French EPR Cost for a Furniture Brand: a Worked Example

If you run a furniture brand selling in France and you are not established here, the representative service cost is more predictable than most people expect: for a typical household-furniture setup it lands at roughly €7,921 in Year 1 and €6,541 per year from Year 2, covering both the furniture and packaging streams with the multi-stream discount applied. On top of that sit the eco-organism membership (small) and the variable eco-contribution (which scales with your declared tonnage). This article builds that budget line by line so you can sanity-check the cost calculator against a real example.

The setup we are pricing

Take a furniture brand that sells household furniture into France: sofas, tables, storage. Two EPR streams apply, which is the norm for furniture:

• Furniture (DEA) with Ecomaison, the household furniture eco-organism. (Professional furniture would go to Valdelia instead; the decision is explained in Ecomaison vs Valdelia.)
• Household packaging with Citeo (or a competitor such as Léko or Adelphe), because the furniture ships in boxes, pallets, foam, and film.

We price this at the Standard tier, which fits most growing brands. The producer is whoever first places the product on the French market under Article L. 541-10 of the Code de l'environnement (AGEC law n° 2020-105 of 10 February 2020); if that is you and you are not established in France, you appoint a France-established authorized representative to register and file in your name.

Step 1: the representative grid (Standard tier)

These are our published Standard-tier figures per stream, all HT (excluding VAT):

The annual fee is just the monthly fee times twelve. Setup is a one-off, paid only in Year 1, and is never discounted.

Step 2: apply the multi-stream discount

When you run more than one stream, the discount applies to the monthly fee only, and we charge the cheapest stream at full price, then reduce each additional stream (minus 10% for the second stream, minus 15% for a third, minus 20% for a fourth).

Here packaging (€249/month) is the cheaper stream, so it stays at full price. Furniture (€329/month) gets minus 10%.

So the recurring representative fee from Year 2 onward is €6,541 per year HT.

Step 3: add the one-off setup for Year 1

Setup is charged once, per stream, and is never discounted:

• Furniture setup: €690
• Packaging setup: €690
• Total setup: €1,380

That is the full representative service cost for a two-stream household furniture brand at the Standard tier. If your volumes are small you may qualify for the Light tier (lower monthly fees); higher volumes move you to the Volume tier. The cost calculator handles all three and applies the discount for you.

Step 4: what sits on top (and is not in the figures above)

The numbers above are representative service fees only. Two further costs apply, and they are not ours to set:

1. Eco-organism membership. Each eco-organism charges a modest membership. Ecomaison is around €60 per year; Citeo's membership fee is similarly modest. These are small and fixed.
2. The variable eco-contribution. This is the real recycling levy, and it scales with what you declare. For furniture it is driven by weight (furniture is heavy, so tonnage matters), and for packaging it is driven by the weight and type of packaging materials. There is no flat number here: a brand shipping 20 tonnes of furniture pays far more in eco-contribution than one shipping 2 tonnes. We declare it accurately on your behalf, but we cannot reduce it because the eco-organism sets the baremes.

The cleanest way to think about it: representative fees are the fixed, knowable part of your budget; the eco-contribution is the variable, tonnage-driven part. Confusing the two is the single most common budgeting mistake we see; the difference between the eco-organism and the representative is laid out in Citeo membership vs authorized representative.

A quick reality check on who pays

Before you budget at all, confirm you are actually the producer. If a single France-established distributor imports your whole range and resells it, that distributor registers and pays, not you. If you ship across the border into France yourself, even through retailers, the obligation is yours. We work through that test in do I need a representative if my distributor imports. Getting this right first prevents both a compliance gap and paying twice.

Why we publish the grid

We do not quote a vague flat fee. Our pricing is published volume tiers (Light from €49/month, Standard from €199/month, Volume from €349/month per stream, setup from €290 to €1,290 depending on stream and tier), so you can rebuild this budget yourself before you ever talk to us. We register and declare your French streams only, under one mandate; we do not run a partner network and do not refer you abroad. If you also sell furniture in other EU Member States, each country needs its own representative established there, which you arrange separately. You can start your French registration here.

Want a budget for your exact furniture and packaging volumes, including an estimate of the eco-contribution? Run the cost calculator first, then book a free 15-minute compliance diagnostic via our registration form and we will pressure-test the numbers with you.

Sources

• Article L. 541-10 du Code de l'environnement (Légifrance)
• Loi n° 2020-105 du 10 février 2020 (AGEC), Légifrance
• ADEME, filière REP éléments d'ameublement (DEA)
• Ecomaison, household furniture eco-organism
• Citeo, household packaging and paper eco-organism