Destination guidance
Exporting to the European Union
The EU is the destination that generates most of our enquiries, and most of the confusion. Two separate rulebooks are in play, and conflating them is where exporters get into trouble.
Two questions, not one
Plant health: ISPM15
Since the end of the transition period, solid wood packaging moving from Great Britain into the EU has generally been required to meet ISPM15 treatment and marking requirements, and is subject to checking on arrival. In practice that means treated, marked pallets with legible marks on the expected faces. Movements involving Northern Ireland can follow different arrangements.
Practical failure points we see: marks that have worn away, pallets repaired after treatment without the treatment position being considered, and untreated dunnage or bracing travelling alongside otherwise compliant pallets. Full detail is in the ISPM15 guide.
Packaging law: PPWR
Regulation (EU) 2025/40 applies across the EU, with its main provisions applying generally from 12 August 2026. Pallets are transport packaging and sit within scope. The obligations attach to defined economic-operator roles — manufacturer, importer, distributor — rather than to the pallet as an object, so what it means for you depends on your position in the chain and on your EU customer’s position in theirs.
This is why questionnaires are arriving. EU importers have checking duties of their own, and they are passing questions upstream. See the PPWR guide for the roles and the common myths.
An ISPM15 mark is not packaging conformity
Choosing a pallet for an EU shipment
- Treated and marked solid wood where wood packaging requirements apply — that part is not optional.
- Documented new pallets where your customer is asking provenance or documentation questions and you want a clean answer.
- Genuine EPAL where a licensed, exchangeable system pallet suits the relationship — and where your customer actually asked for EPAL, rather than for a 1200 x 800 pallet.
- Used pallets where the receiving side has no documentation requirement and serviceability is the criterion. Not banned, just harder to describe.
A note on country pages
EU-wide rules apply across member states, so France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Poland share the same baseline. Where national implementation details or practical port differences are worth writing up separately, we will publish country pages rather than duplicating this one with the country name changed.
Shipping into the EU and unsure where you stand?
Send the destination, the pallets you have or need, and anything your customer has put in writing. We will separate the plant-health question from the packaging question and tell you what we can supply.