What is the ESPR destruction ban?

The destruction ban is the prohibition under Article 25 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (the ESPR) on destroying unsold consumer products in product categories listed in Annex VII. It takes effect 19 July 2026 for large economic operators and 19 July 2030 for medium-sized economic operators. Annex VII currently covers apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear.

Are recycling and incineration with energy recovery also considered destruction?

Yes. Under Article 2(34) of the ESPR, 'destruction' means discarding an unsold consumer product as waste for any type of waste treatment operation. Recital (3) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 clarifies that donating, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and preparing for reuse do not constitute destruction; everything else (recycling, other recovery including energy recovery, disposal) does. For unsold Annex VII products destroyed by a large economic operator after 19 July 2026, a derogation under the Delegated Regulation is required. Where a derogation applies, the destruction must still follow the priority order of the waste hierarchy in Article 4 of Directive 2008/98/EC (Waste Framework Directive), prioritising recycling over other recovery and disposal.

Operational checklist

ESPR destruction ban checklist: what apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear brands must do before 19 July 2026

On 19 July 2026, destroying unsold apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear becomes prohibited for large economic operators under Article 25 of the EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation.¹ Ten narrow derogations apply.³ This checklist covers the operational changes large brands need to complete before the deadline, and the same programme prepares medium-sized economic operators for the 19 July 2030 cut-off.

Book a 30-minute demo Download the checklist (PDF)Read the Article 24 guide

The three dates that anchor this programme

Three milestones structure the obligation. Each shifts what a large economic operator must do, and when.

19 Jul 2026

Article 25 destruction ban applies to large economic operators. Apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear in scope per Annex VII of the ESPR.¹

2 Mar 2027

Standardised Article 24 disclosure format under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 begins to apply. For a calendar-year brand, the first standardised Annex I disclosure covers FY2028 and is due by 31 December 2029.²

19 Jul 2030

Destruction ban and disclosure obligation extend to medium-sized economic operators.¹

Who is in scope

The Article 25 destruction ban applies to large economic operators from 19 July 2026 and to medium-sized economic operators from 19 July 2030.¹ Article 25(1) of the ESPR expressly states that the prohibition does not apply to micro and small enterprises; both are exempted from the ban entirely.¹

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.⁶ A large economic operator is therefore any enterprise that has 250 or more employees, or that exceeds both the €50 million turnover and €43 million balance-sheet thresholds. A medium-sized economic operator has 50 to 249 employees and either turnover not exceeding €50 million or balance-sheet total not exceeding €43 million, and does not qualify as small.

A small enterprise has fewer than 50 employees and turnover or balance-sheet total not exceeding €10 million. A microenterprise has fewer than 10 employees and turnover or balance-sheet total not exceeding €2 million.⁶

The product categories covered by the destruction ban are listed in Annex VII of the ESPR. As of the latest review of this page, Annex VII covers apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear; the Commission may add further categories by delegated act.

For brand-level apparel and footwear businesses, the relevant scope aligns with Combined Nomenclature chapters 61 (knitted apparel), 62 (woven apparel), and 64 (footwear).

The trigger for the obligation is placement on the EU market, not the manufacturer's location. A US, Asian, or UK brand selling apparel into any EU member state is in scope if the entity placing products on the market meets the large-enterprise threshold and the products are in Annex VII.

The placement test is per legal entity; brands that operate through multiple EU subsidiaries need to assess the obligation at each entity level.

What the destruction ban prohibits, and what it does not

Article 2(34) of the ESPR defines 'destruction' as discarding an unsold consumer product as waste for any type of waste treatment operation.¹ Article 25 prohibits destruction in that sense for the categories listed in Annex VII from 19 July 2026, unless one of the ten derogations in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 applies.³ Recital (3) of the Delegated Regulation clarifies that donating, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and preparing for reuse do not constitute destruction.³

The Annex I template for the Article 24 disclosure reinforces the same distinction at the operational level: it lists waste-treatment operations as 'Preparing for reuse' (a separate, non-destruction column) and a 'Destruction' group that sums recycling, other recovery, and disposal.² In practical terms for an apparel brand, that produces the following classification.

