Germany: LUCID and the dual system, explained in plain English
Germany's Packaging Act (VerpackG) is the strictest and most-enforced packaging law you will meet as a small seller, and it has no minimum. One parcel to Munich puts you in scope. The good news: compliance is two concrete steps, and for a small shop the yearly cost is closer to a pizza night than a legal bill.
Step 1: Register in LUCID (free)
LUCID is the public packaging register run by the Zentrale Stelle. You create an entry for your business, name the brands you ship under, and receive a registration number. Marketplaces ask for this number and block German listings without it. Registration itself costs nothing and takes an evening.
Official portal: lucid.verpackungsregister.org
Step 2: License your volumes with a dual system (cheap at small scale)
You then tell a recycling company (a "dual system") roughly how much packaging you ship to Germany per year, by material, and pay for it. Small-seller self-serve providers price the minimum tiers in the tens of euros per year. You report the same numbers in LUCID, and the two entries must match.
If you use Amazon FBA or similar, the marketplace may handle some packaging types for you, but the registration duty stays yours. When a marketplace emails you about EPR verification, that is a real deadline, not marketing.
Traps we see small sellers hit
- Registering in LUCID but skipping the dual-system license. The register entry alone does not make you compliant.
- Letting the LUCID brand list drift out of date after adding a product line under a new name.
- Assuming marketplace-only selling exempts you. It does not. It just means the marketplace checks your homework.