Regulation — position at 9 August 2026
Across the EU, Regulation (EU) 2025/40 bans placing single-use guest amenities on the market from 1 January 2030, whatever the packaging is made of. Nothing is banned before that date by the Regulation itself. This page quotes the text and links the primary sources.
The date that matters is 1 January 2030, and it is EU-wide. It makes nothing unlawful today. It does set the horizon for any investment made now: a holder installed in 2026 is amortised over a period that ends after the competing format stops being supplied.
Not yet, anywhere in the EU, under this Regulation. The ban exists and is dated, but it takes effect on 1 January 2030. Until then single-dose amenities remain lawful to place on the market unless a national measure says otherwise in a particular country.
It is worth stating plainly, because a number of trade and general publications have reported national bans as already in force when the texts behind them were bills that were never passed. France is the clearest example — see national measures below.
The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation entered into force on 11 February 2025 and has been applicable since 12 August 2026 (Article 71). It is a regulation, not a directive: it applies directly and uniformly in every Member State, with no national transposition.
Guest amenities fall under Article 25 and Annex V, point 5.
“From 1 January 2030, economic operators shall not place on the market packaging in the formats and for the uses listed in Annex V.”
Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Article 25(1)Packaging format — “Single-use accommodation sector packaging intended for an individual booking”
Restricted use — “Single-use packaging for cosmetics, hygiene and toiletry products for the use in the accommodation sector, as described in NACE Rev. 2 – Statistical classification of economic activities, intended for an individual booking only and intended to be discarded before the next guest arrives.”
Illustrative example — “Shampoo bottles, hand and body lotion bottles, sachets around bar soap.”
Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Annex V, point 5Points 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 of Annex V all restrict “single-use plastic packaging”. Point 5 is the only entry with no material qualifier at all. It restricts “single-use packaging”, full stop.
Direct consequence: moving the sachet from plastic to card, paper or a compostable film does not take it out of scope. Material substitution is a valid compliance route for the other points; it is not one here. Several published summaries have said the opposite by applying to point 5 the material carve-outs that belong to other points.
The widely circulated figures of 50 ml or 100 g do not appear in Annex V point 5. The text sets out no capacity at all.
The test is functional, not dimensional. Packaging is caught if it is “intended for an individual booking only” and “intended to be discarded before the next guest arrives”. What decides is the purpose of the packaging, not its size — which is both broader and vaguer than a stated volume.
“Sachets around bar soap” appears among the illustrative examples. A small bar under an individual wrapper, replaced between guests, is caught — that it is not a liquid changes nothing.
The restriction applies to packaging, however. Bar soap presented with no individual single-use wrapper falls outside the scope by construction: there is no single-use packaging to restrict. That is a direct reading of the text, and it deserves confirmation from the Commission guidelines (see the timetable).
Article 25 provides that economic operators shall not “place on the market” this packaging. The Regulation defines placing on the market as “the first making available of packaging, whether empty or with a product, on the Union market” (Article 3(10)).
The primary addressee is therefore whoever first brings the product to the Union market — manufacturer or importer — not the hotel that buys it and sets it out in the bathroom. For the property the practical effect is the same in the end: supply stops. But the status of stock already purchased before 2030 is not settled by the text itself. to be confirmed in the forthcoming guidelines.
| Date | What happens | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 11 Feb 2025 | Regulation (EU) 2025/40 enters into force. | Art. 71 |
| 12 Aug 2026 | The Regulation becomes applicable. Directive 94/62/EC is repealed. No obligation specific to guest amenities starts on this date. | Art. 71, Art. 70(1) |
| 12 Feb 2027 | Deadline for the Commission to publish guidelines explaining Annex V: examples of packaging formats within scope, and the exemptions. This is the document that will settle the grey areas above. | Art. 25(6) |
| 1 Jan 2030 | Ban on placing on the market the packaging in point 5: single-use packaging for cosmetics, hygiene and toiletry products intended for an individual booking, all materials. | Art. 25(1), Annex V pt 5 |
| 12 Feb 2032 | The Commission assesses the effect of the restrictions and reviews Article 25 and Annex V. The rules may change after this date. | Art. 25(5) |
The Regulation is the floor, applying identically in all 27 Member States. Individual countries may go further, and several have been reported as doing so. Those reports need checking one by one, because at least one widely repeated example does not survive it.
France. A private member's bill “to accelerate the reduction of single-use plastic from 2026” (text no. 103, 2024-2025) was tabled in the Sénat on 30 October 2024. Its Article 1 would have banned the production and sale of single-use plastic miniatures in France from 1 January 2026, with hotels covered from 1 January 2027.
As at 9 August 2026 the bill has not been passed. The legislative files of both the Sénat and the Assemblée nationale record no stage after the tabling: it remains in committee, at first reading. There is accordingly no French national ban in force, which is also the reading published by UMIH, the French hospitality trade body, in its member circular on the PPWR — “aucune interdiction législative”.
A bill that has not been passed creates no obligation. The 2026 and 2027 dates repeated by a number of trade and general publications are the ones that text proposed, presented as though they were in force. It is a confusion between a proposal and the law — common, and consequential when it is used to decide a purchase.
What this means in practice: check any claimed national ban against the national legislative record before acting on it, and treat 1 January 2030 as the date that is certain. It is further away, but it is settled, and it is broader, since it is not limited to plastic.
| Format | Caught? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Single-use shampoo or shower gel bottle, replaced between guests | Caught | Named in the text |
| Small bar soap in an individual sachet | Caught | “Sachets around bar soap”, named in the text |
| Single-dose in card, paper or bio-based material | Caught | Point 5 carries no material qualifier |
| Refillable bottle, fixed or free-standing, filled in house | Not caught | Not single-use packaging |
| Wall-mounted refillable dispenser | Not caught | As above |
| Bar soap with no individual single-use wrapper | Not caught | No single-use packaging to restrict |
| Product sold to the guest, or supplied on request and not discarded between stays | Unclear | The “intended for an individual booking only” and “discarded before the next guest arrives” tests need the interpretation due in February 2027 |
| Courtesy kit supplied on request (dental, shaving) | Unclear | Same functional test; the illustrative examples neither name nor exclude them |
Nothing requires a change of format now. But 2030 legitimately enters the calculation in three specific places:
What does not change: if the economics say today that single-dose is the right format for a given property — which happens, on long stays and on well-negotiated purchase prices — that conclusion holds until 2030. A four-year horizon is not an emergency, and this page is not here to present it as one.
Every statement on this page traces to a primary text or an institutional source. The to be confirmed marks show the points not yet settled by a source of that standing. Passages of the Regulation are quoted from the official English text, not translated.
Real cost calculator → price both formats on your own volumes
Format guide → what each format asks of your operation
Bar soap vs liquid → unwrapped bar soap, the one format outside point 5
Pre-opening checklist → a bathroom drawn now will be in service in 2030
All the tools → the full list