When does the standardised disclosure format become mandatory?

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2, published in the Official Journal on 10 February 2026, defines the standardised disclosure format. It applies to large economic operators from 2 March 2027. Until then, large economic operators must still disclose under Article 24, but in the absence of the standardised template. Flexireo exports align with the Annex I structure so disclosures published before March 2027 are forward-compatible.

What is the 10% verification threshold?

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 establishes that a documented difference greater than 10% between an entity's published Article 24 disclosure and the records held by its waste-treatment operators triggers a non-compliance review. The threshold is small, and the burden of proof sits with the brand. Unit-level traceability and structured waste-treatment operator confirmations are the operational habits that keep the gap below 10%.

Are recycling and incineration also considered destruction under ESPR?

Yes. Under the regulation, both energy recovery (incineration with energy capture) and direct-to-recycling are classified as destruction when applied to covered unsold consumer products by a large economic operator after 19 July 2026, unless a derogation under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 applies. Preparation for reuse and reuse-as-such remain compliant pathways without derogation. Where a derogation applies, the destruction must still follow the priority order of the waste hierarchy set out in Article 4 of Directive 2008/98/EC (Waste Framework Directive) - prioritising recycling over other recovery (including energy recovery) and disposal.

What does CN code reporting require?

CN code reporting under Annex I of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 is 2-digit by default for most product categories. Categories listed in Annex II of the Implementing Regulation, which includes most textile, clothing accessory, and footwear categories, require 4-digit reporting. Aggregated unit counts and weight in kilograms must be reported per CN code.

Where do I publish my Article 24 disclosure?

Article 24 disclosure must be published on a publicly accessible website maintained by the economic operator, within 12 months of the end of each financial year covered by the disclosure. The disclosure must remain accessible for at least five years. Flexireo generates the publication-ready file in the Annex I format; hosting is the brand's responsibility.

Are surplus stock and deadstock reportable even if they were never returned?

Yes. Article 2(37) explicitly lists surplus stock, excess inventory and deadstock, and it does not matter how long a product was available for purchase. If you discard unsold stock as waste it falls within Article 24 disclosure, and if it is an Annex VII category (apparel, clothing accessories, footwear) the Article 25 destruction ban also applies from 19 July 2026 for large economic operators.

Regulation

ESPR compliance for apparel brands. The audit trail, built as you operate.

Published: 11 May 2026 · Last reviewed: 11 May 2026

How to document unsold-product disposition under Article 24 and the Article 25 destruction ban. Flexireo logs every batch at intake, captures the triage decision that routes it (rework, prep for reuse, donation, recycling, other recovery, or disposal), and generates the audit trail both articles require - every disposition path, not just rework. The ban has applied to large economic operators since 19 July 2026 and reaches medium-sized economic operators on 19 July 2030.¹

Article 24 disclosureArticle 25 destruction ban19 July 2026 for large operators

Most apparel brands are not prepared for ESPR Article 24 reporting.

Take 7-Minute ESPR Readiness assessment See the compliance workflow

Article 24 disclosure

FY 2025 disclosure · Publication due by 31 December 2026

Flexireo

Entity identification

Brando Apparel SA · EUID: ESBOR.[example identifier]
Carrer del Comerç 14, 08003 Barcelona · compliance@brando-apparel.example

Product information by CN code

12,340units · 3,418 kg · FY 2025

CN code	Description	Units	kg
6109	T-shirts, knitted	5,420	1,138
6203	Men’s suits, trousers	3,180	1,082
6204	Women’s suits, dresses	2,890	954
6402	Footwear, rubber/plastic	850	244

Reasons for discarding

✓Manufacturing defect — irremediableArt. 2(g)4,210
✓IP licence expired or terminatedArt. 2(d)3,860
✓Damaged in transit, repair not cost-effectiveArt. 2(f)2,470
✓Donation refused by recipientArt. 2(h)1,800

Waste-treatment operations

Preparation for reuse 0%Recycling 62%Other recovery 28%Disposal 10%Unknown 0%

Operator confirmations attached at unit level · 0.3% variance vs. operator records

Preventive measures

Taken: supplier QA scorecard rolled out across 8 workshops; root-cause logs reviewed quarterly.
Planned: tighten transit-pack spec for CN 6402; pilot direct-to-reuse channel with two charity partners.

