In this article
Somewhere in the news you see 'mandatory bottle deposit' and immediately picture the pint you tap and pour tonight. In most countries, that's the wrong picture: the new deposit on bottles and cans applies to a sealed container leaving the building, not to a glass you open, pour and serve yourself. What has been sitting on your invoice for years without anyone calling it a law is a much older, separate system — your beverage wholesaler's crate deposit — and that's precisely where breakage and missing crates actually cost you money. Seven numbers put both systems side by side.
There are really three different things that all get called 'deposit' or 'Pfand', and the confusion between them costs hospitality owners real time. First: the new, legally mandated deposit-return schemes (DRS) on sealed single-use bottles and cans — Pfand in Germany and Austria, statiegeld in the Netherlands, système de consigne in France, kaucja in Poland, SGR in Romania, REpont in Hungary. Second: the exemption most of those schemes build in for hospitality — the deposit is charged on a sealed container SOLD to leave the premises, not on what you open and serve yourself at the table. Third: the much older crate deposit between your business and your beverage wholesaler, which has nothing to do with the new laws and has existed for decades.
This article deliberately does not cover the EU's reusable-takeaway-cup and packaging rules — a customer's right to bring their own cup, the RECUP-style reusable-cup networks with a €1 to €5 refundable deposit per cup. That topic is already covered in depth in this earlier article on the packaging rules. This one is only about deposits on sealed single-use bottles and cans, and about the crate system that has nothing to do with them.
Why the distinction matters: a business that only pours and serves drinks — the large majority of every café, bistro and restaurant — falls largely outside the new consumer law in most countries. A business that also sells a fridge of bottled water or canned soft drinks to take away, runs a takeaway corner, or resells bottles at all, does fall in scope — and has to register with the scheme operator, even though it usually doesn't have to build a physical take-back point.
Seven numbers give you the core of it: the fee itself, how many countries already run a scheme, the exemption most owners get wrong, the crate system that was there all along, the cash flow a sealed sale creates, the fines for not registering, and the floor area that decides whether you need your own take-back point. Run your own figures in the calculator further down.
Why this deserves your attention now
The revised EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2025/40, in force since February 2025 and applying from August 2026) requires every member state to separately collect at least 90% of sealed plastic bottles and metal cans by 2029. A member state already hitting that another way — at least 80% separate collection by 2026 plus a credible plan for 90% by 2028 — can carry on without a deposit scheme. One that doesn't have to introduce one. That backstop is why 'no deposit scheme yet' is, for some countries, a temporary situation rather than a permanent one.
What makes this dossier easy to misjudge is that 'deposit' has become a catch-all in hospitality circles for two genuinely different obligations that happen to share a name. One is new, government-driven, and mostly touches what you sell to take away. The other is old, supplier-driven, and touches almost every business that pours a drink — regardless of whether it ever sells anything 'to go' at all.
That's exactly why this article exists: not to alarm you about a registration that never becomes relevant for most cafés and restaurants, but to show you which of the two systems actually applies to your business, what it costs you if it does, and where the money in the crate system you already use is quietly leaking away.
The 7 numbers
From the fee itself to the floor-area threshold that decides whether you need a take-back point — in the order you'd actually want to know them.
1. €0.10 to €0.25 — the fee itself, per container
Germany has charged €0.25 Einwegpfand on every sealed single-use bottle or can since 2003 (extended to cans and most plastic bottles in 2006). The Netherlands charges €0.15 on small bottles and cans and €0.25 on large plastic bottles. Austria started at €0.25 per container on 1 January 2025. Hungary's REpont scheme, live since January 2024, charges roughly €0.13. Romania's RetuRO SGR, since November 2023, set a flat 0.50 RON — roughly €0.10 — deliberately kept low enough not to feel like a price hike, but high enough to bring the container back.
The pattern: almost every newer scheme clusters between €0.10 and €0.25, with the container's material and size the main variable. For your business, that fee only matters if you yourself sell sealed bottles or cans to take away — not for what you pour into a glass from an already-opened bottle (see number 3).
2. 18 of the EU's 27 member states already ran a scheme by the end of 2025
Germany (2003), the Netherlands (2005), Estonia (2005), Croatia (2006) and Lithuania (2016) led the way for years; Romania, Hungary, Ireland, Malta, Austria and Poland joined over the last three years. By the end of 2025, sources including Sensoneo and Ecomondo counted 18 of the EU's 27 member states with an operational deposit-return scheme, and Portugal added itself to that list in April 2026. Belgium is not yet one of them at the time of writing — Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels are still negotiating the rollout while the EU's 2029 backstop moves closer.
