EUDR guide for exporters
EUDR guide for timber exporters
Under the EU Deforestation Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1115), the company that brings your timber into the EU has to collect your plot data before the goods reach customs. This guide sums up what it will ask you for. Print it or save it as a PDF and share it with your team.
Which products are covered
Most of chapter 44 (logs, sawn wood, panels), pulp (47), paper and paperboard (48), wooden furniture (9403), seats with wooden frames (9401) and prefabricated wooden buildings (9406). Printed products, bamboo and rattan are out.
What is specific to timber
- Every species with its common name and its full scientific name: Quercus robur, not just “oak”.
- The polygon of the harvest area or forest management unit, not the sawmill address, together with the harvest permit, the transport documents and the felling date.
- What counts is where the wood was felled, not where the product was made. Buyers of products that were under the old EU Timber Regulation start on 30 December 2026 whatever their size, so expect their requests early.
What a timber buyer will ask you for
Species per product
If an order mixes species, which species is in which product or bundle, each with its scientific name.
Map of the felling area
The boundary of the area where the logs were felled, as GeoJSON polygons. A felling block or a plantation compartment counts; the sawmill yard does not.
Harvest licence or permit
The licence, harvest plan or felling permit that covers those logs, with its number and validity.
Transport documents
The documents that travel with the logs from the forest to the mill, such as the DOF for native timber in Brazil.
Link from logs to product
Mill records connecting log batches to the sawn wood, veneer or panels in the order. If the mill mixes logs from several permits, all of them go in.
Felling date or period
When the trees in the shipment were felled. Buyers compare it with the permit.
Example: sawn hardwood from a forest concession
A sawmill exports kiln-dried sawn hardwood to a flooring maker in the EU. The logs came from two felling blocks of a forest concession, each covered by its own harvest permit, and reached the mill with their transport documents.
The mill matches the batch of sawn wood to the log batches it was cut from. It sends the buyer a GeoJSON with one polygon per felling block, the species with their scientific names, the permit numbers, the transport documents and the felling period.
The buyer checks the polygons for deforestation or forest degradation after 31 December 2020 and files its statement. If the batch also held logs bought from a third party, the area those logs came from has to be in the file too.
Mistakes that get timber data sent back
- The sawmill’s coordinates, or a single point, given for a forest area far larger than 4 ha.
- Trade names only, such as “meranti” or “oak”, with no scientific name.
- A felling date outside the validity of the permit that is supposed to cover it.
- Polygons with holes for patches left standing inside the block. TRACES does not accept holes: split the area into two polygons.
Key dates
- 31 December 2020: cut-off date. Land deforested after this date cannot supply the EU market. It does not move with the postponements.
- 30 December 2026: large and medium-sized EU companies must comply, and so must every company for timber products that were under the old EU Timber Regulation.
- 30 June 2027: micro and small EU companies.
Questions from timber exporters
We make furniture from wood bought in another country. Whose plots go in?
Those of the forest or plantation where the wood was felled, not your factory. Ask your timber supplier for the felling area polygons and permits, and pass them on with each order.
Our wood comes from a plantation that is clear-felled and replanted. Will that look like deforestation?
On satellite layers, harvesting a plantation that already existed in 2020 shows up as tree cover loss. For the buyer it is a signal to review, not proof of deforestation. Sending the planting and felling history of each compartment helps it close the question.
Are bamboo and rattan products covered?
No. Bamboo and rattan do not count as wood for the EUDR. Printed products such as books and newspapers left the scope as well.
Part of our raw material is recycled wood. Does the buyer need plots for it?
Not for wood that has completed its lifecycle and would otherwise have been thrown away as waste. When recycled and virgin wood are mixed, the virgin part needs the full data.
The basics, for every product
Whatever the product, the EU buyer needs the same base data: where each plot is (a point up to 4 ha, a polygon above, six decimals), who produced there and in which country, when it was harvested, and information showing that the land was not deforested after 31 December 2020 and that production followed the law of your country.
How to prepare this data and share it with all your buyers