What the regulation actually says

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, formally Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, entered into force on 18 July 2024.¹ It is the EU's principal framework regulation governing the environmental performance of products placed on the Union market. Article 24 establishes a transparency obligation: large economic operators must disclose information on unsold consumer products that have been discarded as waste.

Article 25 establishes a prohibition: large economic operators may no longer destroy specific categories of unsold consumer products, including the textile and footwear categories listed in Annex VII.

Two implementing acts give the regulation its operational shape. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2, published in the Official Journal on 10 February 2026 and applying from 2 March 2027, defines the standardised disclosure format and the data fields in Annex I.² Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 (formerly C(2026) 659) enumerates the ten narrow derogations under which a large economic operator may still destroy an unsold product.³ Both are short, structured texts; both reward careful reading.

Flexireo's regulatory documentation is reviewed against the latest consolidated versions of these acts.

What counts as an unsold consumer product

Both Article 24 and Article 25 turn on a single defined term. Article 2(37) of the ESPR defines an unsold consumer product as any consumer product that has not been sold, including surplus stock, excess inventory and deadstock, together with products returned by a consumer on the basis of their right of withdrawal under Article 9 of Directive 2011/83/EU (the Consumer Rights Directive), or during any longer return period the trader chooses to offer.¹¹⁰

Three consequences matter for an apparel or footwear brand.

Surplus and deadstock are covered. It does not matter how long a product was available for sale; unsold stock that you discard as waste falls under Article 24, and under the Article 25 ban if it sits in an Annex VII category.

Customer returns are covered when they come back under the right of withdrawal. That statutory cooling-off right applies to distance and off-premises sales, so a return inside that window, or inside a longer returns window you advertise, is treated as an unsold consumer product once it is back in your hands and not resold. Reverse-logistics returns that you then discard are in scope for both articles.¹⁰

Products a consumer has bought and later throws away are not covered. Post-consumer disposal is governed by waste and extended-producer-responsibility law, the Waste Framework Directive and the forthcoming textile EPR rules, not by Articles 24 and 25.⁷

A practical way to read it: if the unit is sitting back with you and was never finally sold to an end consumer, it is an unsold consumer product. Once a sale to a consumer is complete and not reversed, what the consumer does with the product afterwards is outside these two articles.

The trigger for both articles is the economic operator discarding stock as waste, not the end consumer discarding a product they own.

The volume of unsold textiles the regulation is trying to redirect

The European Commission's 9 February 2026 press release and the European Environment Agency's 2024 report on returned and unsold textiles quantify the problem in three numbers. Flexireo's regulatory pages reference these as published public figures, not as audited operational data.

4 to 9%

of unsold textiles destroyed in Europe before ever being worn (European Commission, 9 Feb 2026)⁴

5.6 million tonnes

of CO2 emissions, almost equal to Sweden's total net emissions in 2021 (European Commission)⁴

264 to 594k tonnes

of textiles destroyed annually in the EU before reaching consumers (European Environment Agency, 2024)⁵

The ESPR timeline that matters to apparel and footwear brands

The regulatory clock is no longer counting down; it is running. The destruction ban has applied to large economic operators since 19 July 2026,¹ so every unit discarded since then already needs a documented derogation behind it. The standardised disclosure format follows on 2 March 2027.² Medium-sized economic operators have until 19 July 2030.³ Flexireo recommends building the operational audit trail now, regardless of enterprise size, because the data captured during rework is what any audit will rely on.

18 Jul 2024

ESPR enters into force

10 Feb 2026

Disclosure format published

19 Jul 2026

Article 25 ban (large economic operators)

2 Mar 2027

Standardised disclosure mandatory

19 Jul 2030

Ban extends to medium-sized economic operators

The five categories of information required by Article 24

Article 24(1) ESPR, organised across Annex I's three sections in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2

Article 24 disclosure is built on five categories of information, organised across the three sections of the Annex I template.² The structure is short, but the underlying data requirements are demanding for any apparel brand that has not historically tracked non-conformity correcting actions at detailed level. Each field below summarises the regulatory requirement in plain language.

