Chile’s EPR law and batteries: what applies today and what is coming

Chile’s Extended Producer Responsibility law (Ley REP, Law No. 20,920) is in force and makes producers finance the collection and recovery of their products, but batteries still have no targets: they will be set by a decree that is still being drafted and that the Ministry of the Environment must propose before 2027-01-29. Portable batteries and solar modules already have their own targets in Supreme Decree (DS) 22/2025.

Updated on 2026-09-18 · Reviewed by the Ecobaterías technical team.

• 1,100 tof lithium-ion battery waste estimated for 2026 in Chile
• 44,400 tof lead-acid battery waste estimated for 2026
• ≈0%of lithium-ion batteries are recycled in Chile today
• 2027-01-29deadline for the Ministry of the Environment to propose the battery decree

Source: regulatory impact assessment of the draft battery decree, Ministry of the Environment (Res. Ex. 821/2026) (opens in a new tab) · 2026-09-18

Timeline: how the battery decree got here

Law No. 20,920 set six priority products in 2016 and left the actual targets to later decrees, one per product. The battery decree has been in the making for years: the file was opened, an extended operating committee brought industry and academia to the table, and several deadline extensions followed before a consultable text existed.

Source: Ministry of the Environment, draft supreme decree for batteries (opens in a new tab) · 2026-09-18

The practical consequence is simple: any battery target you read today, including the ones on this page, comes from a draft and may change. The valid reference will be the published decree.

What counts as a battery and what stays a portable cell

The draft narrows its scope in Art. 2 No. 1: batteries are units of 5 kg or more, plus every lead-acid battery regardless of weight. Units under 5 kg that are not lead-acid are treated as portable batteries, which means they fall under DS 22/2025.

The weight cut is not arbitrary: it separates the household flow, collected at drop-off points and retailers, from the industrial flow — electric vehicle and bus packs, large tools, machinery, storage systems — which moves on dispatch notes, per-batch weighing and authorized transport. Two logistics, two decrees.

Swipe to see the full table

Who is covered and who is exempt

The main obligation falls on the producer: whoever manufactures in Chile or first imports the product into the national market. If a solar plant, a bus fleet or a mining site imports its own equipment directly, that company is the producer of those units even if it never sells them. This is the point that surprises most compliance teams.

The draft proposes two exemptions in Art. 5: micro-enterprises as defined in Law No. 20,416 and anyone placing less than 600 kg per year on the market. Being exempt from the targets does not exempt anyone from handling the hazardous waste properly once the battery leaves service.

Targets by category: two decrees, two calendars

The most common mistake in the sector is mixing the DS 22/2025 targets with the ones in the battery draft. They are independent calendars with different legal status.

Legal status of table A: DS 22/2025 was published in the Official Gazette on 2026-05-07 and its targets are enforceable 24 months after publication, that is, from May 2028.

Swipe to see the full table

Source: DS 22/2025, Ministry of the Environment, Official Gazette (opens in a new tab) · 2026-09-18

Legal status of table B as of 2026-09-18: Law No. 20,920 is in force. The battery collection and recovery targets come from the draft approved by Res. Ex. 821/2026 (2026-02-16), submitted to public consultation between 2026-02-25 and 2026-04-09 with 451 comments and 33 international enquiries; the deadline was extended by Res. Ex. 4,225/2026 (2026-07-29) to 2027-01-29. The figures may change during the process; the valid reference will be the published decree.

Swipe to see the full table

Source: draft battery decree, Ministry of the Environment (Res. Ex. 821/2026) (opens in a new tab) · 2026-09-18

The 30% preparation-for-reuse share is the hinge of the whole decree for lithium-ion: it forces testing before shredding. A pack that arrives with one damaged module and the rest healthy should not go straight to recycling, and that is exactly the job of lithium battery testing and repair.

What already applies, without waiting for the decree

While the decree is being drafted, an end-of-life battery is not in a legal vacuum. Law No. 20,920 is already in force as a framework, and handling the waste itself is governed by the hazardous waste regulation, Supreme Decree (DS) 148/2003, which requires a management plan from 12 t per year of hazardous waste and requires delivery to an authorized final destination, with authorized transport and a declared movement.

In practice, three things are enforceable today for any company accumulating end-of-life batteries: store them safely and for a limited time, hand them to a manager holding a health permit for that waste stream, and keep the paperwork that proves the final destination of every batch.

