As of January 1, 2026, the California Covered Battery-Embedded (CBE) Waste Recycling Fee requires merchants to charge a 1.5% fee (capped at $15) to customers based in California when selling certain products with embedded batteries, like smartphones and smartwatches.

You are responsible for ensuring that you understand and follow applicable regulations and are responsible for any non-compliance. Information in this article is intended to provide general information, not legal advice. To determine specific requirements and best practices for your business, consult with your legal counsel or the Covered Electronic Waste Recycling Fees Guide provided by the government of California.

Enabling the CBE fee for an individual product

You must have shipping to the US configured in your settings to enable the CBE fee.

To enable the CBE fee for a product:

1. Navigate to Products and click an eligible product.
2. Under Inventory and Variants, click Default or the applicable variant.
3. Under Prices, toggle on Subject to CBE Fee.
4. Click Save.
5. Repeat for each variant as needed.

Enabling the CBE fee on products in bulk

If you have a large number of CBE products, you can bulk update them with a product import.

1. Click Tools > Exports > Add Export.

   

2. Click the Select what to export dropdown and select Products.
3. Click Export.
4. When the Status updates to Finished, click Download.
5. Open the downloaded file in Excel or Google Sheets. 
6. In the spreadsheet, delete the rows of any products that don’t require the CBE fee.
7. Delete all columns, except for:
   • Internal_ID
   • Internal_Variant_ID
   • XX_Title_Short

8. Add a new column and enter Subject_To_CBE_Fee as the column header.

   

   The column header must exactly match Subject_To_CBE_Fee to ensure the information correctly applies in the Back Office.

9. Update the column data for all rows to Y. Ensure that any product rows where CBE doesn't apply are deleted or set to N.
10. Download the spreadsheet as a CSV file.
11. In eCom (C-Series), navigate to Tools > Imports > New Import.
12. Drag and drop your file or click Browse Computer to locate the file on your computer.

13. Click the Set category dropdown and select Products.

    

14. Click the Behavior dropdown and select Only update existing products.
15. Click the Find by dropdown and select Product/Variant ID.
16. In the Set Field Types section, review the list of columns and the mapped eCom product fields.
17. Click Continue. 

Once complete, the import will display as Finished and will be listed on the Imports page with the file details and import date.

Confirming the CBE Fee was applied to products

After completing the import, resolve any errors and check the product variants to confirm that the CBE fee toggle has been applied to the products.

1. Navigate to Products and click an eligible product.
2. Under Inventory and Variants, click Default or the applicable variant.
3. Under Prices, confirm that Subject to CBE Fee is toggled on.