EU Deforestation Regulation requirements

The core EUDR gate applies to relevant commodities and relevant products. They cannot be placed on the EU market, made available on the EU market, or exported unless they are deforestation-free, produced in accordance with relevant legislation of the country of production, and covered by the required due diligence statement or simplified declaration.

Start every requirements review by matching the product to Annex I and assigning the transaction role. An operator places relevant products on the market or exports them. A downstream operator places on the market or exports relevant products made using products already covered by a due diligence statement or simplified declaration. A trader makes relevant products available on the market and is not an operator or downstream operator.

Operators must exercise due diligence before placing relevant products on the market or exporting them. The due diligence system has three required parts: information collection under Article 9, risk assessment under Article 10, and risk mitigation under Article 11 when the risk is not negligible.

A due diligence workflow should stop a transaction unless the evidence file supports Article 3 compliance and the risk assessment shows no or only negligible risk. When the review does not reach that result, mitigation has to happen before the product is placed on the market or exported.

Article 9 information is the evidence base for the whole EUDR decision. It should connect the relevant product to the supplier, the commodity origin, the production plot or establishment, and the documents showing deforestation-free and legal production.

For normal operator due diligence, geolocation is a required information category. For micro or small primary operators covered by the simplified declaration regime, the cited EUDR extracts state that Article 9(1)(d) geolocation may be replaced by the postal address of the plots of land or the establishment.

An operator must not place a relevant product on the market or export it without prior submission of a due diligence statement when that route applies. If due diligence concludes compliance, the operator makes the statement available through the Article 33 information system and assumes responsibility for Article 3 compliance.

Operators can mandate an authorised representative to submit the due diligence statement or simplified declaration, but the operator retains responsibility. After filing, the operator should pass the due diligence statement reference number, or the simplified declaration identifier where that regime applies, to downstream operators and traders.

Downstream operators and traders have their own EUDR duties. They may place, make available, or export relevant products only if they possess the required Article 5 information, including supplier details and, where the supplier is an operator, the due diligence statement reference number or simplified declaration identifier.

The cited EUDR extracts also require non-SME downstream operators and non-SME traders to register in the Article 33 information system before the relevant activity. If relevant new information indicates that a product they have placed or made available is at risk of non-compliance, downstream operators and traders must immediately inform competent authorities and downstream recipients. For exports, downstream operators must inform the competent authority of the Member State that is the country of production. Before the relevant activity, non-SME actors must immediately inform competent authorities if they receive information indicating non-compliance; when they receive substantiated concerns, they must also verify the due diligence and not proceed unless the verification demonstrates no or only negligible risk.

Country benchmarking affects how much due diligence work is required, but it does not remove the need to prove the route used. All countries start at standard risk under the cited EUDR material, and the Commission benchmarking list classifies countries or parts of countries as low or high risk by implementing acts.

When relevant products are produced in low-risk countries or parts of countries, operators are not required to fulfil Articles 10 and 11 if they have assessed supply-chain complexity and risks of circumvention or mixing, ascertained low-risk production, and can provide documentation on request showing negligible circumvention or mixing risk.

Do not confuse this simplified due diligence route with the Article 4a simplified declaration. Article 13 changes the due diligence steps for eligible low-risk production; Article 4a is a separate filing and location-data regime limited to qualifying micro or small primary operators.

EUDR records need to show both the legal route and the factual trail. Operators keep due diligence statement records for five years. Downstream operators and traders keep Article 5 information for at least five years and provide it to competent authorities on request.

A practical evidence file should let a reviewer move from the Annex I product decision to the role classification, supplier data, geolocation or permitted address data, legal-production evidence, risk assessment, mitigation, DDS or declaration filing, and downstream communications.

Operators must also review the due diligence system at least once a year and whenever new developments could affect it, updating the system when necessary. Keep a record of those updates for five years and identify which open or completed product files need reassessment.