EUDR from 30 December 2026: what exporters need to have ready

On 30 December 2026 the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) starts to apply to large and medium companies that place soy, coffee, wood, cattle, cocoa, palm oil or rubber on the EU market. After two postponements, many exporters are still waiting to see if there will be a third. There will not be. This guide sets out where the regulation stands, who does what, what is different for Brazilian supply, and a practical six-week plan to be live by mid-November.

The short version. Your EU buyer files the due diligence statement. They need three things from you for every shipment: plot geolocation, proof the land was not deforested after 31 December 2020, and proof it was produced legally.

Where EUDR stands now

The EUDR was adopted in 2023 and was due to apply from December 2024. It was postponed twice. The second amendment, Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, came into force on 26 December 2025. It set the dates that now apply and simplified some obligations further down the chain.

• 30 December 2026: large and medium operators and traders, plus micro and small operators already covered by the EU Timber Regulation.
• 30 June 2027: other micro and small operators.
• 30 December 2027: newly added products, such as soluble coffee.

That amendment also asked the European Commission to review the regulation by April 2026. The review was published on 4 May 2026. The Commission concluded it does not consider further amendments appropriate, to preserve legal certainty. It adopted updated guidance, FAQs and an upgraded Information System instead. For planning purposes, 30 December 2026 is the date.

What every shipment into the EU needs

Under EUDR, an in-scope product can only enter or leave the EU market if it meets three conditions.

1. It is deforestation-free. It was produced on land that was not deforested after 31 December 2020. For wood, it was also harvested without degrading the forest after that date.
2. It was produced legally. It complies with the laws of the country of production, covering land use rights, environmental protection, labour and human rights, tax and trade rules.
3. It is covered by a due diligence statement. The statement is filed in the EU's EUDR Information System before the goods are placed on the market.

The foundation for all three is geolocation. Every plot of land that contributed to a shipment has to be identified: a single coordinate point for plots up to 4 hectares, and a polygon for anything larger. A shipment of soybean meal made from a thousand farms needs a thousand plots behind it.

Who does what

The 2025 amendment made the division of work clearer.

• The EU operator files. Only the company that first places the product on the EU market, usually the importer, submits a due diligence statement. It keeps the records for five years.
• Downstream buyers keep references. Companies that later buy the product inside the EU no longer file their own statement. The first of them keeps the reference numbers of the upstream statements, and all keep traceability records.
• Exporters supply the data. A Brazilian exporter is not an EU operator and does not file. But the importer cannot file without the exporter's plot, deforestation and legality data. In practice, the exporter's package is the statement's foundation.

That last point is where most of the work lands in the weeks ahead. Importers are already asking suppliers what they will receive with each shipment, and in what format.

What is different for Brazilian supply

The EU classifies each country as low, standard or high risk. Brazil is standard risk. That means EU operators buying from Brazil must carry out full due diligence, and authorities will check a larger share of them each year than for low-risk countries. The simplified declaration introduced for micro and small primary producers applies in low-risk countries, so Brazilian smallholders still need their plots geolocated.

Two other changes matter. First, the Amazon Soy Moratorium, long used by buyers as a shorthand for low deforestation risk, has effectively ended after major traders withdrew in January 2026. Buyers now need plot-level checks rather than a sector commitment. Second, Brazil already holds much of the data EUDR asks for, in the CAR rural environmental registry, IBAMA authorisations and DOF timber transport documents. The challenge is linking those records to each lot and passing them along the chain.

Commodity notes

Soy. Soybeans, soybean meal, flour and oil are in scope. Soybeans for sowing were removed from scope in 2026. The hard part is keeping the link to each farm as volumes from hundreds of suppliers are combined at warehouses and crushing plants.

Coffee. Green and roasted coffee are in scope now, with soluble coffee added from 30 December 2027. Coffee's challenge is scale: thousands of small plots, often without formal boundaries, consolidated by cooperatives and dry mills.

Wood. Timber and most wood products are in scope. For Brazilian wood, the legality side is as demanding as deforestation: IBAMA, DOF, CAR, Forest Code compliance, labour records and certification such as FSC or PEFC all have to be current and tied to the right area.

A six-week readiness plan: live by mid-November

The date that matters is when goods are placed on the EU market, not when they leave Brazil. Sea freight to Europe takes several weeks, so anything shipping from mid-November onwards needs to be compliant. That leaves about six weeks from early October.

1. Weeks 1 to 2: start an OriginsNext trial. Load one product, one buyer and a handful of suppliers. You will see exactly which data and documents each shipment needs, and where your gaps are, in days rather than weeks of mapping.
2. Weeks 2 to 4: fill the data gaps. Collect the missing plot points and polygons (starting from CAR boundaries), run the deforestation checks against the 31 December 2020 cut-off, attach the legality documents to each area, and set up your records so EUDR-ready product is kept separate from product of unknown origin.
3. Weeks 4 to 6: test a real shipment with your EU buyer. Build the complete package for one live shipment, share it with your importer, and fix whatever they cannot use.
4. By mid-November: go live. Apply the same process to every shipment that will arrive and be placed on the EU market from 30 December.

How OriginsNext helps

OriginsNext has three established ecosystems, SoyNet, CoffeeNet and WoodFlow EUDR, and the same platform supports every EUDR commodity, including cattle, cocoa, palm oil and rubber. Each network captures plot geolocation and legality records once, runs deforestation checks against the 2020 cut-off, keeps the data attached to each lot through processing, and lets EU importers file their due diligence statement in the EUDR Information System in one click.

See exactly what your shipments need. Explore every EUDR document for your country and commodity, then request a pre-configured EUDR Sandbox to test it on your own flows.

This article is general information based on the regulation and Commission publications as at September 2026. It is not legal advice.