Food & drink · State quirk · Reviewed Oct 21, 2026
Is there a bottle deposit?
Each state is colored by its answer. The smallest states have labeled boxes beside the map. Select a state for the rule, its source, and who to contact to confirm it.
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The answer at a glance
We checked all 50 states. The answers are “Bottle deposit law” in 10 states and “No bottle deposit” in 40 states. The most common answer is “No bottle deposit”, in 40 states.
Bottle deposit law10 states
No bottle deposit40 states
Of the 50 answers, 11 are high confidence, 39 are medium, and 0 are low. Low-confidence answers carry a Needs confirmation note.
What this map covers
Whether state law puts a refundable deposit on beverage containers such as cans and bottles of soda, beer, or water, so shoppers pay a few cents extra and get it back when they return the container. City programs, voluntary store programs, and recycling fees that are not refunded are excluded.
Bottle deposit law
A state law in effect requires a refundable deposit on at least some beverage containers sold in the state. Laws passed but not yet in effect count only if containers are already carrying the deposit; otherwise use `no-deposit` and explain in `details`.
No bottle deposit
No state law currently requires a refundable deposit on beverage containers. A repealed law, a law not yet in effect, or a non-refundable recycling fee does not count as a deposit.
Unclear
The law is silent, ambiguous, or the sources conflict.
The answer often depends on the region. “Bottle deposit law” is most common in the Northeast (5 of 9 states) and “No bottle deposit” is most common in the South (16 of 16 states).
4 states give an answer that none of their neighbors share: Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Crossing one of these borders means a different answer on the other side.
Where bottle deposits started
Oregon passed the country's first bottle bill in 1971. According to the state's Department of Environmental Quality, the aim was to cut a growing litter problem and conserve resources. The bill cleared the Oregon House 54 to 6 and the Senate 22 to 8, and Governor Tom McCall signed it that July.
Vermont followed in 1972 and Michigan in 1976, according to a 2024 report by the Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency. Michigan's law began as a voter initiative and took effect in 1977. Because voters wrote it, the Legislature needs a three-fourths majority to amend it, which makes changes harder than for an ordinary law. Maine's program began in 1978, and New York's law passed in 1982 and took effect in 1983. Hawaii is the newest, with deposits since January 2005.
A 2023 overview prepared for Rhode Island lawmakers counted ten states with a bottle bill law: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont. That list still matches the map today. Delaware had a deposit law too, but repealed it in 2010 and replaced it with a recycling fee that has since expired.
Most deposit states charge 5 cents a container. Michigan and Oregon charge 10 cents, and Connecticut rose from 5 to 10 cents in 2024. California charges 5 cents for containers under 24 ounces and 10 cents for larger ones, and 25 cents for wine and spirits sold in boxes, bags and pouches. Maine charges 15 cents on wine and liquor bottles larger than 50 milliliters, and Vermont charges 15 cents on liquor bottles.
Deposits are set in law, so they don't rise with prices on their own. The Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency worked out that the 10-cent deposit Michigan voters chose in 1976 had the buying power of about 55 cents in 2024. Even so, Michigan's deposit is still among the highest in the country.
What counts as a covered drink varies just as much. Some states cover only beer and soda, while others include water, juice, sports drinks, tea and canned wine. In Michigan, two identical plastic bottles can be treated differently: one holding soda carries a deposit, and one holding still water does not. Citing the Container Recycling Institute, the same Michigan report says plastic water bottle sales grew by 2,767 percent from 1997 to 2021. Widening coverage isn't always popular. In 2014, Massachusetts voters rejected a ballot question to extend the state's deposit to more noncarbonated drinks, 1,561,591 votes to 564,381.
A deposit moves along the supply chain. The shopper pays it at the register, and the store or redemption center refunds it when the empty comes back. The distributor then repays the store. Several states, including Maine, New York and Iowa, also require a handling fee for each container, paid to stores or redemption centers to cover the work of sorting and storing empties. New York's fee is 3.5 cents per container, up from 2 cents in 2009. Iowa raised its handling fee to 3 cents in 2023.
Deposits on containers that never come back add up. In Michigan, about 27 percent of eligible bottles and cans were not returned in 2023, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency. That unclaimed money goes to the state. The state first sets aside $1 million a year for State Police enforcement. Of the rest, 75 percent goes to a trust fund that pays to clean up contaminated sites, and 25 percent goes to stores based on how many containers they handle.
