FAQ - Economic conditions and prices
Packaging Tax: state tax paid to the Tax Authority for certain types of packaging – e.g., packaging for spirits or wine, bags, and single-use products. Read more here: Packaging Tax Act Danish Ministry of Taxation
Packaging Prices for Producer Responsibility (VANA's prices): payment for costs associated with the collection, sorting, and recycling of the packaging that companies place on the market. Read more about our prices
VANA and our founders have long advocated for companies covered by producer responsibility to be exempt from the packaging tax, as it represents double regulation. With the recent political announcement, the tax is now being removed.
As a company that is subject to producer responsibility for packaging, you must cover the costs of collection, transport, and waste treatment of your packaging.
Read more about membership prices for VANA and the financial consequences of producer responsibility.
No: Waste-producing companies only need to pay for the handling of waste that is not packaging. The producer must pay for the part that is packaging.
A packaging is registered in the producer responsibility by the company that first makes it available on the Danish market, with businesses as end-users. When the packaging becomes commercial waste, it is collected by a private waste collector, who is compensated by the producer responsibility organisation (PRO).
Read more about waste treatment under producer responsibility
The base contribution covers ongoing maintenance of master data in VANAs business system and access to knowledge on the closed member pages.
As a member of VANA you can see the prices here. The prices will be published in VANA's terms when the producer responsibility enters into force on October 1st.
Companies that are subject to producer responsibility must cover the costs of collection, handling, and treatment corresponding to the quantities of packaging they place on the market, which consists of:
- the municipalities' costs for collecting household waste
- costs associated with the transport and treatment of packaging waste spread across material categories
- costs for the payment of compensation for commercial packaging waste
- the collective organisation's administrative and financial costs associated with handling the packaging waste.
The prices of the collective organisations depend, among other things, on the authorities' allocation of municipalities. It is the allocation that determines which and how many municipalities the collective organisation is obliged to handle waste or pay compensation in.
The allocation of municipalities to the collective organisations occurs every two years. The allocation effective from October 1, 2025, is based on the expected quantities that the companies reported in 2024. The next allocation, which will take place in October 2026 effective from January 1, 2027, will be based on the actual available quantities that the companies have reported in 2025 and 2026 between the two allocation periods. There will then be an adjustment among the collective organisations, taking into account that the allocated quantities corresponded to the actual quantities of packaging waste in the previous allocation period.
This means that if a collective organisation in the first allocation period was allocated too few kilos of packaging waste to pay for (municipalities), it will be adjusted in the next period, where the quantities will count double. Read more about allocation here.
Furthermore, there is a very large difference in the fees that the collective organisations must pay for collection to their allocated municipalities. This is being worked on politically, read more here.
Thus, one should take this into account, for example when comparing prices among the collective organisations.
The prices are higher than the estimated figures from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency's report from 2021 (also known as the COWI report) and the projected 2023 figures from it, which the VANA calculator was based on.
This is due to the fact that the fees announced by the municipalities are significantly higher than assumed, and the companies' reported quantities of household packaging are significantly lower than assumed. This means that a larger volume is expected to be unreported, but is included in the prices (the free rider problem).
No guarantee needs to be provided or advance payment made prior to the first allocation period, which starts on October 1, 2025.
Members must report actual quantities made available to VANA on an ongoing basis monthly (over 8 tons) or quarterly (under 8 tons) and will be invoiced based on that. The payment deadline is 30 days from the invoice date.
This means the first payment will be collected in November 2025 and January 2026, respectively.
Malus is calculated with 35% of operational costs, which include expenses for the collection, transport, and treatment of packaging waste. Pure administrative costs are not included.
Read more about eco-modulation and the bonus/malus model here.
The bonus for companies that make available packaging with high recyclability (green) depends on the distribution between green and red reports in the respective material categories. VANA therefore pays out bonuses based on a tiered model until there is established knowledge of the distribution based on members' ongoing reports, read more here.
