ELV reporting: the 95% and 85% targets and the mass balance behind them

The EU's end-of-life vehicle targets are national figures, but they are built from yard-level numbers. Every vehicle you take in, every part you sell and every load that leaves your gate ends up, in aggregate, in a table your country sends to the Commission. If your records cannot support those numbers, nobody's can.

The targets

Article 7(2)(b) of Directive 2000/53/EC requires member states to ensure that, from 1 January 2015, economic operators attain for all end-of-life vehicles:

• reuse and recovery of at least 95%, and
• reuse and recycling of at least 85%,

both by an average weight per vehicle and year.

The definitions decide what counts. Reuse means components used for the same purpose they were conceived for. Recycling means reprocessing waste materials in a production process, and expressly excludes energy recovery. Recovery is the wider category, including energy recovery. So the ten points between 85% and 95% can only be filled by recovery other than recycling, and disposal has to stay within 5% of vehicle weight on average.

The targets are addressed to economic operators collectively. How they are checked against an individual facility is a matter of national law.

How the figure reaches the Commission

The calculation method is set by Commission Decision 2005/293/EC, which has not been amended. Member states fill in four tables in its Annex, annually, and send them within 18 months of the end of the year (Article 3):

1. Table 1: materials from depollution and dismantling.
2. Table 2: materials from shredding.
3. Table 3: vehicles and parts exported for further treatment.
4. Table 4: the totals. Reuse plus all recycling, divided by total vehicle weight, gives the 85% figure; reuse plus all recovery, divided by the same weight, gives the 95% figure.

Directive (EU) 2018/849 replaced the Directive's old three-yearly implementation report with Article 9(1a): annual electronic reporting of the Article 7(2) data within 18 months, in a format the Commission sets by implementing act, accompanied by a quality check report.

What comes from the dismantler

Table 1 is essentially your yard. For each of these streams, in tonnes per year, it asks how much went to reuse, recycling, energy recovery and disposal:

• batteries; liquids, excluding fuel; oil filters; other depollution materials, excluding fuel;
• catalysts; metal components; tyres; large plastic parts; glass; other dismantling materials.

The denominator comes from you as well. The number of vehicles is counted when a national authorised treatment facility issues a certificate of destruction, and the total weight is the sum of individual vehicle weights. The Decision defines that individual weight precisely: the weight in service from the registration document, or the running-order mass from the certificate of conformity, or failing both the manufacturer's specification, always excluding 75 kg for the driver and 40 kg for fuel. Your weighbridge reading on arrival is not that figure.

Where a member state does not use the optional metal content assumption, reuse is calculated by subtraction: individual vehicle weight, minus the weight of the depolluted and dismantled body shell, minus the materials sent for recycling, recovery or disposal. What leaves your yard as material must be backed by declarations from the receiving company, weighing notes, other bookkeeping or disposal notes. Where the assumption is used, reuse is taken from the treatment facilities' own declarations.

Exports and imports

Article 2 of the Decision credits treatment abroad to the exporting member state, provided a national facility issued the certificate and there is sound evidence that the treatment took place under broadly equivalent conditions. A vehicle that arrives already certified in another country is not counted as recovered or recycled in the importing one. Record which certificate covers each vehicle, not just which vehicle you hold.

A mass balance that survives an audit

The subtraction method means your figures only hold if everything that came in is accounted for on the way out. In practice:

• Every vehicle has an intake record, a certificate and a stated weight source.
• Every outbound load has a weighing note and a document from the receiving facility saying what it did with it.
• Every depollution output is recorded by waste code and tied to the consignment that carried it away.
• Every body shell is reconciled to the shredder's receipt, per vehicle or per documented batch.
• Stock at year end, both parts and stored materials, is counted, so mass in equals mass out plus mass on hand.

The common gaps

• Mixing weight definitions: registration weights for some vehicles, weighbridge readings for others.
• Leaving fuel in the calculation, which the Decision excludes.
• Claiming energy recovery without a document from the facility that performed it.
• Counting vehicles that arrived with another country's certificate.
• Losing track of unsold parts that are later scrapped, so the reuse figure is never corrected.
• Year boundaries: vehicles taken in during December and treated in January.
• Collecting the data in March rather than when each event happens.

Where your country fits in

National transpositions decide who files, where and when. Romania reports to the county environmental agency through SIM by 31 March; France declares in SYDEREP to ADEME and the prefect by 31 March; Poland reports through BDO by 15 March; Bulgaria through НИСО by 31 March; Slovenia through ARSO's IS-Odpadki by 31 March. Germany has no separate ELV return: the figures reach the state through waste statistics. Each of these has its own guide in its own language.

What the new Regulation changes

Regulation (EU) 2026/1738 generally applies from 1 September 2028, but it keeps the Directive's 2015 targets running until 31 December 2030 and its Article 9 reporting provisions until 31 August 2029 (Article 57(1)). Its own Article 33 sets the 95% and 85% targets from 1 January 2030, measured excluding batteries, and adds a plastics recycling target of at least 30% from 1 January 2032. From 1 September 2029, Article 50 has member states publish annual data that includes the number of certificates issued and the weight of parts and materials removed for reuse, remanufacturing or refurbishment, recycling, recovery and disposal. Article 26 requires authorised treatment facilities to keep an electronic record of their treatment operations for three years.

How ELVPro handles this

ELVPro builds the operational register and the mass balance from the work you record anyway. Each treated vehicle carries its intake weight and the masses that went to reuse, recycling, recovery and disposal; the recovery report computes both ratios against 85% and 95%, lists depollution outputs by waste code, and flags the period as incomplete until every treated vehicle is weighed. More on ELV compliance in ELVPro.

This guide describes the EU framework as it stood on 28 October 2026 and is not legal advice. Forms, deadlines and channels are set nationally; check them with your competent authority for the current reporting year.