By Operator One Editorial — 2026-06-14
Why Czechia and Slovakia sit together — but not quite
The Czech Republic and Slovakia share a regulatory shape: both transpose the EU Waste Framework Directive, both run producer-responsibility organisations (PROs) that collect fees from obliged producers, and both have separate streams for packaging, WEEE (electrical and electronic equipment) and batteries. For a non-resident seller — say an EU-headquartered consumer-electronics seller shipping from a German warehouse into Czech and Slovak buyers via Allegro CEE, Kaufland CZ and Kaufland SK — the day-to-day compliance work feels similar. The detail is where the two countries diverge, and the marketplaces enforce both.
The mental model we use with merchants: treat CZ and SK as two registrations, two reporting cadences, two PRO contracts, and one shared operational rhythm. Trying to run them as a single block is where mistakes get made.
EKO-KOM: the Czech packaging stream
Czech packaging EPR is governed by Act No. 477/2001 Coll. on Packaging, amended over the years to align with the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive. Producers — defined as the entity that first places packaged goods on the Czech market — must either organise their own take-back or, in practice, contract with an authorised packaging company. EKO-KOM is the dominant one and has been since 1997; it operates the yellow/blue/green/clear container system that Czech consumers actually use.
Obligations for a non-resident seller selling into Czechia look like this:
- Register with EKO-KOM (or appoint an authorised representative who holds the contract on the seller's behalf, since a non-resident producer is permitted to act only through a CZ-established entity for some filings).
- Report quantities of packaging placed on the Czech market by material (paper, plastic, glass, metal, wood, composite) on a quarterly cadence, with annual reconciliation.
- Pay the per-tonne fees set by EKO-KOM for each material — these are public and updated yearly.
- Maintain evidence of every shipment into Czechia for at least five years.
The 2024 amendment to the Czech Packaging Act tightened the definition of "placing on the market" for distance sellers and made marketplace facilitators co-responsible for verifying that third-party sellers are properly registered. That is the change Allegro and Kaufland are now operationalising in their seller dashboards.
Slovakia: OZV-led packaging, structurally similar, operationally distinct
Slovakia runs its packaging EPR under Act No. 79/2015 Coll. on Waste. Instead of one dominant PRO, Slovakia has a handful of licensed "organisations of producer responsibility" — OZVs — that producers must contract with. NATUR-PACK and ENVI-PAK are the two best known, but there are others. The seller chooses one OZV per stream (packaging, WEEE, batteries) and cannot split a stream across multiple OZVs.
Key differences from the Czech setup, in practice:
- Slovakia requires registration in the Register of Producers (Register výrobcov) maintained by the Ministry of Environment, separate from the OZV contract.
- Reporting cadence is quarterly, but the data structure differs — Slovakia separates industrial vs. household packaging more strictly and the OZV will reject filings where the split is implausible.
- A non-resident producer must appoint an authorised representative established in Slovakia. There is no workaround; the marketplace verification step now checks for this.
- Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) for PET bottles and aluminium cans has been live since 2022 and is run by Správca zálohového systému. PET beverage SKUs sold into Slovakia must be registered separately into DRS, with their own per-unit deposit on the product label.
The DRS point trips up beverage sellers the most. A mid-market beverage brand entering Slovak retail or marketplace channels needs DRS registration on top of OZV packaging — they are not substitutes.
WEEE in both countries: ASEKOL, REMA, SEWA, and friends
WEEE (electronics) is a separate registration with a separate PRO. In Czechia, ASEKOL and REMA Systém are the two principal collective schemes; in Slovakia, SEWA and ENVIDOM dominate, with category specialisation (large appliances vs. small electronics vs. lighting).
What a non-resident electronics seller needs to do, in both countries:
- Register the producer in the national WEEE register before placing any EEE on the market — pre-market registration, not post-sale clean-up.