Pathways that do not count as destruction (always compliant for Annex VII products):

✓Resale, including B-stock, outlet, and second-hand channels.
✓Donation to recognised social-economy entities.
✓Refurbishment, rework, repair, or reconditioning for resale.
✓Remanufacturing.
✓Preparing for reuse by a waste-treatment operator under Article 3(16) of Directive 2008/98/EC.⁷

Pathways that do count as destruction (require a derogation for Annex VII products from 19 July 2026):

✓Recycling, including textile-to-textile recycling and material recovery.
✓Other recovery, including incineration with energy recovery.
✓Disposal, including landfilling and incineration without energy recovery.
✓Shredding without subsequent recovery, and any other operation that discards the product as waste.

The regulatory logic is sequential. Before a destruction operation becomes permissible under any derogation, the brand must demonstrate that resale, donation, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, and preparing for reuse have been considered and either applied or ruled out for documented reasons.³ This sequencing is enforced through the Article 24 disclosure obligation: every destruction event is recorded with a derogation reference, and authorities can request the supporting documentation in electronic form within 30 days under Article 3 of the Delegated Regulation.³ Recital (3) of the Delegated Regulation further requires that where destruction is justified under a derogation, it 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 and disposal.³⁷

The ten derogations: short reference

Destruction is permitted under Article 2 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 (formerly C(2026) 659) only when one of these ten circumstances applies.³ The full text of each derogation and the evidence requirements is covered in the ESPR Article 24 disclosure guide; this list is the quick reference. The derogations are summarised in plain language; the regulation's own wording is more precise and should be consulted before any specific destruction decision.

✓1. Dangerous products within the meaning of the General Product Safety Regulation.
✓2. Non-compliance with non-safety Union or national law, where destruction is required by law or is the appropriate and proportionate corrective action.
✓3. Intellectual property infringement, evidenced by a final judicial decision, ADR outcome, rightsholder notification, or substantiated internal investigation.
✓4. Expired IP licence or contractual restriction, where continued circulation would breach the rightsholder's terms.
✓5. Technically infeasible removal of IP-protected or inappropriate branding, logos, or design features that make the product unsuitable for preparation for reuse or remanufacturing.
✓6. Damage, deterioration, or contamination where repair or refurbishment is not technically feasible or not cost-effective.
✓7. Design or manufacturing defects where repair is not technically feasible.
✓8. Donation refused after the product was offered either directly to at least three social-economy entities in the Union or on the brand's website for at least eight weeks. Available only where none of derogations 1 to 7 applies.
✓9. Social-economy entity unable to redistribute a product it has already received as a donation.
✓10. Product prepared for reuse by a waste-treatment operator and placed on the market, where no recipient could be found.

For all ten derogations, the supporting evidence must be captured at the unit or batch level, dated and tied to the unit identifier, retained for five years after destruction, and put at the disposal of competent authorities in electronic form within 30 days of receipt of a request, under Article 3 of the Delegated Regulation.³ Article 4 of the Delegated Regulation additionally requires the economic operator to provide a statement on the applicable derogation to the waste-treatment operator that receives the product.³

The seven-phase operational checklist

The programme below runs about nine weeks end-to-end for a brand starting from scratch and lands at 19 July 2026 with a one-week buffer. Brands that already have unit-level disposition data can compress it. Brands relying on spreadsheets and email for rework should expect the upper end of each phase's duration estimate. A printable version of the seven phases is available as a PDF download.