For packaging at the red level, the producer pays a malus (additional cost) of 35 % of the individual producer's calculated operational costs for waste management of packaging waste.
For packaging at the green level, the producer receives a bonus that reduces the producer's calculated operational costs for waste management of packaging waste.
For packaging at the yellow level, the individual producer pays the calculated operational costs for waste management.
Read more about the economic model for the eco-modulated fee here.
Read more about bonus payments for members here.
VANA pays out bonuses based on a tiered model. The more knowledge VANA gains about the quantities and the distribution between fractions, the closer VANA can get to setting both the red and green prices in advance for the year.
See elaboration under VANA's prices here.
It is where Dansk Producentansvar (DPA) has a deadline for reports, and VANA can conclude the previous year.
Read more about VANA's prices here.
Yes. VANA's members pay the same price for the handling of the respective material categories, whether it is ordinary, residual, or hazardous waste, and this price is eco-modulated.
The Danish Environmental Protection Agency has indicated that it is the packaging that should be eco-modulated, and therefore it is not significant for the price whether it is ordinary, residual, or hazardous waste, but rather the criteria in the guidance's annex 14 that determines it.
Read more about eco-modulation here.
Find the Danish Environmental Protection Agency's guidance here.
VANA accumulates our members' ongoing reports for the annual statutory reporting, and therefore there is a need for the ongoing reporting to take into account the data required for the annual reporting. This means household/commercial and residual and hazardous waste.
The 4 installments are the payments from the producer responsibility organisations to the municipalities for the collection of household waste. According to the political announcement, this bill must be limited from 1.6 billion DKK to a maximum of 1.2 billion DKK, and any additional charge up to a maximum of 200 million DKK will be distributed over a four-year period and will thus be included in future prices.
However, this is not specified in the statutory order, and it has therefore not yet been clarified.
VANA's members must continue to report monthly (over 8 tons) or quarterly (under 8 tons). Read more here.
The price is higher because new key figures from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been released, read more here. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) informs that key figures for wood are under reassessment and are expected at the beginning of October 2025.
VANA is committed to ensuring that all members are treated on equal terms. Therefore, administrative expenses for IT, administration, etc. are distributed across all material categories. However, no operational costs are paid for these categories.
VANA's base prices were adjusted on September 18, 2025, based on the government's political announcement about the adjustment of the frameworks for producer responsibility for packaging.
The Danish Environmental Protection Agency has since the price adjustment on 18/9 informed that the updated key figures for payment for households' non-packaging as well as commercial packaging waste, which VANA has partly based the recalculation of our prices on, contain errors. This error will be incorporated into our next recalculation of base prices, which is expected to be the prices applicable from January 1, 2026, unless the content of the revised version of the statutory order on packaging, which is currently awaited, necessitates adjustments before then.
The key figures are the numbers that the producer responsibility organisations must use to calculate compensation for commercial packaging as well as the municipalities' payment for non-packaging waste.
Read more about waste treatment
See and read more about the key figures for payment for households' non-packaging waste and for payment for commercial packaging waste
The Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes key figures for the collection and treatment of commercial waste based on a base figure for the current market price for treatment and transport, respectively. The base figures are continuously price-regulated, among other things by using indices for selling prices, and multiplied by price efficiency factors to adjust key figures downward so that they reflect efficient collection and disposal. The key figures are calculated by COWI.
It is up to the companies themselves to assess how the costs of producer responsibility should be covered, including how it should possibly be reflected on the invoice.
The authorities have indicated that: "It is noted that, regardless of the regulations, it will always be possible to enter into agreements between companies in a value chain regarding how the costs of the extended producer responsibility for packaging are shared among the companies." (Consultation response regarding the draft statutory order on the registration and reporting of packaging dated February 14, 2024).
Be aware that payment for producer responsibility is not a fee (like, for example, the packaging fee), but rather payment for the costs of handling the packaging when it becomes waste.