging register covers what the register asks for and what it publishes about you.
- Electronics. Register with Stiftung EAR to get a WEEE number. Which route you take depends on whether you are the brand owner, an importer or a reseller, and producers with no branch in Germany have to appoint an authorised representative approved by the EAR foundation.
- Batteries. A battery number from the relevant authority, entered under its own category.
There is one carve-out worth knowing on used goods. Importing used electricals into Germany for the first time needs a WEEE number, but selling used electricals that are already in Germany and are not under your own brand does not.
Then all three numbers go into the same place. Open Account settings, choose Business information, find Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) numbers and select Add or Manage.
Pick Germany, pick the category, paste the number exactly as the register issued it, and save. Repeat for each of the three.
Step 3. Collect one French UIN per category and finish the job on the listing
France calls its number a Unique Identification Number, or UIN. As eBay puts it, "outside France, a UIN is often referred to as an EPR number, so you may see these terms used interchangeably". It is the same idea with a French name.
The sourcing works differently here, and it is the cheapest win on this page. Your supplier may already have a UIN you are allowed to use, so ask them before you register for anything.
If you have several suppliers in one category, you still only need one UIN for that category. You register yourself only if you are the producer or the first importer into France, or if no supplier will give you a valid one.
Two details catch sellers out
The first is that packaging needs its own UIN whether the item is new or second-hand, so second-hand sellers are not outside this.
The other is that one listing can need several numbers. eBay's own example is a laptop, which takes one UIN for the electronics, one for the battery, and one for the packaging and paper.
The numbers go in the same account panel as Germany, under France. Some categories add a tickbox before it will save.
France also asks for three things on the listing itself
The account panel is only half of it, and this is the half that gets skipped. Business sellers need eBay's advanced listing tool for all three.
- The eco-participation fee, on furniture and electrical items. Item disclosures, then Eco-participation, then the amount. eBay illustrates it with a €1,000 laptop carrying a €1 fee.
- A repairability score from 0 to 10, under Item disclosures then Repairability index. As of November 2022 it covered washing machines, smartphones, laptops, televisions, electric lawnmowers, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners and high pressure cleaners, and eBay notes the list can change.
- A take-back policy, built once under Seller disclosures and then attached per listing. It always applies to electricals, tyres, gas cartridges and pyrotechnics, and applies to furniture, chemical products and toys, sports, garden and DIY goods once your turnover in that category passes €100,000.
France is also the one country where eBay says they may charge you rather than just hide you. If you do not comply with the UIN rules, eBay "may charge you the corresponding eco-participation fee".
eBay warns that this may cost more than paying the recycling organisation directly, and that it may block new listings until you fix it. For the French duties sitting behind all of this, see our page on packaging EPR in France.
Step 4. Add an Italian number for each category you sell in
Italy runs on the Consolidated Environmental Act, and it splits the job by category rather than by law. Six of them can apply to an eBay seller.
Packaging, tyres, polyethylene or products containing it, electronics, batteries, and used mineral oils or products containing them.
You register with the relevant recycling organisation for each category you actually sell in, and that registration is what issues the number. The Italian producer register is where it is recorded.
Adding them is the same panel with one difference. You pick Italy and one category, paste the number, and select Add, and eBay is explicit that this "must be completed individually for each category". Once a number is in, eBay copies it onto your listings for you.
Pay on Behalf does not replace registering
Italy is the one country where eBay offers to handle the money. Opt in and eBay will "calculate, report, and pay the applicable EPR fees on your behalf", and they are waiving the charge for the launch period.
Read the condition carefully though, because it is the thing sellers get backwards. The service only covers categories "where you've added an EPR number".
You still register, you still get your own number, and the offer only appears once you have entered one. It takes the fee admin off your desk, not the registration.
Step 5. Put eBay's Spanish number on your invoices
Spain is the odd one out, and it is genuinely good news. Under Royal Decree 1055/2022 an international seller shipping into Spain can count as a producer for the shipping packaging, which would normally mean another registration.
eBay went and did that registration instead. On its help page for selling in Spain they say they registered themselves with the authorities and with ECOEMBES as a Producer of Products.
They then hand every international business seller the same number to use. You add one line anywhere on the invoice.
Spanish Producer of Products Registration Number: ENV/2023/000034242
eBay then says they will join a scheme, settle the contributions and report the annual packaging volume for international sellers shipping into Spain. Two limits are worth reading before you rely on it.