1
Map your exposure
1 to 2 weeks
Confirm whether the entity placing products on the EU market is in scope and quantify the size of the operational problem.
Checklist
1. Confirm employee count, turnover, and balance-sheet total against the SME thresholds in Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC.⁶
2. Identify the legal entity or entities that will report under Article 24.
3. Map your full product catalogue against CN chapters 61, 62, and 64 to identify which SKUs fall under Annex VII of the ESPR.
4. Pull the past 12 months of unsold inventory volumes that ended in recycling, other recovery, or disposal (the three destruction pathways) to size the operational problem.
Deliverable
A scope memo with entity identification, SKU-to-CN-code mapping, and annual destruction volumes by pathway.
2
Gap assessment
1 week
Measure your current operational data against the five Annex I disclosure categories and the ten derogations.
Checklist
1. Score each of the five Annex I categories of information: can your existing systems produce the data with no changes, with minor changes, or not at all.
2. Identify the highest-risk gap (typically unit-level traceability through disposition).
3. Cross-check the past 12 months of destruction events (recycling, other recovery, disposal) against the ten derogations: how many would qualify; this is your destruction-ban exposure number.
Deliverable
A gap matrix scoring each of the five categories, plus a destruction-ban exposure number.
3
Build the operational data layer
2 to 3 weeks
This is the heaviest phase. Without unit-level data flowing through the disposition process, none of the downstream phases can be completed.
Checklist
1. Implement unit-level identification for every product entering the disposition decision flow (SKU plus per-unit serial or batch code).
2. Implement time-stamped status changes for every transition: received from store, triaged, sent to workshop, reworked, returned to retail, donated, prepared for reuse, recycled, other recovery, disposed.
3. Implement SKU-to-CN-code mapping at product onboarding. For mainstream apparel and footwear (CN 61, 62, 64), 2-digit reporting is the default; 4-digit reporting only applies to product categories listed in Annex II of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 (home textiles, leather apparel, furskin apparel, paper apparel, and most electronics).²
4. Capture operator identifier and supporting evidence at each status change.
Deliverable
A live operational data layer producing the data required for categories 2, 3, and 4 of the Annex I disclosure.
4
Waste-treatment operator agreements
1 to 2 weeks, parallel to phase 3
Annex III of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 establishes a 10% verification threshold: if the documented difference between your published disclosure and the records held by your waste-treatment operators exceeds 10% of the disclosed number, you are flagged for non-compliance review.² The regulation does not specify whether the threshold is computed in aggregate or per CN code and per pathway; Flexireo recommends operating to the stricter per-CN-code, per-pathway standard.
Checklist
1. Identify every waste-treatment operator your brand engages: recycling, energy recovery, disposal, and preparation-for-reuse partners.
2. Establish a written agreement covering brand batch reference at every drop-off, weight processed per pathway, operator confirmation issued with signature and date.
3. Discuss the 10% threshold explicitly. This is a new requirement and some operators will not yet have implemented the matching record format.
4. For every destruction event under a derogation, ensure the outbound statement to the waste-treatment operator required by Article 4 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 is in place.³
Deliverable
Operator agreements and confirmation templates in place for every disposition pathway, plus the derogation statement template.
5
Derogation evidence workflow
1 to 2 weeks
For any unit you anticipate destroying under a derogation, the evidence workflow must be in place before the destruction, not after. Article 3 of the Delegated Regulation specifies the documentation required for each of the ten derogations and sets a five-year retention period with a 30-day response window in electronic form.³
Checklist
1. Build the inspection or quality-assessment template for derogations 5, 6, and 7 (IP-protected or inappropriate branding, damage, manufacturing defect).
2. Build legal documentation templates for derogations 1, 2, 3, and 4 (dangerous, non-safety non-compliance, IP infringement, expired IP licence).
3. Build donation channel correspondence templates for derogations 8, 9, and 10 (refused donation, no recipient at social-economy entity, no recipient after preparation for reuse). For derogation 8 specifically, document the offer to at least three social-economy entities or the eight-week posting on the brand's website, and confirm that none of derogations 1 to 7 applied first.
4. Train the operational staff who will use the templates.
Deliverable
Evidence workflow live, staff trained, sample records produced for each derogation type the brand anticipates using.
6
Dry run on a live batch
1 to 2 weeks
A real batch run through the new process end-to-end is the only way to expose broken handoffs before they show up in the first audit.
Checklist
1. Select a real batch of unsold inventory (200 to 500 units is typically enough to surface process gaps without overwhelming the team).
2. Run it through triage, disposition routing, data capture, record generation, and evidence storage.
3. Note where data loses integrity, who has to chase what, what evidence is missing at the end.
4. Document the broken process points and fix them before go-live.
Deliverable
A signed-off batch report covering the full lifecycle of one real batch.
7
Final verification
1 week
Verify that the Article 24 disclosure export against the dry-run batch produces the five Annex I categories of information without manual reconstruction.
Checklist
1. Run the Annex I export against the dry-run batch.
2. Confirm each of the five categories of information populates from the operational data without manual entry.
3. Verify the 10% threshold logic against the operator confirmations for the dry-run batch.
4. Identify any category that requires manual intervention; this is your residual risk going into go-live.
Deliverable
A clean Annex I disclosure export from the dry-run batch.

