Receipt Statistics 2026: Paper, Waste and BPA

On 1 January 2020, every shop in Germany with an electronic till had to start handing over a receipt for every sale, down to a single bread roll. The national retail association worked out what that would cost in paper: more than two million extra kilometres of receipts a year.

Three and a half years later, on 1 August 2023, France did the opposite. Shops stopped printing receipts unless the customer asked for one. The government's reason was a number: 30 billion till receipts, card slips and vouchers printed in France every year.

Then, on 23 September 2026, Germany's cabinet approved a draft law to replace its paper receipt with a digital one from 2028.

So the small slip of thermal paper is being legislated from both ends at once. The receipt statistics used to argue about it deserve a closer look than they usually get. The most-quoted one has been revised twice by the group that published it. The version still on some campaign pages is more than three times its current estimate. One government figure doesn't fit the weight of a real receipt.

We took each figure back to the study, regulator or survey that published it, using the most recent edition available on 24 October 2026. Where the arithmetic is ours, we say so.

Key findings at a glance

• The US used 284,100 metric tons of receipt paper in 2021, after a dip to 267,900 in 2020 (Green America, citing Grand View Research).
• France prints 12 billion till receipts a year, and 30 billion slips counting card receipts and vouchers (French government, July 2023).
• Australia printed about 10.7 billion receipts in 2019–20, on the University of Technology Sydney's estimate (UTS, 2023).
• The "12.4 million trees" figure dates from 2018. Green America revised it to 3.32 million in January 2019 and now says 3.68 million.
• Americans say they throw away or lose 49% of their paper receipts, even ones they meant to keep (Green America and Censuswide, May 2021).
• About 80% of US receipts tested in 2023 contained BPS, down from 93% carrying BPA or BPS in the Ecology Center's January 2018 study.
• BPS overtook BPA in EU thermal paper in 2019, the year before the EU's BPA ban took effect (ECHA, June 2020).
• Modern thermal paper can fade badly in five years, says the National Archives of Australia, against a US tax record window of three to seven years.
• Germany plans to end its paper receipt duty from 2028, saving businesses about €106 million a year, if parliament agrees (German government, September 2026).

How many receipts are printed each year?

Nobody counts receipts directly. Every national figure is an estimate built from something else: paper sold, card transactions, or a sample of receipts collected and measured. Here is what each country's best available source says.

Country	Estimate	Year	Built from	Source
United States	284,100 metric tons of receipt paper	2021	Thermal paper market data	Green America, citing Grand View Research
France	12 billion till receipts; 30 billion slips in all	Annual, stated 2023	Not stated	French government (DGCCRF)
Australia	10.656 billion receipts	2019–20	Card and cash transactions, and 708 receipts measured	University of Technology Sydney
Germany	More than 2 million extra kilometres a year	Forecast for 2020	Not stated	German Retail Federation (HDE), via dpa
European Union	477,000 tonnes of all thermal paper	2019	Manufacturers' and importers' reports	European Chemicals Agency

The EU line covers all thermal paper, including labels and tickets as well as receipts. It's our sum of the three developer types in ECHA's 2019 figures: 136,000 tonnes made with BPA, 187,000 with BPS and 154,000 with other chemicals.

The US series is the only one with more than one year in it.

US receipt paper use, 2019–2021

Point-of-sale thermal paper consumed in the United States, in metric tons per year

1. 2019280,000 t
2. 2020267,900 t
3. 2021284,100 t

Use fell by about 4% in 2020 and was back above its 2019 level by 2021, by our arithmetic. Green America says receipt paper use is "projected to continue increasing."

The receipt statistic everyone quotes, and where it came from

The figure you'll see most often is about trees. Depending on the page, US receipts use 12.4 million of them a year, or a little over 3 million. Both trace back to one source, Green America's Skip the Slip report, and the difference is its own revisions.

The first edition came out in May 2018. Green America later explained what it rested on: "the widely used statistic that the US produces 640,000 tons of receipt paper each year." Its note on that number is the most useful paragraph in the whole literature on receipts: "The original source of this number, AllEtronic, has since closed but we estimate the data came from 2009."

The May 2018 edition is still online. It says US "receipt use consumes over 12.4 million trees, 13 billion gallons of water, and generates 1.5 billion pounds of waste and 4 billion pounds of CO2".

In January 2019 Green America commissioned newer market data from Grand View Research, which put US receipt paper at 256,300 metric tonnes. The estimate dropped to "3.32 million trees, 9.08 billion gallons of water, 4.68 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, and 302 million pounds of solid waste".

The current edition, from September 2022, works from 2021 paper use and says receipt production used "about 3,680,000 trees".

