LUCID step by step: registration, licence, reports

Before you start

• Your company data, exactly as everywhere else: legal name, address, phone, VAT number, tax reference and national ID. LUCID accepts only one VAT number and one tax reference, and they must match your dual-system contract and your marketplace account.
• Your brand names: every brand you sell under in Germany. Unbranded packaging? Use your company name.
• Your packaging: what you ship in (boxes, mailers, paper filler, tape, labels) and roughly how much it weighs per year, by material.
• Based abroad? An authorised representative with their own LUCID login and ID, and a signed agreement in German. You can't finish the registration without them.

Step 1. Create your account

Register on the ZSVR portal with an email address and password, and confirm the email. Registration is free. Based abroad? Have your authorised representative appointed before you start: you'll need to select them in step 2.

Step 2. Master data

Enter your company details and the person responsible. If your company is based abroad without a German branch and sells directly to end users in Germany, enter your authorised representative's name or LUCID ID in the “Authorised representative” section.

Step 3. Packaging category

Choose whether your packaging is subject to system participation. For online sellers, the answer is almost always yes: according to the ZSVR, packaging used to ship goods to end users (boxes, bags, labels, tape, filler) is always subject to system participation.

Step 4. Brand names

List the brands visible on your packaging. If you have packaging made with your own brand or logo, you are normally its producer, even if someone else made it.

Step 5. Dual-system contract

Sign a system participation agreement with a dual system before you first sell, and estimate your yearly packaging by material. If you have an authorised representative, they sign it. Then confirm in LUCID that you meet the system participation requirement.

Step 6. Report your quantities

Every time you report quantities to your dual system, file the same report in LUCID: same period, same system, same kilograms per material. When you sign or extend the contract, report the planned yearly quantities.

Under 10 tonnes a year? The ZSVR allows a simplified route: one year-end report in LUCID by 1 June of the following year, instead of every single report.

Step 7. Tell your marketplace

Online platforms and fulfilment providers must check your LUCID registration and your self-declaration that you meet your EPR duties before they work with you. Enter your registration number in the marketplace's compliance settings.

After that

• Keep your LUCID data up to date (new brand, new address, new representative).
• Adjust your quantities with the dual system if you ship more or less than planned, then report the same correction in LUCID.
• The audited declaration of completeness only applies to large volumes (from 50 t of paper/cardboard or 30 t of lightweight packaging a year), not to typical small shops.