- Contract with a WEEE PRO for collection and recycling financing, by category. The categories follow the six EU WEEE buckets.
- Report units and weight by category on a quarterly basis. Both countries reject submissions where category and weight do not reconcile against a plausible per-unit weight.
- Apply the WEEE crossed-out wheelie-bin symbol on packaging or product, and provide end-user takeback information.
For a non-resident, the authorised-representative requirement is firm in Slovakia and increasingly enforced in Czechia after the 2024 packaging amendment cascaded into the WEEE register's verification routines.
Batteries: small stream, sharp enforcement
Batteries (portable, industrial, and automotive) are governed in Czechia by Act No. 542/2020 Coll. and in Slovakia by Act No. 79/2015 Coll., both transposing the EU Batteries Regulation 2023/1542 which came into force in 2024 and is now in its phased application. Both countries require:
- Producer registration in the national batteries register.
- Contract with a batteries PRO — ECOBAT in Czechia is the standard; INSA and others operate in Slovakia.
- Quarterly reporting of units and chemistry (lithium, NiMH, alkaline, lead-acid).
- Labelling per the EU Batteries Regulation — including, from 2027, the digital battery passport for industrial and EV batteries.
Any product that contains a battery — wireless headphones, a torch, a battery-powered toy — drags the seller into the batteries stream alongside packaging and WEEE. Three registrations, three PROs, three reporting cycles, per country. This is where consolidated merchant-of-record structures earn their keep.
Allegro CEE and Kaufland CZ/SK: what they verify, and when
Allegro is the dominant Polish marketplace and has been pushing aggressively into Czechia and Slovakia (Allegro CZ launched in 2024). Kaufland operates separate marketplaces for Czechia (kaufland.cz) and Slovakia (kaufland.sk). All three now perform EPR verification during seller onboarding, and re-verify periodically.
What they ask for, in practice:
- EKO-KOM client ID for Czech packaging, or proof of authorised-representative arrangement.
- OZV contract reference for Slovak packaging plus the Slovak Register of Producers number.
- WEEE producer registration number per country, where the catalogue contains EEE.
- Battery producer registration number per country, where applicable.
- For Slovak DRS-eligible beverages, proof of registration with the deposit system.
Listings can go live without these in some categories, but the marketplaces have moved to a "verify or restrict" stance for regulated categories, and unverified sellers see their listings suppressed on category pages even when technically active. Restoring visibility takes longer than getting it right the first time. See our marketplaces page for the live channel list.
Non-resident registration: the operational shape
A non-EU or non-CZ/SK-established seller cannot register directly with EKO-KOM, OZVs, the WEEE register or the batteries register without a local presence. In practice this means one of three structures:
- Incorporate a local entity in Czechia and/or Slovakia — slow, capital-intensive, rarely justified for marketplace-only sellers.
- Appoint an authorised representative for each stream in each country — workable, but multiplies counterparties and contracts.
- Use a consolidated MoR (merchant of record) structure, where one EU-established entity becomes the producer-of-record across streams and countries — see our compliance glossary for the definition.
The right structure depends on volume, catalogue breadth, and how many EU markets are in scope. A single-category seller targeting only CZ and SK may be fine with two authorised representatives. A multi-category brand selling across the EU 27 + UK on Amazon, Allegro, Kaufland, bol, Cdiscount, ManoMano and others usually finds the per-country representative model collapses under its own admin weight.
Where Operator One fits
Operator One (KvK 90562704, headquartered in Almere, Netherlands, with a hub in Lucca, Italy) has run merchant-of-record services since 2021 across 27 EU member states plus the UK and more than 100 marketplaces — including Allegro CZ/PL/SK, Kaufland CZ and Kaufland SK. For Czech and Slovak EPR specifically, we hold the EKO-KOM, OZV, WEEE and battery registrations as the producer-of-record and handle the quarterly reporting, marketplace verification and PRO contracts so the brand can focus on the catalogue.