Trees used by US receipts each year, by edition of the same report

Green America's estimate of trees consumed by US receipt paper production per year

1. May 2018, from 640,000 tons (data from about 2009)12.4M trees
2. January 2019, from 256,300 metric tonnes3.32M trees
3. September 2022, from 2021 use3.68M trees

The current estimate is about 30% of the first. Anyone still quoting 12.4 million trees is quoting a tonnage Green America believes dates from about 2009, from a company that has since closed.

The revisions also sit side by side on Green America's own page. One paragraph says receipts use "3,680,000 trees and 10 billion gallons of water every year in the US". Another says "over three million trees and nearly nine billion gallons of water". Both are Green America's, from different editions. If you quote one, say which.

Do the per-receipt numbers add up?

Not always, and the French figure is the clearest case. The French government says: "A eux seuls, les 12 milliards de tickets de caisse représentent 150 000 tonnes de papier". That's 12 billion till receipts weighing 150,000 tonnes.

Divide one by the other and each receipt weighs 12.5 grams. That's our arithmetic, and it's easy to check against a real receipt.

The University of Technology Sydney measured 708 receipts collected across grocery, transport, clothing, restaurants, chemists and other shops. The average was 24.8cm long and 7.7cm wide, on paper of 57 grams per square metre. The study puts 100 million such receipts at 108.93 tonnes, or about 1.09 grams each.

What one receipt weighs, measured and implied

Grams of paper per receipt

1. Average receipt, measured by UTS1.09 g
2. Implied by the French figures12.5 g

At the UTS weight, 12 billion receipts would come to about 13,000 tonnes, not 150,000. The French figure is more than eleven times what a measured receipt weighs.

A second check points the same way. ECHA counted 477,000 tonnes of thermal paper of every kind on the EU market in 2019. At 150,000 tonnes, French till receipts alone would be almost a third of it, in a country with well under a fifth of the bloc's population.

We don't know where the 150,000 tonnes came from. It may cover all of France's thermal paper, or count something other than till receipts. The 12 billion and 30 billion counts may be fine. The tonnage, as stated, doesn't fit them.

How many receipts get lost or thrown away?

About half, by shoppers' own account. Censuswide surveyed 1,011 US adults for Green America in May 2021. On average, respondents said "they throw away or lose 49 percent of the paper receipts they receive, even ones they intended to keep." Almost a third, 32%, agreed with the statement "I often throw away paper receipts without thinking about it".

The cost shows up when the receipt is needed again. Three surveys have asked, in three different ways.

Survey	Who was asked	Finding
Green America and Censuswide, May 2021	1,011 US adults	49% of paper receipts thrown away or lost, on average
Flux, February 2021	2,000 UK adults	20% had lost out because of a lost or damaged paper receipt; 10% had missed out on expenses; 9% couldn't claim on a warranty
InComm, October 2019	More than 500 US consumers	46% had been unable to make a return, usually because of a lost receipt or a missed return window

Read the three as separate snapshots. They ask different questions of different people, and two come from companies with something to sell: Flux makes digital receipts, and InComm, a prepaid card processor, used its release to pitch product-tracking technology for returns.

Flux put a price on it. UK shoppers "lost an average of £54 each the last time this happened to them", which it scaled to a national loss of £558 million. That figure is Flux's extrapolation, not a measured total. For a receipt missing from an expense claim, our guide to a lost receipt on an expense claim covers what finance teams usually accept instead.

A lost receipt doesn't always end the return. Appriss Retail counts $68 billion of US returns in 2025 that came back with no receipt at all, 9.6% of return volume. Our retail returns report covers how stores handle them, and our guide to returning something without a receipt covers what eight large chains say in their policies.

Do people want the alternative? It depends who asks. In the same Green America survey, 86% said they'd like retailers to offer digital receipts, and nearly 44% had already signed up for one. A 2023 poll by Tulchin Research for the Paper Receipts Converting Association, a trade group, asked about preference instead. As reported by the paper maker Domtar, "72% of U.S. consumers said they prefer a paper receipt when shopping in person, compared to 25% who prefer a digital option."

The two aren't contradictory. Wanting digital receipts offered isn't the same as wanting paper taken away. But note who paid for each: a campaign against paper receipts, and an industry that prints them.

What's on the paper: BPA and BPS

Most receipts are printed on thermal paper, the narrow roll our guide to how receipts are designed measures. There's no ink. The paper is coated with a dye and a chemical called a developer, and heat from the printer makes them react. For years the usual developer was bisphenol A (BPA). Since BPA came under regulation, it has mostly been replaced by a close relative, bisphenol S (BPS).

