UK Plastic Packaging Tax: what importers from China owe

It applies to importers, not just manufacturers

Plastic Packaging Tax catches plastic packaging you import into the UK, including the packaging around goods you bring in from China. That surprises a lot of buyers: you can owe the tax on poly bags, blister packs, film and trays you never thought of as a product. But there is an important carve-out — transport packaging used to deliver goods into the UK, such as pallets, pallet wrap, crates and retaining straps, is neither taxed nor counted toward your threshold.

It is charged on packaging where plastic exceeds any other single material by weight and which contains less than 30% recycled plastic. Packaging that meets or beats 30% recycled content is not taxed.

The threshold and the rate

There are two registration tests, and either can catch you: you have imported or manufactured 10 tonnes or more of plastic packaging in the last 12 months, or you expect to in the next 30 days. Registration is due within 30 days of meeting the threshold, so a seasonal importer can trip the forward-looking test months before the backward one. Packaging that meets the 30% recycled threshold is untaxed but still counts toward the 10 tonnes, so you can have to register with little or no tax due. Transport packaging on an import does not count at all.

The rate rose to £228.82 per tonne from 1 April 2026, and is uprated annually. Check the current rate on gov.uk before you budget: it changes every April.

A worked example

An invented example rather than a quote: over 12 months you import goods from China whose retail packaging adds up to 12 tonnes of plastic, and 4 tonnes of it, the poly mailers, contain at least 30% recycled plastic. The pallet wrap and straps on the containers are transport packaging and do not count at all.

You are over the 10-tonne threshold, so you must register, even though part of the packaging is untaxed. The tax falls on the other 8 tonnes: 8 × £228.82 = £1,830.56. If the supplier could evidence 30% recycled content on the blister packs as well, the taxable weight, and the bill, would fall by the same proportion.

How to pay less of it, legitimately

The lever is recycled content. If your supplier can hit 30% or more recycled plastic in the packaging, that packaging falls out of the tax. For many mass-produced items — poly bags, mailers, trays — Chinese factories can source recycled-content material, but only if you ask for it in the specification and verify it.

The second lever is designing plastic out where you can: switching an outer to board, or reducing film weight, cuts both the tax and your freight volume. From April 2027 only post-consumer recycled content will count toward the 30% threshold, so pre-consumer factory offcuts will no longer qualify. That change is enacted law with a future commencement date, and it is worth raising with suppliers now.

Evidence is the part people get wrong

Claiming the 30% recycled exemption means being able to evidence it. That means supplier documentation showing the recycled content of the material, tied to the specific packaging you imported, not a generic statement that the factory 'uses recycled plastic'.

Build this into your supplier paperwork from the start. Retro-fitting evidence after a shipment has landed is difficult, and without it you pay the tax on packaging that may genuinely have qualified.

How we handle it

We specify packaging material and recycled content at the quoting stage, and collect the supporting documentation with the shipping paperwork, so the packaging on your order is a known quantity rather than a surprise liability.

If you are close to the 10-tonne threshold, we can also weigh the packaging component of your orders so you know where you stand before HMRC does.

Related guides: Sourcing bulk bags and woven sacks from China.

To check whether your business has packaging EPR obligations, use our packaging EPR checker.