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Germany's minimum standard for packaging recyclability under VerpackG. The route to Lizenzentgelt fee modulation in the German market.
The Mindeststandard is the German benchmark for the recyclability of household packaging that falls under system participation. It is issued each year by the Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister (ZSVR) in agreement with the Umweltbundesamt (UBA) under Section 21 of the German Packaging Act (VerpackG), and applies to all packaging placed on the German market from 1 January of the following year.
The 2026 version was published on 29 August 2025 and is binding for packaging placed on the market from 1 January 2026. Its structure has been revised to align with the PPWR.
A regulatory standard, not a certificate. The Mindeststandard differs from RecyClass, CERTIFY and RECY:CHECK in two respects. First, it is a regulatory standard rather than a certification scheme: no certificate is issued, and the assessment is the legal record. Second, it grounds the recyclability assessment in the actual German sorting and recovery infrastructure, i.e. what is in fact collected, sorted and recycled in the German dual system.
Why it matters. Section 21 of VerpackG obliges the German dual systems (Der Grüne Punkt, BellandVision, Veolia Umweltservice Dual and others) to financially incentivise packaging that meets the Mindeststandard. The result is meaningful fee differentiation on the Lizenzentgelt, the licence fee paid for every packaging that falls under system participation, across material categories and recyclability bands. For brand owners with significant volumes shipped into Germany, the Mindeststandard assessment is the document that turns recyclable design into a fee reduction.
At CIRCPACK, we assess packaging against the current Mindeststandard as an independent third party. The assessment is grounded in CIRCPACK auditors' operational experience inside Material Recovery Facilities in Germany and across the wider Veolia network. The assessment is re-issued whenever the ZSVR publishes a revised standard.
The Mindeststandard covers all material families subject to system participation: rigid and flexible plastics, glass, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, paper, cardboard, food and beverage cartons and other composite packaging.
Assessment against the current ZSVR Mindeststandard rules, valid for the year of publication.
Material composition, layer structure, format, decoration. We accept your German LUCID file or your global SKU master as the starting point.
Each packaging format is assessed against the ZSVR-published criteria for the current calendar year: sortability in German Gelber Sack and Gelbe Tonne flows, recoverability in German fibre and glass plants.
Per-SKU recyclability percentage, evidence references, and the implied fee modulation under each dual-system tariff.
Dual systems sometimes question specific scores; CIRCPACK from our Cologne office supports the dialogue with the relevant administrator.
Any organisation placing packaged goods on the German market and registered in LUCID under VerpackG.
Optimise the licence fee paid to your dual system; identify packaging redesigns that unlock fee discounts.
Score the own-label range before the annual LUCID declaration window.
You carry the VerpackG obligation on goods shipped into Germany; Mindeststandard scoring is how the modulated fee is set.
Send us your packaging spec and we'll come back within three business days with a scoped quote, methodology and timeline.
Mindeststandard is the German national rule, calibrated to the German collection and sorting infrastructure (Gelber Sack and adjacent streams). RecyClass is the pan-European industry standard. The two overlap on design principles but score the same packaging differently. We map between them where you need both.
ZSVR publishes the Mindeststandard annually. Scores are valid against the version in force at the time of assessment. We flag year-on-year delta exposure for portfolios at risk.
The Mindeststandard percentage is uniform; the way each dual system translates it into a Lizenzentgelt discount varies. The result file shows the impact under each major dual-system tariff so you can choose well.