Share of tested US receipts containing a bisphenol

Percentage of receipts tested by the Ecology Center found to contain BPA or BPS

1. January 2018 study93%
2. March 2023 study, BPSNearly 80%
3. March 2023 study, BPAUnder 1%

The 93% that appears in nearly every article on receipts comes from the Ecology Center, a Michigan nonprofit. Its January 2018 study reported "BPA or BPS in 93% of tested receipts", with "BPS in 75% and BPA in 18%". It tested 208 receipts from shops, gas stations, restaurants and libraries.

Its 2023 study, released with Toxic-Free Future, found "BPS in nearly 80% of receipts tested". BPA was "found in less than 1% of receipts tested", and safer chemical alternatives turned up in 20%. So the 93% describes receipts collected around 2017, and what has changed since is mostly which bisphenol is used.

Europe shows the same swap at scale. The EU banned BPA in thermal paper at 0.02% or more by weight, from 2 January 2020. ECHA, the EU chemicals agency, tracked the market in four surveys. The last one found that "In 2019, bisphenol S (BPS) took over the status of bisphenol A (BPA) as the main developer used in thermal paper". It forecast that by 2022, 61% of EU thermal paper would be BPS-based.

ECHA wasn't pleased by what it found. "Replacing a hazardous substance with one that is also suspected to be hazardous is not what regulators or EU citizens want to see," its director for risk management said.

Does handling receipts matter? The best-known study is a small pilot, published in JAMA in 2014. Twenty-four volunteers at the Harvard School of Public Health handled receipts for two hours without gloves. BPA was found in the urine of 83% of them beforehand and all of them afterwards, with a peak "more than a five-fold increase in BPA compared to baseline". With gloves there was no significant increase. The lead author was careful about it: "a larger study is needed to confirm our findings and evaluate the clinical implications of this type of exposure."

The people most exposed are the ones who handle receipts all day. ECHA says the EU ban followed a French proposal "which identified a risk for workers (primarily cashiers)". In the US, Green America found no federal rule on phenols in thermal paper. Connecticut banned BPA in receipt paper in 2011, according to Green America. Washington's rule, in force since 1 January 2026, goes further and restricts bisphenols as a group in thermal paper.

How long does a receipt last?

Not as long as the records it's meant to support. The National Archives of Australia says modern thermal papers, "even with optimum storage and handling conditions, can be expected to display significant fading in as little as five years." It adds: "Thermal paper is, therefore, not a suitable medium for records of permanent or long-term value."

Manufacturers promise more, under conditions few wallets meet.

Paper or record	How long	Source
Modern thermal paper, in an archive	Significant fading "in as little as five years"	National Archives of Australia
Koehler KT 48 FA, a standard receipt paper	"10 years durability at correct storage"	Koehler datasheet
Koehler Blue4est, a developer-free paper	"Minimum 35 years durability at correct storage"	Koehler datasheet
Most US tax records	Keep for 3 years	IRS
Records where income was under-reported by more than 25%	Keep for 6 years	IRS
Records for a bad debt or worthless securities claim	Keep for 7 years	IRS

The mismatch is the point. A standard receipt in a warm car or a sunny drawer can fade before the IRS's six- or seven-year window closes. A photo or scan taken on the day lasts longer than the paper. Our guide to how long to keep receipts sets out each clock. If a receipt has faded past reading, our guide to lost receipts for taxes sets out what the IRS accepts in its place. For everything else, see what to do when you lose a receipt.

Where receipts are going: the laws

Governments have pulled the receipt in two directions: printed every time, to stop tax evasion, or printed only on request, to cut waste. Here's the record.

Date	Where	What happened
12 December 2016	European Union	BPA restricted in thermal paper, at 0.02% or more by weight, from 2 January 2020
2019	California	AB 161, to make digital receipts the default, passed the Assembly and failed in the Senate
1 January 2020	Germany	Shops with electronic tills must issue a receipt for every sale
10 February 2020	France	The anti-waste law (loi AGEC) ends automatic printing, later set for August 2023
30 May 2023	California	AB 1347, Skip the Slip, passes the Assembly 49 to 17
1 August 2023	France	Receipts printed only on request, with exceptions
30 November 2024	California	AB 1347 leaves Senate committee "without further action" and dies
1 January 2026	Washington	Bisphenols restricted in thermal paper
23 September 2026	Germany	Cabinet approves a draft law replacing the paper receipt with a digital one from 2028

Germany wrote its receipt duty into the Fiscal Code. Section 146a requires a business recording sales on an electronic system to issue "einen Beleg über den Geschäftsvorfall", a receipt for the transaction, and calls it the Belegausgabepflicht. The retail federation's forecast was blunt: "Im Einzelhandel in Deutschland rechnen wir mit mehr als zwei Millionen Kilometern zusätzlicher Länge an Kassenbons im Jahr." That's more than two million extra kilometres of receipts a year.

