On 18 December 2024, the Council of the EU formally adopted the regulation delaying the application of the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by 12 months. This follows the European Parliament’s formal adoption of the amending regulation on 17 December 2024. Now that the final legislative hurdles have been overcome, the amending regulation must be signed and published in the Official Journal of the European Union so that it can become law before the end of the year. This delay means that businesses now have until 30 December 2025 to ensure they have procedures in place to comply with the EUDR.
The aim behind the delay is to give businesses time to fully implement their EUDR due diligence obligations, and to ensure that the in-scope commodities and products are ‘deforestation-free’ and can be accompanied by the required due diligence statement before they are placed or made available on the EU market or exported from the EU. Given the huge lift involved for EUDR compliance, this is still not a lot of time for companies with in-scope products.
The targeted amendment will not affect the substance of the existing legislation as it was originally agreed. The EUDR only allows in-scope products and commodities that are ‘deforestation-free’ to be placed or made available on the EU market and/or exported from the EU. This includes certain products made from cattle, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee and rubber.
For more on the delay and resources to support EUDR compliance, see our previous alert.