1. Entity identification

Legal name, registered address, contact details, and the European Unique Identifier (EUID) of the economic operator placing products on the EU market.

2. Product information by CN code

Quantity of discarded products by Combined Nomenclature code (2-digit by default, 4-digit for Annex II categories), with unit count and weight in kilograms.

3. Reasons for discarding

Categorised reasons each product was discarded, with the specific derogation reference from Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 where Article 25 destruction would otherwise apply.

4. Waste-treatment operations breakdown

Share of discarded products directed to each waste-treatment pathway: preparation for reuse, recycling, other recovery, disposal, and unknown.

5. Preventive measures

Preventive measures the entity has taken in the reporting period, and the preventive measures it plans to take, to reduce future discards.

How Flexireo data populates each Article 24 disclosure field

Article 24 disclosure does not require a separate compliance project; it requires unit-level operational data. The mapping below shows which Flexireo data point produces each disclosure field. The same data is captured during normal rework operations on the platform, so disclosure becomes an export, not a quarterly scramble.

Disclosure field (Annex I)	Annex I requirement (plain language)	Flexireo data source
Entity identification	Legal name, registered address, contact details, and EUID of the economic operator	Organisation profile, populated once and reused on every disposition record
Product information by CN code	Quantity of discarded products by CN code, unit count and weight in kilograms	Unit-level intake records with SKU-to-CN-code mapping, quantity, and weight
Reasons for discarding	Categorised reasons with derogation reference from Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 where applicable	Structured triage outcomes with the relevant derogation attached at the moment of disposition
Waste-treatment operations breakdown	Share directed to preparation for reuse, recycling, other recovery, disposal, unknown	Waste-treatment operator confirmations with operator ID, time stamp, and treatment-method code
Preventive measures	Measures taken and planned to reduce future discards	Workshop scorecards, root-cause logs, and corrective-action records exported in disclosure format

The ten derogations

Per Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296

The Article 25 destruction ban is not absolute. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 enumerates ten narrow derogations in Article 2 under which a large economic operator may still destroy an unsold textile, clothing accessory, or footwear product.³ Each derogation requires substantiated documentation, five-year retention, and availability to authorities within thirty days.³ Flexireo captures the derogation reference at the moment of disposition and stores the supporting evidence with the unit record.

Dangerous products under GPSR

Products that may not be made available on the market under the General Product Safety Regulation.

Non-safety non-compliance

Products that do not comply with non-safety law - labelling, restricted substances, or product-information requirements.

Third-party IP infringement

Products whose continued availability would infringe the intellectual property rights of a third party.

IP licence expired or terminated

Products whose intellectual property licence has expired or been terminated.

Unsuitable for reuse

Products that are unsuitable for reuse on objective grounds.

Repair not cost-effective

Products damaged to the extent that repair is not technically feasible or not cost-effective.

Irremediable defects

Products with manufacturing or design defects that cannot be remedied.

Donation refused by recipient

Products offered for donation that the recipient organisation has refused.

No social-economy recipient

Products offered to a social-economy entity with no recipient available.

Prepared for reuse, no taker

Products prepared for reuse for which no recipient is available within a reasonable period.

Building the audit trail in practice

An ESPR-grade audit trail rests on four operational habits: unit-level traceability from intake forward, time-stamped status logging with operator identification, photo evidence captured at the moment of disposition, and five-year evidence retention enforced automatically. The trail covers every batch from the triage decision onwards - units routed to rework, prep for reuse, donation, recycling, other recovery, and disposal all stay in the same record. A 10% discrepancy between your published Article 24 disclosure and the records held by your waste-treatment operators constitutes non-compliance.² Flexireo's unit-level tracking is built to keep that gap well below 10% by capturing operator confirmations as structured input on the platform, not as an end-of-year reconciliation exercise.