That's not a trivia point — it's precisely why an owner in Belgium, Italy or Spain reads the news about 'mandatory deposits' next door and wonders when it's their turn. The answer depends on their own member state, not on the EU regulation itself: the regulation mandates the RESULT (90% separate collection by 2029), not necessarily the instrument. Check the status in your own country with the national waste authority or trade association before drawing conclusions.
3. €0 — what the deposit costs on a glass you pour and serve yourself
This is the number most owners get wrong. In nearly every scheme, the deposit is charged the moment a sealed container is SOLD to leave the building — not the moment a bottle is opened behind the bar and poured into a glass. The instant you crack the cap or cork and serve the product out of that container, no sealed container was ever 'sold' that a deposit would attach to.
The Netherlands makes this explicit: the national hospitality association secured an exemption from the take-back obligation for cans for the sector, exactly as it had earlier for small plastic bottles — a café is not required to take back empty containers. Ireland goes a step further: hospitality outlets (HORECA) must still register with the scheme operator Re-turn once they sell in-scope containers, but are automatically granted a Take Back Exemption the moment that registration is complete — they don't have to install a physical take-back point. The distinction that shows up everywhere: pour it yourself and serve it on your own menu, and the consumer law doesn't reach you. Sell a sealed bottle or can to take away — a fridge by the till, a takeaway corner — and it does.
They're both called a 'deposit' — beyond that, they have little in common.
Consumer deposit (new)
Crate deposit (old)
The left column is new, legally mandated, and bypasses almost any business that only pours and serves at the table. The right column has been around for decades, has nothing to do with any EU law, and is exactly where breakage and missing crates actually cost real money.
4. €1.50 to €3.30 per crate, plus €0.08 to €0.15 per bottle inside it — the system you already know
While the new consumer deposit largely bypasses most hospitality businesses, almost every one of them has been paying into a completely different system for decades: the crate deposit charged by their own beverage wholesaler or brewery. In the Netherlands and Belgium, a brewery typically charges €1.50 on the crate itself, plus €0.08 to €0.10 per bottle inside it — for a 24-bottle beer crate, that's roughly €3.90 in total. Germany follows a similar pattern: €1.50 on the crate plus €0.08 to €0.25 per bottle, depending on the bottle size.
This system isn't set by law and has nothing to do with the EU packaging regulation — it's a private, decades-old B2B arrangement between a supplier and its customers, and the amount isn't fixed by statute: every brewery or wholesaler sets its own. Precisely because it's been around so long, it's rarely counted as a cost at all — until a crate comes back broken, a bottle is missing, or a supplier only settles the deposit account months later.
5. The cash float — money that's tied up until it's forwarded on
If you sell sealed bottles or cans to take away, you collect the customer's deposit on every sale — and at that moment, that money isn't yours. It's tied up until you forward it to, or reclaim it from, the scheme operator, which can take anywhere from days to weeks depending on how you're registered. The longer that period, the more deposit money is sitting on your books waiting rather than functioning as your own working capital.
That's not a loss — it's a temporarily held amount, comparable to an unpaid invoice still on the books. But it's exactly the kind of thing that can catch a thin-margin business off guard the moment volume rises: more bottles sold automatically means more deposit tied up, regardless of anything you've operationally changed. The calculator further down turns that into a concrete figure for your own volume.
6. Fines for not registering vary sharply by country
In Poland, where the kaucja system has run since October 2025, a retailer or hospitality business that fails to register, collect or refund the deposit risks a fine of 10,000 to 50,000 zloty (roughly €2,300 to €11,600) — rising to as much as 500,000 zloty (roughly €116,000) for serious or repeated breaches, imposed by the regional environmental inspectorate. In the Netherlands, the NVWA can impose an administrative fine under the Warenwet for violations around deposits and single-use plastic in hospitality; in Germany, individual states enforce the Verpackungsgesetz with their own administrative fines.
So the figure varies enormously by country and by violation — this number is deliberately a single-country anchor, not a general rule. What holds everywhere: a business selling sealed bottles or cans that doesn't register with its own national scheme operator carries a risk unrelated to how small that sale volume is. If in doubt, check your own registration duty with the scheme operator or your trade association — this article isn't legal advice.
