EU Deforestation Regulation Breaking News - One Year Delay Proposed, Guidance and FAQs Issued and More

As we have been predicting for some time now (see this post), the European Commission has proposed delaying EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) compliance by a year. Under the proposal, large companies would have until December 30, 2025 to comply and SMEs would have until June 30, 2026. The proposal is subject to European Parliament and Council approval, but that is widely expected.

There were numerous additional EUDR developments announced by the Commission, including those below.

The European Commission is publishing additional EUDR guidance. The guidance is divided into 11 chapters covering a diverse range of topics such as legality requirements, timeframe of application, agricultural use and clarifications on product scope. Among other things, the guidance addresses traceability obligations, the functionalities of the Information System and penalties and provides clarifications on definitions such as “forest degradation,” "operator" and “placing on the market.”

In addition, the Commission has updated its EUDR FAQs to include more than 40 additional answers.

The Commission also is publishing the principles of the methodology it will apply to EUDR benchmarking to classify countries as low, standard or high risk for purposes of operator due diligence. The Commission has indicated that a "large majority" of countries will be classified as low risk. Finalization of the country benchmarking system is expected by June 30, 2025.

Lastly, the Information System where businesses will register their due diligence statements will be ready to start accepting registrations in early November and for full operation in December. 

The Deforestation Regulation is discussed in detail in our earlier Alert here.

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