Plastic packaging tax: what it means when customers switch to corrugated

Plastic packaging tax has been in force since April 2022, and it has quietly become one of the most common reasons a trade customer asks a distributor about corrugated. It is worth understanding properly, because the version of it that gets repeated in sales conversations is usually wrong in a way that can embarrass you in front of a buyer.

This is a general explanation rather than tax advice. HMRC’s guidance is the authority, and anyone near the threshold should take their own advice.

What the tax actually is

It is a tax on plastic packaging components manufactured in or imported into the UK. Three numbers matter:

• £228.82 per tonne from 1 April 2026, up from £223.69 the previous year.
• 30% recycled content. Plastic packaging with at least 30% recycled plastic is not charged, though it still counts towards the threshold and the record-keeping.
• 10 tonnes. Businesses manufacturing or importing 10 tonnes or more of finished plastic packaging components in a 12-month period have to register.

It is paid by the manufacturer or importer, not by the end buyer, which is why many of the businesses affected are the ones filling the packaging rather than the ones selling it.

The rule most people get wrong

A pack does not have to be all plastic to count, and it does not stop counting because it has some board in it. The test is which material weighs the most.

If a packaging component contains more plastic by weight than any other single substance, it is a plastic packaging component for the purposes of the tax. The other substances considered are glass, aluminium, steel, other metals, paper and board, wood, and anything else. HMRC’s own example: a 10 gram carton made of 4 grams of plastic, 3 grams of aluminium and 3 grams of cardboard is plastic packaging, because plastic is the heaviest single material. Change it to 2 grams of plastic, 5 grams of aluminium and 3 grams of cardboard and it is not.

For corrugated, that settles the question comfortably. A board mailer with a peel and seal strip, a tape closure or a line of hot-melt glue is overwhelmingly paper by weight. The plastic content is a rounding error, and the pack sits outside the tax.

What changes when a customer switches

Three things, in descending order of how often they get mentioned and ascending order of how much they are worth.

The per-tonne charge goes. The obvious one, and the smallest for most buyers. At £228.82 a tonne, a light plastic mailer carries a few pence of tax. Worth having, rarely decisive on its own.

The reporting burden goes with it, eventually. This is the one buyers feel. Registration brings quarterly returns, records of weights and recycled content, and evidence to retain. A customer who moves enough volume out of plastic to drop under the 10-tonne threshold stops doing all of that. If they stay above it on other lines, they do not, which is worth establishing before anyone promises a saving.

The material question gets simpler. A corrugated pack goes into the paper stream the recipient already has, which is the point our guide to recyclable packaging makes in more detail.

What the tax does not do

It is not a carbon tax, and it does not reward switching for its own sake. A plastic pack with 30% or more recycled content is not charged either, so a customer who has already reformulated may have no tax reason to move at all. Their reasons will be about recyclability, retailer requirements or their customers’ expectations instead.

It is also separate from extended producer responsibility, where fees are charged by material and corrugated certainly is not free. Treating the two as one thing is the fastest way to lose credibility with a buyer who has to report on both.

Specification points worth knowing

If a customer is switching to board specifically to get out of plastic, the specification should not quietly put some back:

• Skip plastic windows and film laminates. They rarely make a pack plastic by weight, but they do undermine the recyclability argument that usually sits behind the switch.
• Use a paper-based closure. An inline peel and seal strip removes tape from the process and keeps the pack to one material family.
• Replace plastic void fill and foam fitments with die-cut corrugated inserts, which hold the product and go in the same bin as the box.
• Right-size the pack. The cheapest material is the material you do not use, which our piece on what drives a bespoke box price works through.

What to tell a customer

Be precise and you will be trusted with the next question. Corrugated is outside the tax because it is paper and board, not because it is green. The saving most customers notice is administrative rather than financial. And if they are switching for environmental reasons rather than tax ones, the honest comparison is about recyclability and collection, not about a per-tonne rate.

If you want a format specified for a customer moving off plastic, send us the product and the current pack and we will design a corrugated equivalent and quote it.

Sources: HMRC guidance on plastic packaging tax rates, registration and which packaging is in scope, as published on GOV.UK and current at the time of writing.