Am I required to pay the Waste Management Contribution?

You are required to pay the Waste Management Contribution and register with the Waste Fund when, within a calendar year, you bring more than 50,000 kilos of packaging material onto the Dutch market and/or dispose of the same amount subsequent to import.  You are required to pay contributions when you are an entrepreneur under Articles 7, paragraph 1 and 2 of the 1968 Law on Turnover Taxation and carry out one of the following transactions.  Note that this also applies when your firm has not been set up in the Netherlands and sells directly (online) to Dutch consumers.

Addition of packaging material

Do you add packaging material to your goods, or do you have somebody do it on behalf of your business, subsequent to which your goods are sold to a third party in the Netherlands?  When this is the case, you pay a contribution for all used packaging material.  If, for example, we are talking about food products being sold in jars, you pay the contribution on the jars, labels, lids and boxes in which the jars are delivered, and on the cellophane around the pallets  holding the boxes.  If it is a case of a single logistical device, (for this, see our other blog) a contribution must also be paid.

Disposal of packaging material after import

Do you import goods to the Netherlands and do you remove and dispose of packaging material subsequent to import?  If so, then you are liable for contributions for the packaging material that you remove and dispose of.  Therefore, this means that, in the example outlined above with the jars, you only pay the contribution for the removal and disposal of the cellophane around the pallets.

Importing and the making available of goods to a third party in the Netherlands

Do you import goods to the Netherlands and make these goods available to a third party here?  You are then liable to pay contributions for the packaging material in which the goods have been imported into the Netherlands.  This means that you are liable for contributions on all packaging materials.  In the above example with the jars, these are, therefore, the same materials as when you have added them yourself.

Under the threshold

When, within a calendar year, you bring less than 50,000 kilos of packaging materials onto the Dutch market, and dispose of this subsequent to import, you are under the threshold.  This means that, in principle, you do not have to pay any Waste Management Contribution. You must be able to prove that you are under the threshold.  The Waste Fund may well request you to do so.

You are also liable to pay contributions when you are under the threshold, but sell soft drinks and/or water in bottles manufactured from artificial products, if the contents of these are at least 75cl, and you do not participate in the packaging return scheme.

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