The September 2026 draft keeps the duty and changes the medium. Customers would fetch the receipt "per QR-Code auf dem Kassendisplay, per Download-Link oder direkt im Kundenkonto": by QR code on the till display, a download link or a customer account. Anyone who wants paper can still have it. The government puts the saving to businesses at "etwa 106 Millionen Euro" a year. The bill still needs both houses of parliament. The crafts federation ZDH has already called the draft a breach of trust, because the coalition had promised to scrap the duty altogether.

France kept printing compulsory where a receipt proves something. The exceptions include goods under legal warranty, weighed goods, services of €25 or more, "les notes et additions dans le secteur de la restauration et de l'hôtellerie" (restaurant and hotel bills), and access to roads and car parks. A hotel bill is one receipt France still requires to be printed. Our guide to getting a copy of a hotel receipt covers how to find one afterwards.

Shops moved without waiting. Green America reports that CVS switched to phenol-free paper in all 10,000 of its stores. When CVS added a prompt in April 2022 letting customers choose a printed, digital or no receipt, it saved more than 87 million yards of paper in four months. Whole Foods says its receipts are half the length they were in 2019. Walgreens committed to phenol-free paper at nearly 9,000 stores by the end of 2023, according to Toxic-Free Future.

What it all adds up to

The receipt is shrinking, but slowly, and mostly by choice. France made it optional. Germany is about to make it digital. California tried twice and got nowhere. Green America found many US retailers still offer only paper.

The numbers about it need more care than they get. The most-quoted tree count rests on a tonnage from about 2009, revised away twice by the group that published it. The 93% is a sample from around 2017. And one national tonnage implies a receipt eleven times heavier than any we could find measured.

What holds up is simpler. People say they lose about half their receipts. The paper fades within years. When the receipt is the only proof, of a return, a warranty or a business expense, keeping a copy is worth the ten seconds it takes. Making one up afterwards isn't: our expense fraud report shows that most fake receipts flagged on one large audit platform are now made with AI.

How we compiled this report

Every source was read on 24 October 2026.

• We read the primary release wherever it exists. That means the ECHA report, both Ecology Center studies, the UTS report, the French and German government pages, the German Fiscal Code and the California bill history. We read the Ecology Center's 2018 file in an archived copy of the original.
• We traced each number to the edition it came from. Green America's report has three versions with different figures. Each figure above names its edition.
• Where only a summary survives, we say so. The HDE forecast reached us through dpa's report, as carried by German newspapers. The 2023 paper preference poll reached us through Domtar's account of it.
• We read each survey's method before its headline. Sample sizes, fieldwork dates and sponsors are recorded with every survey here, and vendor surveys are marked as such.
• Our arithmetic is labelled as ours. That covers the US change from year to year, the EU total, the receipt weights, France's share and the tree comparison.

What we could not verify

• A count of receipts printed in the US. Green America reports tonnage and no number of receipts. A figure of "over 300 billion receipts" a year appears in a December 2023 University of Illinois presentation with no source, so we haven't used it.
• The UK's "11.2 billion" receipts. The figure appears in coverage of research by Yocuda, a digital receipt company, with no method we could find.
• The Tulchin poll's method. We found no topline, field dates or question wording for the 72% paper preference figure, only Domtar's summary.
• How France arrived at 150,000 tonnes. Neither government page gives a method, and the figure doesn't reconcile with a measured receipt weight.
• The HDE's original statement. We found the two-million-kilometre forecast only in dpa's report, quoted the same way by several papers.
• The Ecology Center's two 2017 baselines. Its January 2018 study gives BPS at 75% and BPA at 18%. The 2023 release gives 2017 figures of 84% and 9%. Both add up to 93%, but the split differs, and we couldn't find why.
• Flux's "90 per cent" claim. Retail Systems reports earlier Flux research saying 90% of paper receipts end up lost or damaged. We found no method for it, so it isn't in the findings.
• Any measured EU figure after 2019. ECHA's 2022 numbers are forecasts, and ECHA stopped surveying once the BPA ban took effect.
• Whether Germany's draft becomes law. On 24 October 2026 it had cabinet approval only.

Corrections and updates

Published 24 October 2026. No corrections have been made since.

If a figure here is wrong, or one of these sources has published a newer edition, tell us. We'll correct it and record the change here.

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