The ESPR Destruction Ban and Unsold Products Disclosure

Prepare now

If you are a large enterprise, check how unsold apparel, accessories, and footwear leave your business, and keep the records any derogation requires.

Large enterprises (250 or more employees, or exceeding both financial ceilings: more than €50 million annual net turnover and more than €43 million balance sheet, per Recommendation 2003/361/EC) placing unsold apparel, accessories, and footwear on the EU market. Micro and small enterprises are permanently excluded by Art. 25(1); medium-sized enterprises are caught from 19 July 2030. Scope is currently apparel and footwear only.

Article 25 of ESPR directly prohibits the destruction of unsold consumer goods. No delegated act is needed; it is live now. The Commission adopted two acts in February 2026, of different classes: Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 is a DELEGATED Regulation under Art. 25(5) setting the derogations from the ban, and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 is an IMPLEMENTING Regulation under Art. 24(3) setting the format for public disclosure of unsold consumer products that are discarded. Currently scoped to apparel, accessories, and footwear. Large enterprises must comply from 19 July 2026 and medium-sized enterprises from 19 July 2030; micro and small enterprises are excluded. Both acts circulated in draft under their Commission working numbers, C(2026) 659 for the derogations act and C(2026) 660 for the disclosure act, and much of the commentary written in early 2026 still uses those numbers; the Official Journal numbers above are the citable ones.

• Do not destroy unsold apparel, accessories, or footwear unless a narrow derogation applies
• Destroy only on one of the ten grounds in Reg. (EU) 2026/296, Art. 2: dangerous products; non-compliant products where destruction is required or proportionate; intellectual property infringements and expired IP licenses; products whose protected or inappropriate branding cannot be removed for reuse; damaged or defective products that cannot reasonably be repaired; and, only where none of those apply, products offered for donation for at least eight weeks without being accepted, or that a social economy entity or a reuse operator could not place
• Keep the documentation for each destroyed product for five years and hand it to the authorities within 30 days of a request (Art. 3), and give the waste treatment operator a statement of the derogation applied (Art. 4)
• Each year, publish on an easily accessible page of your website the number and weight of unsold consumer products discarded, by type or category; the reasons and any derogation used; the share sent to preparing for reuse, recycling, other recovery, and disposal; and the measures taken to prevent destruction (ESPR Art. 24(1), format set by Implementing Reg. (EU) 2026/2). This covers every unsold consumer product you discard, not only apparel and footwear.
• Practical step, not a legal duty: set up donation and redistribution routes now, because the donation ground requires an eight-week offer before destruction

• Part of ESPR itself (Art. 25), not a delegated act; this is framework-level law already in force
• The ESPR textiles DPP delegated act is a separate, later obligation; Art. 25 compliance is not gated on the DPP
• The Empowering Consumers Directive (EU) 2024/825 (green claims) operates alongside Art. 25: the ban removes unsold stock; the Directive prevents misleading green claims on what is sold
• France may keep its own rules. Commission Decision (EU) 2026/1435 approved the French national provisions on unsold products (French Environmental Code, Article L.541-15-8): they continue to apply to medium-sized enterprises for the apparel, accessories, and footwear in ESPR Annex VII until 19 July 2030, and to consumer products outside Annex VII until EU rules at least as strict apply. Companies selling in France should check the French rules as well as ESPR.

• Reg. (EU) 2026/296 & 2026/2
• ESPR Art. 25 Full Text
• Commission Decision (EU) 2026/1435 (French national rules)