The EUDR in brief

What the EU Deforestation Regulation asks of a company placing cocoa, coffee, rubber, palm oil, soy, cattle or wood on the EU market, or exporting them from it.

A summary to orient you, not legal advice. Last checked against the published texts in October 2026.

Check in four questions Country risk The authorities' trial checks

What it requires

A product the Regulation covers may be placed on the EU market, made available on it or exported from it only if:

it is deforestation-free: produced on land that was not deforested after 31 December 2020, and, for wood, harvested without forest degradation;
it was produced in line with the relevant law of the country of production;
it is covered by a due diligence statement, or by the records the Regulation asks of the company handling it.

Which products

Seven commodities, cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy and wood, and the products made from them that Annex I lists by their customs codes. A product is in scope only if its code is listed. Since 18 September 2026, leather and hides, conveyor belts and other articles of vulcanised rubber are out of scope, and of a retreaded tyre only the new tread is in it; soluble coffee and further palm oil derivatives join on 30 December 2027.

Look up a customs code

Who must comply

The operator, the company that first places a product on the EU market or exports it, exercises due diligence and files a due diligence statement in the EU Information System before doing so. Where that company is outside the EU, the first company in the EU to make the product available is the operator.
Companies further down the chain file no statements of their own: they keep records of their suppliers and customers, the first of them with the upstream statement's reference, and the larger ones register in the Information System.
Micro and small operators that produce the commodity themselves in a low-risk country may file a one-time simplified declaration instead.

Does it apply to you?

From when

30 December 2026 for most operators. 30 June 2027 for companies that were micro or small on 31 December 2024, except for the wood products the EU Timber Regulation already covered.

For small companies

What the statement carries

The operator, the product, its customs code and its quantity, and the country of production.
The geolocation of every plot of land where the commodity was produced: an outline for a plot over four hectares, a point allowed below that; for cattle, every establishment where the animals were kept.
The confirmation that due diligence was exercised and found no risk, or only a negligible one.

Due diligence in three steps

Collect the information Article 9 lists, including adequately conclusive and verifiable evidence that the product is deforestation-free and legal.
Assess the risk of non-compliance against the criteria of Article 10.
Mitigate any risk that is not negligible (Article 11) before placing the product on the market. Where it cannot be brought down to negligible, the product is not placed.

Forest and deforestation

Forest is land of more than half a hectare with trees higher than five metres and a canopy cover above 10 percent, or trees able to reach those thresholds, excluding land predominantly under agricultural or urban use. Plantations such as oil palm and rubber, orchards and crops grown under trees are not forest.
Deforestation is the conversion of forest to agricultural use, whether caused by people or not. Satellite pictures show where tree cover was lost and when; what the land is used for now, your supplier shows.

Records and penalties

Due diligence information is kept for five years and given to the competent authorities on request.
Member states set the penalties, which include fines of up to at least 4 percent of a company's total annual turnover in the EU, confiscation of the products and of the revenue from them, and temporary exclusion from public procurement and public funding (Article 25).

Country risk

The Commission classifies every country of production as low, standard or high risk. Look up a country.

Low risk: simplified due diligence (Article 13), where every commodity in the goods comes from low-risk countries and nothing points to mixing or circumvention. Every plot's geolocation and the evidence that the goods are deforestation-free are still needed; a risk assessment and its mitigation only where something points to a risk. Authorities check at least 1 percent of these operators each year.
Standard risk: full due diligence. Authorities check at least 3 percent of these operators each year.
High risk: full due diligence and the closest scrutiny. Authorities check at least 9 percent of these operators, and 9 percent of the quantity, each year.

A country's level is not a finding about a plot: goods from a low-risk country must still be deforestation-free, and every plot is assessed in the same way whatever its country's level.

Every country not listed below is standard risk.

High risk

Belarus
Myanmar
North Korea
Russia

Low risk

Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Antigua & Barbuda
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belgium
Bhutan
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burundi
Canada
Cape Verde
Central African Republic
Chile
China
Costa Rica
Cuba
Cyprus
Czechia
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Egypt
Estonia
Eswatini
Fiji
Finland
France
Gabon
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Grenada
Guyana
Hungary
Iceland
India
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Madagascar
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Mauritius
Micronesia
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
North Macedonia
Norway
Oman
Palau
Palestinian Territories
Papua New Guinea
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Republic of the Congo
Romania
Rwanda
Samoa
San Marino
São Tomé & Príncipe
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Seychelles
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
South Africa
South Korea
South Sudan
Spain
Sri Lanka
St. Vincent & Grenadines
Suriname
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Tajikistan
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad & Tobago
Tunisia
Türkiye
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Vietnam
Yemen

Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093 (EU-2025-1093), in force since 26 May 2025.

The authorities' trial checks

Before the Regulation applied, authorities rehearsed their checks with companies that volunteered: the Dutch authority, the NVWA, in pilot inspections in 2025, and the Belgian, French, German and Dutch authorities in two trial checks of coffee importers with the European Forest Institute.

What they asked for

Due diligence that goes beyond collecting information: the information assessed, and the assessment and what followed from it recorded.
Operators who understand and can explain the data, methods and conclusions of their providers. Platforms and certification can support due diligence, but do not replace it.
A complete trail for one or a few shipments, from the product to the plots it came from, with the evidence for each plot.
How the geolocations were collected and checked.
Every overlap with the EU's own 2020 forest map explained, and how each false alarm was resolved.

What they found

Errors in the plots: overlapping and duplicated outlines, spikes, outlines off the visible boundary, and points placed on farmhouses rather than in the fields.
Legality given less attention than deforestation.
Documentation of hundreds of pages, with no index to what was asked for.
Claims that plots were deforestation-free, without the proof behind them.

None of it was judged too great to fix.

Choosing an evidence provider

Does its detection catch most of the real deforestation, while raising few false alarms?
Does a flag come with the questions that would settle it, and a way to put them to your supplier?
Does a result say when the pictures were not enough?
Can anyone you share a report with check it, years later?
Can you explain the provider's method to an authority?

How we do it

The texts

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