New York began taking a share of its unclaimed deposits in 2009. Distributors must now send the state 80 percent of the unclaimed balance every quarter. The law puts that money in the general fund, except for $23 million a year, plus any amount above a baseline of at least $122.2 million, which goes to the state's Environmental Protection Fund.
Hawaii pays for its program a different way. On top of the 5-cent deposit, distributors pay the state a container fee of 1 or 1.5 cents that is never refunded. So shoppers typically pay about 6 cents a container and get 5 cents back.
Oregon's DEQ says the state's redemption rate topped 90 percent in the bottle bill's first 15 years but had fallen to 75 percent by 2009. Lawmakers then added a trigger: if the rate stayed below 80 percent for two years in a row, the refund would double to 10 cents. The trigger was met, and the deposit doubled. For 2024, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission calculated a statewide redemption rate of 87.41 percent. Metal cans came back most often, at about 90 percent, and glass least often, at about 75 percent.
Returns have slipped in other states. In Michigan, the share of deposit containers returned fell from nearly 89 percent in 2019 to 73 percent in 2023. The Senate Fiscal Agency says most deposit states have seen flat or falling returns, and no full study has explained why. New York's DEC reports that about 9 billion deposit containers were sold in 2022 and 6.4 billion were redeemed, a 70 percent rate. The DEC credits the law with cutting beverage container litter by 70 percent.
A bigger deposit may help. Connecticut's average redemption rate was 55.9 percent in the first two quarters after its 2024 changes, up from an average of 43.8 percent a quarter the year before. Connecticut added new drinks at the same time it raised the deposit, though, so the Michigan report notes it's hard to tell how much of the jump came from the higher amount.
Each deposit is paid and refunded inside one state's system, so a can bought where there is no deposit has had nothing paid on it. Michigan, one of three states with a 10-cent deposit, spells out what happens when containers cross the line. Its law makes it illegal to return, or try to return, a container for a refund if it wasn't bought in Michigan as a filled returnable container, or if no deposit was paid on it. Penalties rise with the number of containers. A civil fine of up to $100 applies to 25 to 100 containers. Larger amounts and repeat cases are misdemeanors, and returning 10,000 or more is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. In criminal cases, courts must also order restitution. Michigan State Police investigate these cases, funded by the $1 million set aside each year from unclaimed deposits.
Within a state, the rules for returns vary. Michigan stores must take back the kinds and brands of containers they sell, even if the shopper bought them at a different store in the state, and they may cap refunds at $25 per person per day. Oregon requires containers to carry an “OR 10¢” label starting October 1, 2026.
Not every charge on a drink is a deposit. Nebraska and New Jersey charge businesses a litter fee on certain products, but shoppers never get that money back, so those states are marked as having no deposit.
Several states without deposits are trying a different approach: laws that make packaging companies pay for recycling, often called extended producer responsibility. Colorado passed one in 2022, Minnesota in 2024, and Maryland and Washington in 2025. Washington's law says a deposit system would be fitted into the program only if one is enacted in the future. These programs charge producers, not shoppers, so they are not deposits.
A few states have kept cities from starting their own deposits. Texas law bars local governments from charging a fee or deposit on containers or packages. Virginia's law overrides any local ordinance that requires a deposit on a disposable container, and Arizona bars cities and towns from charging consumers a return deposit on containers such as beverage cans and bottles.
New deposit bills are filed almost every year. In the 2025–2026 sessions, bills were filed in Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Washington, but none became law. Rhode Island is studying a deposit system, with a final report due by December 1, 2026. Congress has seen proposals too. In October 2023, a Senate bill called the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act proposed a national refund of at least 10 cents on beverage containers. It was sent to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and no later version of it was printed.
10 states: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont. Here, “Bottle deposit law” means: A state law in effect requires a refundable deposit on at least some beverage containers sold in the state. Laws passed but not yet in effect count only if containers are already carrying the deposit; otherwise use `no-deposit` and explain in `details`.
None. No state currently fits “Unclear”: The law is silent, ambiguous, or the sources conflict.
How current is this information?
All 50 states were last fully reviewed on Oct 21, 2026. Each row in the table shows the date its source was last checked. We recheck every topic against its sources twice a year, because many state laws take effect in January and July.
Where do these answers come from?
50 of the 50 answers cite an official state source, such as a legislature's code site or a state agency, and 0 more cite a faithful copy of the official text, such as Cornell's Legal Information Institute or Justia. News stories and guides can point us to a rule, but they never decide an answer. Read the full methodology.