What the EUDR is, in one paragraph
The EU Deforestation Regulation bars certain commodities from being placed on, sold within, or exported from the EU unless they are proven deforestation-free, produced legally in the country of origin, and covered by a due-diligence statement. Deforestation-free has a hard cut-off: the goods cannot come from land deforested after 31 December 2020.
The seven commodities
EUDR covers seven raw commodities plus derived products: cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya, and wood. Derived products can include leather, chocolate, soybean oil, and paper.
Basmati rice and spices are not EUDR commodities. Those products face buyer-driven ESG and BRSR pressure instead: a real demand, but a different one.
The deadline
The relevant planning date for large and medium operators is 30 December 2026. Smaller businesses have a later 30 June 2027 date, but Indian suppliers should expect EU buyers to ask for the data well before their own deadline.
Who files the statement
The obligation to submit the due-diligence statement sits with the operator placing the product on the EU market, typically the EU importer. That importer still needs geolocation and traceability data from the Indian exporter, because the exporter is closest to the farms and batches.
What data you need
- Geolocation of every plot of origin, including GPS coordinates or polygons where required.
- Traceability from plot to shipment, linking farms to the specific batch leaving the country.
- Evidence of legal production and deforestation-free status against the 2020 cut-off.
None of this can be assembled from a policy document. It requires real farm-level records, maintained before the buyer asks.
What to do before your buyer asks
Map which of your products are EUDR-covered, identify the farms each batch draws from, and start capturing GPS boundaries and a clean farm-to-dispatch trail. That is the data layer Carbon Bhoomi builds.
Primary sources to review for legal specifics: Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 and the European Commission Deforestation Regulation implementation pages. This article is general information, not legal advice.