Potsdam packaging tax puts 50 cents on every takeaway cup
From 1 October, cafés, bakeries, fast-food outlets and petrol stations in Brandenburg's capital pay a levy on single-use containers and cutlery, with reusables exempt.
The Potsdam packaging tax takes effect on Thursday 1 October, charging sellers of takeaway food and drink 50 cents for every single-use cup, box or plate and 20 cents for every piece of disposable cutlery, the city announced on 29 September.
The tax is owed by the business that hands the packaging over, not by the customer, although the German press agency dpa expects most outlets to pass it on. It covers restaurants, cafés, bakeries, fast-food chains and petrol-station counters, and includes pizza boxes and ice-cream cups. Businesses declare their packaging every quarter, by the 15th day after the quarter ends; fines for breaches reach €10,000, according to dpa.
Several things stay outside the net: food sold in supermarkets for later, bakery paper bags, deposit bottles and cans, leftovers wrapped for guests, containers used by delivery services and stalls at markets or festivals that trade no more than ten days a year in the city. Outlets that switch entirely to reusable containers pay no Potsdam packaging tax at all.
Potsdam has put a price on the takeaway cup; who ends up paying it is the open question.
What the Potsdam packaging tax will raise
The city council approved the levy in March. It was due on 1 July and was pushed back three months to give businesses time to adapt. Dpa reports expected revenue of about €1 million a year from 2027; the city says it spends around €950,000 a year on providing and emptying public bins, a figure Deutsche Umwelthilfe repeated on 30 September when it welcomed the tax.
To soften the switch, Potsdam has set aside €170,000 until 2028: up to €500 per site towards the fees of a reusable system, up to €500 for reusable crockery and cutlery, and up to €2,000 for a dishwasher. Burkhard Exner, speaking for the city, said the goal remained less single-use packaging, more reusables and a cleaner city.
Business groups see more paperwork
The IHK Potsdam chamber of commerce opposes the measure. Its director, Christian Herzog, told dpa it was another tax bringing extra bureaucracy and costs, from staff training to reprogrammed tills, with chains that operate outside Potsdam hit hardest. The regional chamber of crafts said Brandenburg needed less bureaucracy.
With the Potsdam packaging tax, the state capital becomes the only city in Brandenburg with such a levy. It copies Tübingen, which introduced its tax in 2022 and saw it upheld by the Federal Constitutional Court in a ruling published in January 2025; Konstanz and Freiburg have followed. For German restaurants the new cost arrives in the same year as the VAT cut on restaurant food and ahead of a planned card-payment obligation.
