Packaging EPR Laws by State: A 2026 Compliance Map for US Producers

Seven US states now treat packaging as a producer obligation as 2026 has brought a real compliance timeline. California's permanent regulations took effect on May 1, 2026. Colorado producers were invoiced for the first time in January 2026. Washington and Maryland closed their first registration windows on July 1, 2026.

If you sell packaged goods into more than one of these states, you are not running just one program anymore. You are running seven, each with its own obligated-party definition, exemption thresholds, reporting window and fee timetable. The table below maps all seven against the four facts a compliance lead actually needs: who is obligated, when to register, when to report, and who collects the money.

Last verified: August 10, 2026. Every date on this page comes from the state agency, the statute, or the appointed producer responsibility organization. EPR timelines shift with rulemaking and litigation — always confirm against the cited source before you rely on a date.

Which US states have packaging EPR laws in 2026?

Seven states have enacted extended producer responsibility laws covering packaging and paper products: Maine, Oregon, Colorado, California, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington. The remaining 43 states and the District of Columbia have no packaging EPR law in force, so a producer selling only into those markets carries no registration, reporting or fee obligation.

The seven arrived in three waves. Maine and Oregon legislated in 2021, California and Colorado in 2022, Minnesota in 2024, and Maryland and Washington in 2025. Enactment order doesn't necessarily point to maturity, however: Colorado is already collecting producer dues while Maine, the first state to legislate, has not yet opened registration.

Six of the seven programs are administered by the same producer responsibility organization, Circular Action Alliance. That is a simplification — one counterparty, one portal, one set of credentials — but it does not merge the obligations. Each state requires its own registration, its own state addendum and its own report.

What packaging EPR deadlines come next?

The 2026 registration and reporting cycle has largely closed: California registration ended June 1, 2026, and Maryland, Minnesota and Washington reports were due May 31, 2026. The next fixed dates are Washington's PRO payment to Ecology on September 1, 2026 and Maine's expected opening of producer registration at the end of 2026.

Here is what a multi-state producer should have on the calendar from today forward.

• August 14, 2026 — California: public comment closes on Circular Action Alliance's draft program plan.
• September 1, 2026 — Washington: the PRO's one-time payment to the Department of Ecology is due.
• October 2026 — Washington: Ecology publishes the statewide standardized collection lists.
• End of 2026 — Maine: DEP anticipates producer registration and invoicing begin.
• December 31, 2026 — Minnesota: the full needs assessment is due.
• January 1, 2027 — California: CalRecycle approves the PRO plan and the program begins.
• January 1, 2027 — California: 10% source reduction of single-use plastic.
• January 2027 — Washington: Ecology publishes the preliminary needs assessment.
• March 1, 2027 — California: the PRO remits the first $500 million into the California Plastic Pollution Mitigation Fund, repeating annually to 2037.
• May 1, 2027 — Washington: annual producer fees begin.
• July 1, 2027 — California: the PRO remits its first administrative fees to CalRecycle.
• January 1, 2028 — California: 30% of single-use plastic recycled.
• July 1, 2028 — Maryland: the producer responsibility plan is due and producers begin reimbursing a share of collection and processing costs.
• October 1, 2028 — Washington and Minnesota: PRO program and stewardship plans are due.
• February 1, 2029 — Minnesota: producers fund at least 50% of net program costs, rising to 75% in 2030 and 90% in 2031.
• January 2030 — Washington: the CAA and Interchange360 programs roll out and residential collection changes take effect.
• January 1, 2032 — California and Minnesota: all covered packaging must meet the recyclable, compostable, reusable or refillable requirement.

Two recurring dates sit underneath all of that. Oregon and Maryland require an annual producer report by May 31. Colorado requires producer dues to be remitted on or before January 1 each year.

Who counts as an obligated producer?

In all seven states the obligated party is the producer — typically the brand owner, or where the brand owner has no US presence, the importer or first distributor into that state. Retailers and packaging converters are generally not obligated unless they own the brand or are the first party to place the material on the state's market.

Whether that obligation actually attaches to you then turns on the exemption thresholds, and these differ enough that a company can be exempt in one state and fully obligated in the next.

• California: producers with gross annual sales under $1 million may apply for the small producer exemption, but must still register with CalRecycle to claim it.
• Minnesota: a de minimis producer introduced less than one ton of covered material into the state, or earned global gross revenues under $2,000,000, in its most recent fiscal year (Minn. Stat. § 115A.1441). Government units, 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations, mills using virgin wood fiber and certain containerboard mills are also excluded, and packaging that contains a product distributed business-to-business is exempt.
• Oregon: small producer status can be met seven different ways under ORS 459A.863(32) — nonprofit, public body, gross revenue under $5 million, under one metric ton of covered products into Oregon, a beverage manufacturer under five metric tons, a restaurant or food cart that does not produce food serviceware, or a single retail establishment with no online sales that is not part of a franchise or chain.
• Maine: producers with revenue under $2 million are exempt for the program's first three years and under $5 million thereafter; so are producers selling under one ton of packaging into Maine, plus the first 15 tons of perishable food packaging annually.
• Colorado: the de minimis revenue threshold is set by rule and CDPHE must adjust it for inflation each year by July 1 using the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, so the figure changes annually — check the current number with CDPHE rather than relying on a published guide.
• Maryland and Washington: exemption criteria are being set through rulemaking. Confirm your status directly with the Maryland Department of the Environment or the Washington Department of Ecology before assuming you are out of scope.

