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.

Match the exact product to Annex I and assign the transaction role. An operator first places a relevant product on the EU market or exports it, excluding downstream operators. A downstream operator places or exports a relevant product made using relevant products that are all covered by due diligence statements or simplified declarations. A trader makes relevant products available commercially and is neither their operator nor their downstream operator.

Deforestation-free means the relevant commodities were produced on land not deforested after 31 December 2020. For products containing or made using wood, the wood must also have been harvested without inducing forest degradation after that date.

Operators must exercise due diligence before placing relevant products on the market or exporting them. The standard due diligence route combines Article 9 information collection, Article 10 risk assessment, and Article 11 mitigation when risk is not negligible. Under Article 13, qualifying low-risk production may omit Articles 10 and 11 after the required complexity, circumvention, and mixing checks.

A due diligence workflow should stop a transaction unless the evidence file supports Article 3 compliance. On the standard route, the Article 10 assessment must show no or only negligible risk after any necessary mitigation. On the Article 13 route, retain Article 9 information and evidence of the simplification conditions; relevant information pointing to non-compliance or circumvention triggers Articles 10 and 11 and immediate communication to the competent authority.

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.

Article 9 requires all production plots or, for cattle, every establishment where the animals were kept, plus the production date or time range. Plot coordinates use at least six decimal digits; non-cattle plots larger than four hectares require polygons. Qualifying micro or small primary operators may use the Article 4a postal-address option.

Also collect the product description and relevant inputs, quantity, production country and relevant part, supplier and business-recipient names, postal and email addresses, and conclusive, verifiable deforestation-free and legality evidence. Wood descriptions include common and full scientific species names. For imports and exports, quantity uses kilograms of net mass and any applicable supplementary unit; other transactions use net mass, volume or item count as applicable.

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 must communicate 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.

Article 5 also requires non-SME (outside the micro, small and medium-sized enterprise categories) 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.

The Commission classifies countries or parts as low or high risk through Article 29 implementing acts. Countries not listed in either category remain standard risk. Record the current act and review date for each production origin.

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.

Operators retain due diligence documentation for at least five years and statement records for five years from submission. Downstream operators and traders retain Article 5 information for at least five years from placing, making available, or export 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.

Operators outside the SME and natural-person categories must also report publicly each year on their due diligence system, including product and production-country information, risk conclusions, mitigation, and relevant consultation. Article 12 allows the required information to be included in reporting under other applicable Union value-chain due diligence laws.