7. 200 m² and 250 m² — the floor area that decides if you need a take-back point
Germany draws the line at 200 m² of retail floor space: a kiosk or small petrol-station shop below that only has to take back the brands and materials it sells itself, while a supermarket above it must accept every material from every brand. Ireland draws it at 250 m² of retail area (excluding storage): below that, you automatically qualify for a Take Back Exemption — you still have to display a notice and a QR code pointing to the nearest take-back point, but you don't have to install your own machine.
For a hospitality business, that figure is usually reassuring rather than a problem: in most schemes — Ireland states it explicitly, the Netherlands via the national association's exemption — hospitality outlets qualify for a take-back exemption regardless of square metres. The floor-area threshold mostly matters to a business that also operates as a small shop in its own right — a retail corner, or a bottle shop attached to the restaurant. Check your own country's threshold before building a take-back point the law never required.
From Germany in 2003 to Poland in 2025 — and the EU-wide backstop closing in 2029.
18 of the EU's 27 member states already had an operational scheme by the end of 2025, with Portugal joining them in April 2026. A member state that hits that figure another way can carry on without a deposit scheme — one that doesn't will have to introduce one before 2029.
What deposits and the crate system actually cost your business — run the numbers
The seven numbers above explain what's changing and for whom. They don't tell you what it means in euros for your own business — that depends on your own volume, your own delivery rhythm and your own breakage rate.
Enter your own figures. If you don't sell sealed bottles or cans to take away yourself, leave that part at zero — the crate half still applies.
Calculate: your deposit float and crate breakage
Your own volume, your own forwarding period, your own breakage rate.
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The assumption is 24 bottles per crate — the common count for a beer crate across the Benelux and Germany. If your own supplier uses a different count, adjust the result accordingly.
The result above is an estimate based on your own volume, not accounting advice — your own country's scheme operator sets the exact forwarding period and the exact rate, and those can differ from what you entered here.
Use it as a starting point for a conversation with your beverage supplier about the crate system, and with your country's scheme operator if you sell sealed bottles or cans yourself — both numbers are now sitting side by side for the first time.
What to do with this, this week
The consumer-deposit registration duty doesn't reach most businesses — the crate system reaches nearly all of them. Start there.
This week
- Check whether you sell sealed bottles or cans to take away yourself (a fridge by the till, a takeaway corner) — if not, the new consumer law likely doesn't reach you.
- Ask your beverage supplier exactly how much deposit sits on your crate and on each bottle inside it, and when you get it back on empty crates — most businesses don't know that figure off the top of their head.
- Count how many crates came back broken, incomplete or not at all in the last month — that's the figure the calculator above turns into an annual amount.
If you DO sell sealed bottles/cans
- Register with the scheme operator in your own country — in most countries, hospitality is automatically exempt from installing a physical take-back point, but the registration itself is usually still required.
- Ask how long it takes for collected deposits to be forwarded on or reclaimed, and account for that in your cash flow if volume rises.
- Check the retail floor-area threshold that applies in your own country if you also run a small retail corner — most hospitality businesses fall under the exemption, a bottle shop attached to the restaurant sometimes doesn't.
Ongoing
- Discuss with your supplier whether crates with a lower breakage rate come back (stacking method, storage spot) — the difference is often in how crates are handled in your own storage, not in the crates themselves.
- Track the deposit-scheme status in your own country — the EU's 2029 backstop means a country with no scheme today may introduce one in the next few years.
- Revisit your own 24-bottles-per-crate assumption in the calculator if your supplier uses a different count.
The short version
In most countries, bottle and can deposits apply to what a business sells sealed to take away — not to what it pours and serves itself at the table. For the average café or restaurant that only serves drinks on-site, the new consumer law largely doesn't reach them at all.
What has been reaching them for years, and where the real money sits, is the much older crate deposit charged by their own beverage supplier — a private system, not set by law, where breakage and missing crates quietly add up to an annual figure most businesses have never actually calculated.
Know your own situation: if you sell sealed bottles or cans yourself, register with your country's scheme operator, even if you never build a take-back point. And work out at least once a year what your crate system genuinely costs you — that number existed long before anyone ever mentioned a new deposit law.