The European Council announced an agreement by EU member states to delay the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) – a new law aimed at ensuring that products imported to or exported from EU markets no longer contribute to deforestation and forest degradation globally – by a year, and to introduce new simplification measures to ease compliance obligations for companies under the new law, beyond those recently proposed by the European Commission.
The Council’s position forms the basis of its negotiating mandate in upcoming negotiations with the EU Parliament on proposed changes to the EUDR regulation. If approved, the move would mark the second one-year postponement of the deforestation regulation, and would come just weeks prior to its scheduled implementation.
Earlier this week, several major companies operating in the areas targeted by the EUDR published a letter warning against further simplifications and delays, which they said would introduce new uncertainties for companies, and unfairly punish businesses which had already invested in systems to comply with the new regulations.
The EUDR was initially introduced by the EU Commission in November 2021, with proposals aimed at effectively banning deforestation-linked products on the EU market, and establishing strong compliance requirements for companies providing or utilizing key commodities and products such as palm oil, beef, timber, coffee, cocoa, rubber and soy, in addition to some of their derived products, such as leather, chocolate, tires, or furniture.
Under the EUDR’s rules, companies that want to place relevant products on the EU market, or export them, will face mandatory due diligence obligations, including a requirement to trace the products back to the plot of land where it was produced, to prove that the products were produced on land that was not subject to deforestation after 2020, and are compliant with all relevant applicable laws in force in the country of production.
The regulation was initially set to enter into force at the end of 2024, but was delayed by a year at the request of the Commission to give companies more time to prepare for its compliance obligations.
In September 2025, the Commission considered proposing a second one-year delay due to concerns that IT systems currently in place will not be sufficient to handle the data load created by the new regulation. In October, however, the Commission’s formal proposal retained plans to have the EUDR enter into force at the end of this year, but introduced a six-month enforcement grace period, and gave small enterprises until the end of 2026 to begin complying with the regulation.
The Commission’s new proposal also introduced a series of simplification measures into the EUDR regulation, shifting the focus of reporting obligations to the operators that actually place the relevant EUDR products on the market, while downstream operators such as retailers or manufacturers would no longer be obliged to submit due diligence statements, requiring only one submission, instead of multiple ones, in the EUDR IT system across the supply chain. For micro and small primary operators, the Commission’s new proposal reduced their obligation to submit only a simple, one-off declaration in the EUDR IT system, while if the information is already available, the operators would not have to take any action in the IT System themselves, replacing the previous need for regular submissions of due diligence statements.
The EU Council’s new position, however, would delay the implementation of the EUDR until the end of 2026 for larger enterprises, and until mid-2027 for small and micro operators.
The Council’s position also adds further simplifications to those proposed by the Commission, including requiring only the first downstream operator, and not those further downstream, to retain due diligence information, and allowing small operators to provide traceability data based on postal codes instead of geolocation.
Most significantly, the Council’s position leaves the EUDR regulation open to further obligation reductions, by mandating the Commission to undertake a simplification review of the regulation in April 2026 to “evaluate the administrative burden and impact of the Regulation, in particular for micro and small operators.” Notably, the review would take place before the Council’s proposed implementation date for the regulation.
Lawmakers in the EU Parliament are expected to vote on their position on the Commission’s EUDR proposals next week, which will be followed by negotiations between Parliament and the Council in order to finalize and agreement before the current December 30 implementation date of the regulation.
