EPR · Textiles France

Textile EPR in France: the Refashion guide for Shopify clothing, linen and shoe sellers

Updated 7 October 20266 min readShopify sellers of clothing, home linen or footwear shipping to France

If you sell clothing, home linen or shoes to customers in France, France treats you as the producer of those products. You have to join **Refashion**, the approved scheme for textiles, declare what you sold into France, pay an eco-contribution on it, and hold a unique identifier (IDU). Since the textile law of 8 July 2026, a seller not established in France also has to appoint a mandataire in France, and that applies to a German or Dutch shop as much as to a US one. This is separate from packaging EPR: a T-shirt shipped in a mailer bag triggers two registrations, Refashion for the T-shirt and a packaging scheme such as Citeo for the bag.

Assuro connects to Shopify. The guidance below applies whatever platform you sell on.

1
Register
in the national registry
2
License
your volumes and pay fees
3
Report
those volumes each year

Which products are covered

Refashion covers three product families, known in France as TLC:

Textiles d'habillement: clothing.
Linge de maison: household linen such as towels, bedding and table linen.
Chaussures: footwear.

A product is in scope when it is new or offered for the first time, meant for a final consumer, and placed on the French market for the first time. Refashion lists these exclusions: items made of 100% leather or natural fur, upcycled products made entirely from second-hand materials, and products made only for professional use. Refashion's scope page mentions no small-seller exemption and no sales threshold.

Are you the producer?

Refashion defines the metteur en marché as the company that issues the first invoice with French VAT for a TLC product sold to a final consumer. Brand owners count wherever the goods are made, and so do importers and retailers. Refashion names online sellers and marketplaces explicitly, including those based outside France. If you sell on your own Shopify store and ship to French customers, that is you.

If you also sell through a marketplace, the marketplace has to either collect your Refashion number or declare and pay for your volumes itself. Marketplaces have had this duty since 1 January 2022.

What you have to do

Join Refashion as a metteur en marché.
Declare the number of products you placed on the French market, by category.
Pay the eco-contribution. Rates are per product and depend on the category. Refashion publishes them in its eco-contribution guide for the year.
Get your IDU. Refashion issues the Numéro d'Identification Unique once your declaration is finalised. Show it in your terms of sale or on your site, as you would for packaging.

New since July 2026: a mandataire in France

Law no. 2026-602 of 8 July 2026 added article L. 541-10-9-1 to the French Environment Code. It says that when a person not established in France is subject to EPR, they appoint, by written mandate, a person established in France as mandataire to make sure their obligations are met. Two things matter for Shopify sellers:

It is not limited to non-EU sellers. The text says *non établie en France*. A shop in Vienna or Berlin is not established in France.
It covers every EPR stream, not only textiles. The article refers to all producers under the general EPR articles, so the same rule reaches your French packaging registration.

Confirm the start date before relying on one

The law was published in the Journal officiel on 9 July 2026. Check the exact start date of the mandataire rule, and how Refashion wants the mandataire's identity reported, with Refashion or your mandataire before you plan around a date.

The ultra fast fashion rules, and whether they touch you

The same law targets *mode ultra-express*: producers whose practices cut the useful life of products, with very high numbers of new references and little incentive to repair. For them it adds a penalty on top of the eco-contribution, starting at EUR 0.25 to EUR 12 per product in 2026 and rising to EUR 2 to EUR 20 per product from 2030. The French government's summary says the penalty can reach 50% of the product price and applies from 1 September 2026. From 1 January 2027, advertising for ultra fast fashion brands and products is banned.

A small Shopify brand with a stable collection is very unlikely to fall into this category. The detailed thresholds depend on implementing texts that the government says are still to be published.

How it sits next to your other obligations

Textile EPR is one stream of several. The packaging the garment ships in is a separate registration with its own IDU. Product-safety information in the listing is GPSR, which applies to textiles in full because there is no sector safety law for them. And France is only the first: the revised Waste Framework Directive makes textile EPR mandatory in every member state, with schemes due to operate by April 2028.

List which of your products are clothing, home linen or footwear
Count units shipped to France per year, by category
Register with Refashion and file your declaration
Put your Refashion IDU in your terms of sale
If you are not established in France, sign a written mandate with a French mandataire
Check your packaging registration too: the mandataire rule applies there as well

How Assuro helps

Assuro reads your Shopify catalogue, lets you mark which products are clothing, footwear or household linen and their TLC category, and flags the ones sold into France without a textile registration on record, next to the packaging and GPSR gaps for the same item. Assuro organises and flags. It does not join Refashion, act as your mandataire, or file your declaration.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to register with Refashion if I sell clothes to France from abroad?

Yes. Refashion treats the company that issues the first invoice with French VAT for a clothing, household linen or footwear product sold to a final consumer as the producer, and names online sellers based outside France explicitly.

Is there a small-seller exemption for textile EPR in France?

Refashion's scope page mentions no exemption and no sales threshold. The exclusions it lists are by product: 100% leather or natural fur items, upcycled products made entirely from second-hand materials, and products made only for professional use.

Do EU-based sellers need a mandataire in France?

Under article L. 541-10-9-1 of the Environment Code, added by the law of 8 July 2026, a person not established in France who is subject to EPR appoints a mandataire established in France by written mandate. The test is establishment in France, not in the EU, so a German or Dutch seller is covered.

Is textile EPR the same as packaging EPR?

No. They are separate streams with separate schemes and separate identifiers. A T-shirt in a mailer bag needs Refashion for the T-shirt and a packaging scheme such as Citeo for the bag.

Do the ultra fast fashion penalties apply to a small brand?

Very unlikely. They target producers with very high numbers of new references and practices that shorten product life. The detailed thresholds depend on implementing texts that were still to be published when this guide was written.

Assuro is a Shopify app for EU compliance

It reads your catalogue and flags, product by product, which ones are missing GPSR data and which EPR registrations they pull in across 6 EU countries. Scanning and the full exposure report are free. Writing the fixes back into your Shopify products starts at $39 a month.

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