Exemptions are claimed, not granted automatically. In California and Maine the mechanism is an application; in Minnesota and Oregon the status is statutory but still has to be evidenced if challenged. Either way, you need the sales and tonnage numbers to prove it — which is the same data problem as full compliance, in a smaller size.

California SB 54: registration closed on June 1, 2026

California's SB 54 permanent regulations were approved by the Office of Administrative Law on May 1, 2026 and became effective on filing, which gave producers 30 days to act. Because the thirtieth day fell on a Sunday, CalRecycle set the deadline at June 1, 2026 for producers to register with Circular Action Alliance and submit supply data, register with CalRecycle as an independent producer, or apply for the small producer exemption. Our guide to SB 54 registration and compliance covers the mechanics of each route in detail.

The route to that deadline was unusually long. Governor Newsom signed SB 54 on June 30, 2022; CalRecycle selected Circular Action Alliance as the inaugural single PRO on January 5, 2024; formal rulemaking opened in March 2024, was restarted at the Governor's direction on March 7, 2025, and the redrafted regulations went to OAL on March 19, 2026.

Reporting ran on a parallel track. The 2026 California Producer Report and the 2026 California Annual Source Reduction Report, both covering the 2025 data year, were due May 31, 2026. Circular Action Alliance submitted its draft program plan on June 15, 2026 and public comment runs to August 14, 2026, with CalRecycle approval and program start due on or before January 1, 2027.

California also carries the steepest end-state targets. By January 1, 2032, 100% of covered packaging must be recyclable or compostable, 25% of single-use plastic packaging must be source reduced, and 65% of single-use plastic packaging must be recycled, with interim milestones in 2027, 2028 and 2030. Separately, producers of expanded polystyrene food serviceware had to demonstrate a 25% recycling rate to CalRecycle by January 1, 2025; that demonstration was not made, so EPS food serviceware is prohibited from sale in the state.

Oregon has the longest operating record

Oregon's Recycling Modernization Act is the packaging EPR program with the most compliance history behind it. DEQ approved Circular Action Alliance as the state's only producer responsibility organization on February 21, 2025, and obligated producers have already filed two supply reports: 2024 data by March 31, 2025 and 2025 data by May 31, 2026.

Oregon is also the most generous on exemptions, with seven separate routes to small producer status. That breadth matters commercially: a beverage manufacturer selling under five metric tons into Oregon is out of scope, while the same company would be assessed on a one-ton threshold in Minnesota and Maine.

Colorado is already invoicing producers

Colorado is the first state where producer money is actually moving. Producers must remit dues to Circular Action Alliance on or before January 1, 2026 and each year thereafter, and since July 2025 a producer cannot sell or distribute products using covered materials in Colorado at all unless it participates in the program.

The sequence was tight for a first mover. CDPHE appointed Circular Action Alliance as the designated PRO on May 1, 2023, the Solid and Hazardous Waste Commission approved final rules on June 14, 2024, producer registration closed on October 1, 2024, supply data was due July 31, 2025, and CDPHE approved the final program plan on December 9, 2025 with implementation required within six months. The PRO remitted its first administrative dues to CDPHE on June 30, 2026.

CDPHE projects the program will lift Colorado's paper and packaging recycling rate from 25% to 58% by 2035 and bring no-cost recycling to an estimated 700,000 additional households. For producers, that projection is effectively the cost base being funded.

Minnesota, Maryland and Washington: registered now, paying later

These three states have closed their first registration windows but will not collect meaningful producer fees for years. Minnesota producers had to join a registered PRO by July 1, 2025; Maryland and Washington producers by July 1, 2026. Fees follow much later — Washington from May 1, 2027, Maryland from July 1, 2028, Minnesota from February 1, 2029.

Minnesota's Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act required producers to appoint a nonprofit PRO by January 1, 2025; MPCA confirmed Circular Action Alliance's registration on February 18, 2025. Producers filed simplified reports by May 31, 2026 and brand information by June 20, 2026, feeding the first annual PRO registration on July 1, 2026. The full needs assessment is due December 31, 2026, the stewardship plan October 1, 2028, and producer funding scales from at least 50% of net program costs in February 2029 to 90% by 2031.