Compliance switchover

19 July 2026

From this date, every unsold Annex VII product entering the disposition decision flow runs through the new process. Destruction (recycling, other recovery, or disposal) without a documented derogation under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 is prohibited under Article 25 of the ESPR.¹³

What good looks like on 20 July 2026

A brand that runs the seven-phase programme should be able to recognise itself in this picture on the morning of 20 July 2026.

✓Every unit pulled from a store or warehouse receives a digital identifier and a triage decision within 24 hours.
✓The triage routes to resale, repair, refurbishment, donation, preparation for reuse, or destruction-under-derogation. Destruction is the last path and the smallest path.
✓Every disposition has a timestamped record, an operator identifier, and at least one piece of supporting evidence (photo, weight, document).
✓Waste-treatment operator confirmations match the brand's records within the 10% threshold per CN code and per pathway.
✓The five Annex I categories of information can be exported from the operational system without manual reconstruction.
✓Where destruction has occurred under a derogation, the outbound statement to the waste-treatment operator required by Article 4 of the Delegated Regulation is on file for every event.
✓When an authority requests derogation evidence on a specific destroyed unit, the response can be assembled in well under the 30-day window set by Article 3 of the Delegated Regulation.
✓The destruction volume reported in the disclosure is dominated by derogations 1, 2, and 3 (dangerous, non-compliance, IP). Derogations 5, 6, 7 and the donation-related ones appear but as a small fraction.

Brands that arrive at this picture have not built a compliance project. They have built the operational discipline that the ESPR was designed to incentivise.

The disclosure is then a byproduct.

How Flexireo helps you get there

Flexireo was co-developed over two years with a multinational sporting goods brand, processing more than 50,000 products through the platform. Of the seven phases above, Flexireo addresses phases 3, 5, 6, and 7 directly.

Phase 3: operational data layer

SKU-to-CN-code mapping, unit-level identification, time-stamped status changes, and supporting evidence capture are native platform capabilities.

Phase 5: derogation evidence workflow

Triage decision capture with derogation codes, photo and document capture per unit, templated evidence retention with five-year storage and electronic retrieval within the 30-day window.

Phase 6: dry run

A first pilot project can be implemented in one week, which is the right horizon for a controlled dry run before 19 July.

Phase 7: verification

The Annex I export aligned with Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 is a standard platform output.²

Phases 1, 2, and 4 are external to any single platform and need to be run by the brand's own quality and sustainability team.

Flexireo can support phase 2 by mapping a brand's current process against the five Annex I categories during a demo, but the scope memo, gap matrix, and operator agreements remain the brand's deliverables.

Pilot pricing: €1,250 flat for up to two months and 30,000 units, with a full money-back guarantee. For brands that need only the Article 24 documentation layer without a rework workflow tracked in Flexireo, a one-time fee of €90 per project applies.

ESPR destruction ban frequently asked questions

19 July 2026 for large economic operators. 19 July 2030 for medium-sized economic operators.¹ Article 25(1) of the ESPR expressly exempts micro and small enterprises from the destruction ban; both remain outside the prohibition. Under Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, a large economic operator is any enterprise that has 250 or more employees, or that exceeds both the €50 million turnover and €43 million balance-sheet thresholds.⁶

Annex VII of the ESPR currently covers apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear. For brand-level apparel and footwear businesses the relevant scope aligns with Combined Nomenclature chapters 61 (knitted apparel), 62 (woven apparel), and 64 (footwear). The Commission may add further categories to Annex VII through delegated acts; at the time of this page's last review, no further additions have been made.

