Extended Producer Responsibility for textiles in Spain: framework, eco-modulation and required SCRAP data

From the framework Directive 2008/98 to textile EPR 2025/1892: why Spain transposes now

The current configuration of the European waste management framework has its roots in Directive 2008/98/EC. This foundational text established the waste hierarchy as a binding guiding principle. Directive 2018/851 amended the original articles to introduce Article 8a. This provision laid the operational basis of extended producer responsibility and required Member States to set up the separate collection of textile waste before 1 January 2025.

The 2022 EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (COM(2022) 141 final) accelerated regulatory intervention. As an executive response, the European legislator adopted Directive (EU) 2025/1892. This instrument inserts Article 22a into the framework Directive. It obliges Member States to ensure that producers assume financial and organisational responsibility for managing the waste phase of the life cycle of textile and footwear products.

The European legislator grants a transposition deadline expiring on 17 June 2027. It conditions the full operation of textile SCRAPs on 17 April 2028. Spain decides to bring application forward through the MITECO Draft Royal Decree. The anticipation responds to an operational fracture: Law 7/2022 already required local authorities to establish separate collection before 31 December 2024 with no EPR regime to finance the operation.

Binding framework today: Law 7/2022, Directive 2025/1892 and the MITECO Draft RD

Law 7/2022, of 8 April, constitutes the headline norm. It transposes Directive 2018/851 and establishes the foundations of the circular economy in Spain. Its Article 18 categorically prohibits the destruction or disposal by landfill of unsold surpluses of non-perishable products, expressly including textile products. Article 25.2.c) decrees the mandatory nature of separate collection of textile waste. Article 50(2) governs the prior authorisation of collective schemes and Article 53(1)(d) requires them to file externally audited annual accounts each year.

Directive (EU) 2025/1892, whose Article 22b(1) imposes the creation of a producer registry, updates this framework. It requires the registration of every manufacturer, importer or distributor that markets textile products for the first time on a professional basis. It introduces the figure of the online platform operator, forcing alignment with Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act).

The MITECO Draft Royal Decree has travelled twenty months since its June 2025 draft: the public consultation closed on 4 September 2025 and the revised text was notified to the European Commission on 27 May 2026 (TRIS 2026/0266/ES), opening the standstill period of Directive (EU) 2015/1535 until 28 August 2026, extendable to 28 November. It remains a draft: it is not published in the BOE. The notified text specifies the financial architecture of the Spanish SCRAP, defines exact metrics for calculating the financial guarantee and provides that producers submit annually the quantities by weight and the number of articles placed on the market, aggregated by Combined Nomenclature (CN) code, under its Annex II, point 2.

Eco-modulation: what data the SCRAP requires and how it modulates the unit fee

The financial contribution abandons the flat-fee model based exclusively on tonnage. Directive (EU) 2025/1892 requires an eco-modulation system in its Article 22c(5). The Draft Royal Decree takes it up in its Article 28.3 of the text notified under TRIS (Art. 29.3 in the June 2025 draft). The objective: to penalise unsustainable production and reward ecodesign oriented towards durability and circularity.

Article 22c of the Directive establishes that contributions shall be based on weight and modulated in accordance with the requirements adopted under Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR). Two planes are worth separating. What the Spanish draft requires to be declared today is aggregate: weight and number of articles by CN code, once a year (Annex II, point 2, of the text notified under TRIS). What modulation will eventually need is data per reference — material composition, pre- and post-consumer recycled fibre, tested durability, reparability — but that is not set by the Royal Decree: it depends on the ESPR ecodesign criteria and their delegated acts, still not adopted for textiles.

The notified text expressly penalises fast fashion. Its Article 28.3 (Art. 29.3 in the June 2025 draft) provides that the contribution shall also be modulated taking into account fast- and ultra-fast-fashion business practices that lead to the excessive generation of textile and footwear waste, through factors such as the quantity of products placed on the market per producer and unit of time, the frequency of collection renewal, the resulting product lifespan, its useful life beyond the first user and the contribution to closing the loop. It is draft text, not law in force.

The collective scheme’s financial guarantee is calculated with the formula in Annex IX of the text notified under TRIS (Annex VI in the June 2025 draft), to which its Article 31.3 refers: GFtotal(€) = 0.10·N(t) × CMG(€·t⁻¹), where N(t) is the tonnage placed on the market and CMG the average management cost per tonne. The formula did not change between the two versions; only its annex did. It should not be confused with the fee: it is the scheme’s guarantee, not the producer’s price.

Operational timeline: transposition, national RD and SCRAP entry

The temporal gap between the European schedule and Spain's anticipation defines the risk. Directive (EU) 2025/1892 sets 17 June 2027 as the deadline for national transposition. It fixes 17 April 2028 as the definitive horizon. Municipal pressure over separate-collection costs accelerates the timeline in Spain.

The optimistic scenario projected approval of the Royal Decree during 2026, and the standstill of the text notified under TRIS expires on 28 August 2026 (extendable to 28 November). Producers would then have three months to register in the new textile and footwear section of the Producer Registry (Art. 17.1 of the notified text; Art. 18.1 in the June 2025 draft). The six-month period is a different thing: it is the deadline to constitute the collective schemes and apply for their authorisation (Art. 24.1, a deadline the earlier draft did not set).

