The EU Parliament and Council gave the final green light to amendments to the EU’s deforestation law which seeks to fight climate change and biodiversity loss by ensuring products sold in the EU are not sourced from deforested land.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 420 million hectares of forest – an area larger than the EU – were lost to deforestation between 1990 and 2020. EU consumption is responsible for around 10% of global deforestation. Palm oil and soya account for more than two thirds of this.
Under the amendments to the Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), all businesses will have one more year to comply with new EU rules to prevent deforestation.
Large operators and traders will have to apply the regulation from 30 December 2026, and small operators – private individuals and enterprises with under 50 employees and an annual turnover related to the products concerned of less than €10 million – from 30 June 2027.
This additional time is intended to guarantee a smooth transition and to allow time to improve the IT system that operators, traders and their representatives use to make electronic due diligence statements.
Micro and small primary operators will now only have to submit a one-off simplified declaration, making it easier for businesses to comply with the law without compromising on its objectives.
Only businesses that are first to place a relevant product on the EU market will be responsible for submitting due diligence statements, and not the operators and traders that subsequently commercialise it.
By 30 April 2026, the Commission must present a report to assess the law’s impact and administrative burden, in particular for micro and small operators.
Finally, printed products are removed from the scope of the regulation, as requested by Parliament.
Adopted text (17.12.2025), European Parliament
EP research: Towards deforestation-free commodities and products in the EU (7.9.2022)
