Empty space ratio.

Article 24 of Regulation (EU) 2025/40 sets the maximum empty space ratio in grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging at 50 %, and the duty falls on whoever fills the box, not on whoever made it. The date is the part that gets mangled. Paragraph 1 binds “by 1 January 2030 or 3 years from the entry into force of the implementing acts adopted pursuant to paragraph 2, whichever is the latest”, and paragraph 2 gives the Commission until 12 February 2028 to adopt the calculation methodology, so pinning the cap to the regulation’s general application date of 12 August 2026 is wrong twice over. Paragraph 3 defines the ratio against the volume of the sales packaging inside, and counts paper cuttings, air cushions, bubble wrap, foam and polystyrene chips as empty space, so padding a mug into an oversized carton does not improve the number. Paragraph 5 exempts sales packaging used directly as e-commerce packaging and reusable packaging in a re-use system, which is the escape hatch for anyone shipping in the product’s own box. Until the methodology exists there is nothing to measure against, which is exactly why the figure and the date travel through secondary summaries in mutated form.