The base scenario places approval of the Royal Decree at the end of 2026. The constitution of the collective schemes and the approval of the financial guarantees would consume the year 2027. The enforceability of eco-modulated fees would coincide with the European deadline of 17 April 2028.

The pessimistic scenario contemplates paralysis in the regional authorisation of SCRAPs. The operational benchmark is set by France: the EPR regime managed by Refashion imposes mature obligations. The €170,000 penalty on Refashion (9 April 2026, ref BREP_26_037) evidences the rigour of supervision in advanced markets.

How Spanish textile EPR intersects with DPP ESPR, post-Omnibus CSRD, ECGT and Refashion FR

The Digital Product Passport (DPP) instituted by the ESPR Regulation constitutes the unavoidable data engine for EPR compliance. Directive 2025/1892 explicitly links eco-modulation to the ecodesign parameters of the ESPR. The declaration to the Registry is indeed settled with an aggregate volume by CN code; what is not settled that way is the rebate: modulation will require DPP telemetry per reference.

The CSRD Directive, amended by the Omnibus 2026/470 rules, requires non-financial reporting on resource management and circularity (ESRS E5). The metrics required by the sustainability auditor will come directly from the declarations made to the SCRAP. Any discrepancy between the CSRD report and the settlements to the Producer Registry will trigger a risk of cross-penalty.

The Directive on the Empowerment of Consumers for the Green Transition (ECGT) imposes strict control over greenwashing. Claims about the reparability or recyclability of a garment must match precisely the data declared to the SCRAP in order to obtain the fee rebate.

Concurrent Spain-France operation requires a unified architecture with jurisdictional flexibility. France maintains stricter national provisions under Article 114 TFEU (Notification C/2026/1806). The French regime imposes on medium-sized enterprises the uninterrupted ban on destroying surpluses until 2030, diverging from the timelines of the ESPR Regulation.

Operational implications by size: large brand, medium and small-micro

Large brands bear the full regulatory burden immediately. The destruction ban of Article 18.2 of Law 7/2022 directly impacts their inventory management policies. The settlement of fees to the SCRAP will require a refactoring of their ERP systems to capture fast-fashion modulators and range breadth.

Medium-sized enterprises face severe regulatory asymmetry if they operate in neighbouring jurisdictions. The ESPR Regulation exempts them from the Annex VII destruction ban until 19 July 2030. However, French notification C/2026/1806 demonstrates that Member States can maintain stricter legislation. In Spain, the contribution to the SCRAP is unavoidable.

For small and micro-enterprises, the draft enables mitigation mechanisms, and they should not be merged into one. Final provision four of the text notified under TRIS grants SMEs with fewer than ten employees and annual turnover not exceeding two million euros an additional twelve-month period «for compliance with their obligations as producers of textile or footwear products». The simplified regime is separate and survives in Article 19(1)(e): those SMEs shall only report to the collective scheme the quantities by weight and number of articles, and they do so before the collective scheme by 28 February, not before the Registry.

8 edge cases: border scenarios in the Spanish textile chain

1. Foreign brand without ES establishment: every producer from another Member State or third country that markets textiles in Spain must designate an authorised representative through a written mandate.

2. Cross-border marketplace: the EPR obligation stays with the producer. What Article 22a(13) of Directive (EU) 2025/1892 imposes on the platform is an access control: obtaining from the producer its registration number in the Producer Registry and its self-certification of compliance before letting it use the platform services.

3. Technical textiles: personal protective equipment and products for professional or military use with risks to safety, health or hygiene are excluded from the EPR scope.

4. Professional second-hand: operators that market for the first time used textile products professionally sorted and deemed fit for reuse do not acquire producer status.

5. NGO donations: social-economy entities enjoy a preferential regime. SCRAPs must guarantee free collection of waste generated at their facilities.

6. Pre-effect stock: the financial obligation does not operate retroactively. Producers finance the management of products supplied after entry into force.

7. ES production exported to EU: the territoriality principle governs the contribution. The producer pays EPR exclusively in the Member State where the product is marketed.

8. Mid-year SCRAP change: a producer that modifies its membership must notify the competent authority and ensure pro-rata settlement without interruption of the data flow.

5 operational decisions for the next 12 months

1. Audit the inventory of eco-characteristics per SKU: deploy data-extraction protocols across the supply chain to document exact material composition, durability and reparability. Without that repository there will be nothing to evidence a rebate with, once the ESPR criteria exist.

2. Monitor the evolution of the MITECO Draft RD: appoint an internal compliance owner to assess amendments to the text under public hearing and prepare the imminent registration in the new textile section of the Producer Registry.

3. Define a multi-SCRAP strategy for pan-European operations: standardise the declaration variables to interact simultaneously with Refashion in France, the future Spanish system and equivalent entities in Italy or the Netherlands.

4. Incorporate eco-modulation clauses into contracts with garment makers: require Asian suppliers to provide recycled-fibre certifications and declarations of substances of concern with legal validity.

5. Execute the technological reconciliation between EPR and DPP: ensure the corporate ERP system unifies the environmental attributes of the Digital Product Passport with the financial declaration obligations of the waste regime.