Penalties for ESPR infringements are set at member-state level under Article 74 of the ESPR, which requires that penalties be effective, proportionate, and dissuasive.¹ Member states are also required, when setting penalties, to consider the nature, gravity, and duration of the infringement, the economic benefits derived from it, and the environmental damage caused. Penalties include at least fines and time-limited exclusion from public procurement procedures. National implementing rules are being finalised across the Union, so specific penalty levels vary by member state. The reputational exposure through the public Article 24 disclosure is consistent across the Union: every destruction event must be reported with its derogation reference, and unreferenced destruction signals a breach.

Yes. Under Article 2(34) of the ESPR, 'destruction' means discarding an unsold consumer product as waste for any type of waste treatment operation.¹ Recital (3) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 clarifies that donating, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and preparing for reuse do not constitute destruction; everything else (recycling, other recovery including energy recovery, disposal) does.³ For unsold Annex VII products destroyed by a large economic operator after 19 July 2026, a derogation under the Delegated Regulation is required. Where a derogation applies, the destruction must still follow the priority order of the waste hierarchy in Article 4 of Directive 2008/98/EC (Waste Framework Directive), prioritising recycling over other recovery and disposal.⁷

Yes. Donation to recognised social-economy entities is one of the preferred pathways in the regulatory hierarchy and is expressly excluded from the definition of destruction under recital (3) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296.³ When donation is offered and refused, derogation 8 (refused donation, requiring an offer to at least three social-economy entities or an eight-week public website offer, available only where derogations 1 to 7 do not apply) or derogation 9 (no recipient at a social-economy entity that has already accepted the donation) can apply, with documentation.

Documentation depends on which derogation applies. For derogations 5, 6, and 7 (condition-based), an inspection record or quality-assessment report with photo evidence and unit identifier. For derogations 1 to 4 (legal), the underlying legal documentation. For derogations 8, 9, and 10 (donation-related and prepared-for-reuse), correspondence with donation channels or waste-treatment operators showing offer and refusal or absence of a recipient. Retention is five years after destruction; the response window to authorities is 30 days, in electronic form, under Article 3 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296.³

Article 25 is what you cannot do (destroy without a derogation).¹ Article 24 is what you must report (every destruction event with its derogation reference).² The two articles together create the operational obligation: brands must build the disposition pathways to avoid destruction where possible, and document every case where destruction does occur under one of the ten derogations in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296.³

The operational build cost is the same whether the obligation activates in 2026 or 2030, and medium-sized economic operators that grow past the large-enterprise threshold before 2030 inherit the large-enterprise obligation at the next financial reporting cycle. The pragmatic answer for most medium-sized brands is to start in 2027, run a 12-month build, and operate the system from 2028 onward, which leaves margin for revisions to delegated acts and product-category specifics.

Map your phase-3 build before 19 July 2026

Book a 30-minute demo and we will show you what the disposition workflow looks like when the data layer is built before 19 July 2026, not reverse-engineered after. We will walk through the seven phases against your current process and identify which phases your team needs to run separately.

Book a 30-minute demo See pricing

Related resources

ESPR Article 24 disclosure guide

The five categories of information, the format under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2, and how to build the audit trail.

Read the guide →

ESPR compliance for rework operations

How Articles 24 and 25 land in the operational rework process, with the seven-stage rework lifecycle that produces the disclosure as a byproduct.

Read the overview →

Two years inside a live rework operation

How Flexireo was co-developed over two years with a multinational sporting goods brand, processing more than 50,000 products.

Read the case study →

How the Flexireo platform works

The seven-stage rework lifecycle from store pull through final disposition, with unit-level data captured at every step.

See the platform →

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

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 13 May 2026; last reviewed 13 May 2026.