1. Intake

Every unsold unit logged: CN code, weight, photo, condition

2. Triage decision

Each batch routed; every path stays in the audit trail

ReworkPrep for reuseDonationRecyclingOther recoveryDisposal

3. Unit-level audit trail

All dispositions captured at the moment they happen

4. Article 24 disclosure

Annex I export covering every routed unit, not just rework

Captured at each transition:Photo evidenceOperator IDTimestampStatus changeDerogation ref

How Flexireo makes you ESPR-ready

Article 24 disclosure is built on the operational data your team already produces during intake, triage, and disposition - for every unsold batch, not just the units that go to rework. The question is whether that data lives in fifteen places or one. Flexireo replaces the year-end scramble with structured capture at the moment each decision is taken.

Without Flexireo

Year-end spreadsheet reconciliation across email, WhatsApp, and shared drives.
PDFs sent over WhatsApp that each lay out the same job differently.
Quarterly compliance scramble layered on top of normal operations.
Re-keyed data, missing photo evidence, inconsistent operator IDs.
Batches sent to donation, recycling, or disposal fall out of the rework tracker entirely.
Discrepancies above 10% only discovered when an auditor asks.

With Flexireo

Triage decision logged for every batch - rework, reuse, donation, recycling, other recovery, or disposal.
Structured data captured at the moment of disposition, not reconciled later.
Photo evidence and time stamps attach to every unit.
Audit-grade export in the Annex I format generated on demand.
Single source of truth across customer, intermediary, and workshop.
Discrepancy gap visible in real time, well below the 10% verification threshold.

ESPR frequently asked questions

Article 25 of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation prohibits large economic operators from destroying specific categories of unsold consumer products, including textiles, clothing accessories, and footwear listed in Annex VII. The ban has applied to large economic operators since 19 July 2026 and reaches medium-sized economic operators on 19 July 2030.¹ Energy recovery and direct-to-recycling are also classified as destruction unless a derogation applies.

Article 24 applies to large economic operators placing covered consumer products on the EU market, regardless of country of incorporation. Under Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, an enterprise is an SME if it has fewer than 250 employees and either annual turnover not exceeding €50 million or an annual balance-sheet total not exceeding €43 million. A large enterprise is therefore any enterprise that has 250 or more employees, or that exceeds both the €50 million turnover and €43 million balance-sheet thresholds.⁶ Medium-sized enterprises (50–249 employees, with annual turnover not exceeding €50 million or annual balance-sheet total not exceeding €43 million, and that do not qualify as small under Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC) are subject to the destruction ban from 19 July 2030 and to disclosure obligations from a date specified in subsequent implementing acts.⁶

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2, published in the Official Journal on 10 February 2026, defines the standardised disclosure format. It applies to large economic operators from 2 March 2027.² Until then, large economic operators must still disclose under Article 24, but in the absence of the standardised template. Flexireo exports align with the Annex I structure so disclosures published before March 2027 are forward-compatible.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 establishes that a documented difference greater than 10% between an entity's published Article 24 disclosure and the records held by its waste-treatment operators triggers a non-compliance review.² The threshold is small, and the burden of proof sits with the brand. Unit-level traceability and structured waste-treatment operator confirmations are the operational habits that keep the gap below 10%.

Yes. Under the regulation, both energy recovery (incineration with energy capture) and direct-to-recycling are classified as destruction when applied to covered unsold consumer products by a large economic operator after 19 July 2026, unless a derogation under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 applies.³ Preparation for reuse and reuse-as-such remain compliant pathways without derogation. Where a derogation applies, the destruction must still follow the priority order of the waste hierarchy set out in Article 4 of Directive 2008/98/EC (Waste Framework Directive) - prioritising recycling over other recovery (including energy recovery) and disposal.⁷

The French Loi AGEC (Decree 2022-748 of 29 April 2022) is a national French anti-waste law that pre-dates ESPR; it has been in force since 1 January 2022 for non-food unsold products. ESPR is an EU-wide regulation that applies in every member state. AGEC has stricter extended producer responsibility mechanics through Refashion and SYDEREP; ESPR has stricter disclosure standardisation. Brands operating in France must comply with both, and the two regimes overlap rather than substitute.

Medium-sized enterprises (50–249 employees, with annual turnover not exceeding €50 million or annual balance-sheet total not exceeding €43 million, and that do not qualify as small under Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC) are subject to the Article 25 destruction ban from 19 July 2030.¹⁶ Disclosure obligations under Article 24 are expected to extend to medium-sized economic operators on the same timeline, with the exact date specified in subsequent implementing acts. Flexireo recommends medium-sized economic operators start building the operational audit trail now, because the data captured during rework is what any future audit will rely on.