Ecobaterías runs its hydrometallurgical plant in Santiago with a health permit from the Seremi de Salud (Chile’s regional health authority) of the Santiago Metropolitan Region for the hydrometallurgical process, and hands over that documentation with every intake.

Three roles with concrete duties

Beyond the producer, the draft spreads duties across everyone who handles the battery during its life. These are the three roles that generate the most questions.

1. Retailers over 400 m² (Art. 26). They must take back from the public the battery types they sell, without requiring a new purchase.
2. Vehicle workshops (Art. 29). They must hand the batteries they remove to an authorized manager. This mostly affects lead-acid, and increasingly hybrid and electric packs.
3. Industrial consumers and storage owners above 1 MWh (Art. 40). They must report annually, before 31 May, through the single window of Chile’s pollutant release and transfer register (RETC).

The draft also requires a minimum network of drop-off points based on the population of each municipality (Art. 28), so that territorial coverage does not depend only on where each management system finds it convenient to operate.

Management systems and the management plan

Law No. 20,920 allows two compliance routes: an individual management system, organized and financed by the producer, or a collective system grouping several producers. In both cases the system must file a management plan with the Ministry of the Environment (Art. 10 of Law No. 20,920), stating the territorial coverage committed, the managers under contract and how compliance will be evidenced.

For a producer the choice is rarely only about cost: a collective system spreads the expense, while an individual one keeps control over traceability and over what happens to the recovered material. What does not change on either route is that every collected kilogram must end at an authorized final destination and be evidenced on paper.

How to comply with Ecobaterías

Ecobaterías is the final-destination link: the point where a battery stops being a liability and becomes recovered material plus a document you can report with.

1. Map the flow. We define which battery types leave your operation, in what annual volume and from which sites or branches.
2. A route per unit. Units that can be repaired or reused are tested before any decision; whatever has no possible use goes into the plant. That way the volume going through repair and reuse can count towards the preparation-for-reuse share.
3. Collection and traceability. We arrange collection with authorized transport and weigh every batch at intake.
4. Recovery and certificate. Each batch receives its valorization certificate with the associated traceability, which is what supports the annual report.

The intake price for lithium-ion batteries is published: see the intake price. If you also have decommissioned photovoltaic modules, the route is DS 22/2025 for solar panels and testing and reuse of used modules. For the market context behind these figures, see the Chilean battery and critical minerals market.

Frequently asked questions

Does Chile’s EPR law already require lithium batteries to be recycled?

Law No. 20,920 (Ley REP) is in force, but collection and recovery targets for batteries will be set by a decree that is still being drafted. What is enforceable today is handling the end-of-life battery as hazardous waste: hand it to a manager with a health permit, move the batch with authorized transport and keep documented traceability.

When do battery collection targets start to apply?

They do not apply yet. Chile’s Ministry of the Environment has until 2027-01-29 to propose the battery decree, under Res. Ex. 4,225/2026. Targets start counting from the entry into force of the published decree, not from the draft.

Are office batteries covered by the battery decree?

No. Portable batteries and electrical and electronic equipment have their own targets in Supreme Decree (DS) 22/2025, published on 2026-05-07 and enforceable 24 months later. The battery draft decree targets units of 5 kg or more and every lead-acid battery.

What does the draft propose for lead-acid batteries?

The draft proposes the highest targets in the decree: 50% collection in the first year and 90% in the ninth, and it keeps every lead-acid battery in scope regardless of weight. It is by far the largest flow in Chile.

Which document proves how my batteries were managed?

The recovery certificate for each batch, with its traceability: who collected it, how much it weighed, what was recovered and on which date. That is the document behind the producer’s annual report, and the one Ecobaterías issues with every intake.

Sources

• Library of the National Congress of Chile, Law No. 20,920 on waste management and extended producer responsibility (opens in a new tab).
• Ministry of the Environment, DS 22/2025, published in the Official Gazette (opens in a new tab) on 2026-05-07.
• Ministry of the Environment, draft supreme decree for batteries and its regulatory impact assessment (Res. Ex. 821/2026) (opens in a new tab), with the extension granted by Res. Ex. 4,225/2026.
• Hazardous waste regulation, DS 148/2003, Ministry of Health.
• Publishable figures and their attribution: datos/estadisticas.json from Ecobaterías, as of 2026-09-18.