The first is who it covers. International sellers only, meaning you are based outside Spain or shipping in from a warehouse abroad. Sellers based in Spain selling to Spanish buyers are pointed elsewhere.
The second is that it defers to your own paperwork. If you already hold a Spanish producer number of your own, eBay tells you to keep using that one instead.
Step 6. Certify the packaging numbers and keep them valid
The EPR panel has grown into the EU packaging rules, and two things changed with it. It is now called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) registration numbers.
The other change is a step at the end. Adding a packaging number for any country now finishes with a checkbox where you certify that your packaging meets the applicable requirements.
If you were already selling, your packaging numbers for France and Germany were migrated across automatically, and if they are still correct you do nothing.
If one is wrong, there is no edit button. Correcting a migrated number means selecting Remove, then adding it again from scratch with the certification box ticked.
A number is only valid while you keep feeding it
eBay says you "need to periodically keep reporting and paying licensing fees" to keep your LUCID number, WEEE number and battery number valid.
A number that lapses stops working exactly like a number you never had. Under the EU packaging rules eBay warns that listings may be hidden in any country where a packaging number is missing or invalid.
That is judged country by country, so your German listings can stay up while the Italian ones come down, and local authorities can add sanctions of their own.
Where Repax fits once the numbers are in
Getting the numbers is a project with an end. Keeping them valid is not, and that is the part worth automating, because it means turning one product catalogue into whatever shape each country's scheme asks for, year after year.
- What Repax Core does. You describe each product and its packaging once, down to materials, components and weights, and Core produces the figures each market's report wants. The German, French and Italian reports each use different field names for the same box, and Core handles that translation rather than you keeping three spreadsheets.
- Why that matters for an audit. Every shipped order locks in the spec as it was at the point of sale, so a filing you make this year still reproduces exactly when someone asks about it in three years.
- How the data gets in. Core reads Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento, CSV and Excel files, and a REST API. There is no native eBay connector today, so eBay order and product data comes in as a file or through the API.
- What it costs. Pricing is public, with a free tier at €0 a month and paid plans from €29 a month.
Being straight about the boundary matters more than the pitch here. Repax Core does not obtain an EPR number for you, does not register you with any scheme, and does not type anything into your eBay account.
What it does is the data groundwork every one of those registrations and reports depends on. Comply, the filing side, registers you and submits for you across EU markets.
Common mistakes that quietly hide your listings
None of these produce an obvious error message, which is exactly why they cost sellers weeks. Here are six worth checking your own account against.
- Assuming one number covers the EU. EPR numbers are national. A LUCID number does nothing for your French or Italian listings, and it is not meant to.
- Hunting for the Spanish field. There is not one. Spain is handled on the invoice with eBay's number, so time spent looking in the account panel is time wasted.
- Treating Pay on Behalf as the registration. eBay's Italian service only covers the categories where you have already added your own number. No number, no cover.
- Stopping at the account panel in France. The UIN is one of four things France wants. The eco-participation fee, the repairability score and the take-back policy live on the listing.
- Trying to do it on a phone. The panel simply does not open on one, and eBay says so on all four country pages.
- Letting a registration lapse. Reporting and fees keep the number alive. Miss them and the listings go down as if you had never registered.
Frequently asked questions about EPR numbers on eBay
Short answers to what eBay sellers ask most about this.
How long does this take?
The eBay half takes minutes once you have the numbers. The registrations are what take time, from a few to several weeks depending on the country and how ready your product data is. Start before you plan to sell, not after a listing disappears.
Do I have to register in every EU country?
No. You register where you count as the producer for that country, normally where you sell packaged goods to buyers there. eBay's four countries are not the limit either, since the duty can apply somewhere eBay never prompts you.
Does eBay check my number against the register?
eBay says a missing or invalid number can get your listings hidden in that country, but it does not publish how or how often it checks. Treat it as something that has to match your registration exactly.
Do I need an EPR number to sell on eBay in the UK?
Not through this panel. eBay's EPR pages cover Germany, France, Italy and Spain, plus the EU-wide battery and packaging rules, and it states the battery rules do not apply to UK buyers except in Northern Ireland. UK packaging EPR is still your own duty.
Can eBay pay my EPR fees for me?
In Italy only, and only if you opt in. eBay will calculate, report and pay the fees for categories where your own number is already in the account, and it is free during the launch period. Registering is still on you.
Do second-hand sellers need a number?
In France, yes for packaging. eBay states the packaging needs a UIN whether the item is new or second-hand. Germany is softer on used electricals, where goods already in the country and not sold under your own brand need no WEEE number.