Maryland reached a full producer responsibility program in two steps: SB 222 in 2023 commissioned a needs assessment, and the Packaging and Paper Products – Producer Responsibility Plans Act (SB 901) was signed on May 13, 2025. MDE selected Circular Action Alliance as the single nonprofit PRO on October 18, 2023. Producers submitted simplified data by May 31, 2026, report annually by May 31 thereafter, and begin reimbursing a share of collection and processing costs on July 1, 2028 — the same date the producer responsibility plan is due.

Washington's Recycling Reform Act, passed in 2025 and codified at chapter 70A.208 RCW, is the newest and slowest moving. Ecology named Circular Action Alliance as the PRO on March 4, 2026, alongside Interchange360 for automotive lubricant packaging. Statewide standardized collection lists are published by October 2026, needs assessments in January and December 2027, the program plan on October 1, 2028, and the programs themselves roll out in January 2030.

Maine passed the first law and is still the slowest

Maine enacted the first US packaging EPR law in July 2021 and still has no operating program. The Board of Environmental Protection adopted its Chapter 428 rules in December 2024 and amended them in March 2026 to add the Packaging Material Types List; DEP is currently contracting a Stewardship Organization, and anticipates that producer registration and invoicing will begin at the end of 2026, with municipal reimbursements possibly starting at the end of 2027.

Maine is also structurally different from the other six. Rather than producers forming a PRO that runs the system, DEP contracts a Stewardship Organization and reimburses municipalities for recycling costs, with producers invoiced to fund it. Once registration opens, the first annual producer report falls due by May 31 of the following cycle.

Eco-modulated fees turn packaging design into a recurring cost

Every one of these programs charges producers by material category, and each is designed to vary the rate according to how recyclable, reusable or problematic that material is. Eco-modulation converts a packaging design decision into an annual operating cost rather than a one-off compliance exercise, and it is the mechanism through which EPR is intended to change what gets specified.

The details are still being developed. Colorado's eco-modulation ruleset has not been finalized, and Circular Action Alliance has published illustrative fees and an early fee schedule for California ahead of program start rather than final rates. Treat any specific per-tonne figure you see quoted today as indicative.

The practical consequence is about data granularity, not policy. Fees are assessed against the material category you report. If your bill of materials cannot separate a PET tray from an unspecified rigid plastic, you will be charged at whatever rate applies to the coarser category — and you will have no evidence to support a lower one.

Does litigation pause your EPR obligations?

No — not unless a court has issued an order and you fall within it. Oregon's Recycling Modernization Act remains in effect after a federal court dismissed multiple claims in February 2026; DEQ paused enforcement only against members of the trade association that brought the case, pending a trial that began on July 13, 2026. Colorado's program likewise continues to operate while constitutional challenges proceed.

The useful posture is to register and report on the statutory schedule regardless of pending litigation, and to track case outcomes as a fee-exposure question rather than a compliance-timing one. Missing a registration deadline on the assumption a law will be struck down is an expensive bet on an uncertain docket.

Which states do not have an packaging EPR law?

Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have no packaging EPR law in force as of August 10, 2026. Packaging stewardship bills are introduced in additional legislatures most sessions, but no eighth state had enacted one as of that date, and no producer obligation exists in a state until a law is actually in force.

That said, the seven-state footprint already covers a large share of US retail distribution, and the reporting formats are converging on the same underlying data. Producers building a packaging dataset for California and Oregon are, in practice, building it for whichever state legislates next. The same logic applies across the wider set of US state-level environmental reporting requirements now landing on the same compliance teams.

The data problem behind every packaging EPR report

Every EPR report in every state asks a version of the same question: how much of each covered material, by weight and category, did you place on that state's market last year? Very few producers can answer natively, because packaging weights sit in specifications, volumes sit in the ERP, and the two are joined by a SKU key that nobody maintains for compliance purposes.

What regulators and PRO auditors look for is traceability: a defensible line from the reported tonnage back to the component weight, the material category assignment, and the shipment volume into that specific state. Aggregated estimates are accepted at the simplified-reporting stage in several states, but they do not survive the transition to fee-bearing years.

Three things make the difference in practice. Hold packaging component data at the component level, not the finished-good level, so a resin change updates one record rather than a thousand. Store state-level shipment volumes rather than national totals, since every one of the seven states assesses on in-state supply. And collect material composition from your packaging suppliers as a standing condition of onboarding — the same discipline applied to wider supply chain due diligence programs, pointed at packaging.

Producers that built this in 2025 for Oregon and Colorado spent the 2026 California and Washington cycles running a query. Producers that did not spent it running a survey.

The seven programs will not converge into one, but their data requirements already have. Building a single packaging dataset that can be filtered by state, material category and reporting year is the cheapest form of insurance against the eighth state — and the fastest route to arguing for a lower eco-modulated fee once rates are set. Brightest helps producers assemble, verify and report that data across every state they sell into.