Flexireo captures unit-level traceability from intake forward, records the triage decision that routes each batch (rework, prep for reuse, donation, recycling, other recovery, or disposal), time-stamps every status change with operator identification, attaches photo evidence at the moment of disposition, records waste-treatment operator confirmations, and retains evidence automatically for five years. The data populates the five Article 24 categories of information for every batch - not just rework - as a byproduct of running the operation, not as a separate compliance project. See How it works for the seven-stage lifecycle, or book a 30-minute demo to walk through it on your data.

It covers both, with a boundary. The defined term "unsold consumer product" (Article 2(37) ESPR) includes surplus stock, excess inventory and deadstock, and it also includes products a consumer returns under their right of withdrawal under Article 9 of Directive 2011/83/EU, or during any longer return window the trader offers.¹¹⁰ So returned goods that flow back through reverse logistics and are then discarded as waste are in scope for both the Article 24 disclosure and the Article 25 destruction ban. Returns made on a different legal basis, for example a faulty-goods return under the legal conformity guarantee, are not literally withdrawal returns; once such units are back as unsold stock and discarded, they are captured on that basis.

No. Once a consumer has bought and kept a product, anything they do with it afterwards is post-consumer waste, governed by the Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC) and extended-producer-responsibility schemes, not by ESPR Articles 24 and 25.⁷ Those two articles are triggered only when an economic operator discards as waste stock it holds that was never finally sold, including withdrawal-period returns.

Deep dives

Detailed guides on the ESPR provisions apparel brands need to act on first, plus the forward-looking Digital Product Passport that will sit on top.

ESPR Article 24 disclosure

What apparel brands must report under Article 24 and how the disclosure works in practice.

Read the guide →

Destruction ban checklist

Seven-phase programme for operating under the 19 July 2026 ban on destroying unsold apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear.

Open the checklist →

Digital Product Passport for textiles

The DPP textile delegated act, expected data fields, QR/NFC carriers, and the EU Central DPP Registry.

Read the explainer →

ESPR readiness assessment

A free 20-question, five-minute interactive assessment that returns a traffic-light readiness score across five categories and a downloadable remediation checklist. Built for compliance teams working under the destruction ban and preparing their first Article 24 disclosure.

Take the readiness assessment →

Get the ESPR audit trail in place before your first Article 24 disclosure

Due within 12 months of your financial year end — for many brands that clock is already running. Track every non-conformity batch through rework, recovery, recycling, or disposal with audit-ready documentation aligned with EU ESPR requirements.

Take 7-Minute ESPR Readiness assessment See the compliance workflow

Sources

Primary sources cited inline above. Links open in a new tab.

✓1. Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR) - eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1781/oj/eng
✓2. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 - eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2026/2/oj
✓3. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 (derogations, formerly C(2026) 659) - eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32026R0296
✓4. Commission press release, 9 February 2026 - environment.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules-stop-destruction-unsold-clothes-and-shoes-2026-02-09_en
✓5. European Environment Agency (2024), "The destruction of returned and unsold textiles in Europe's circular economy" - eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/publications/the-destruction-of-returned-and-unsold-textiles-in-europes-circular-economy
✓6. Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC (SME definition) - eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reco/2003/361/oj/eng
✓7. Directive 2008/98/EC (Waste Framework Directive) - eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2008/98/oj
✓8. Directive (EU) 2017/1132 (EUID basis) - eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2017/1132/oj
✓9. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/2244 (EUID format) - eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2020/2244/oj
✓10. Directive 2011/83/EU (Consumer Rights Directive), Article 9 (right of withdrawal) - eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2011/83/oj/eng

Disclaimer. This page is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. EU regulations and their implementing acts are amended frequently.

Although Flexireo reviews its regulatory pages against the latest consolidated versions of the cited acts, errors are possible and the law may have changed since this page was last reviewed. Readers should consult the primary sources linked above, and seek qualified legal advice before relying on any statement on this page.

Page published 11 May 2026; last reviewed 11 May 2026.