,"On 19 November 2025, the Council of the European Union adopted a negotiating mandate for a targeted revision of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), signalling the start of negotiations with the European Parliament. Consilium
The revised mandate seeks to simplify the due diligence process and postpone the regulation’s application to give businesses, traders and authorities more time to adapt. Consilium Under the Council’s new timeline, medium and large operators will be required to comply from 30 December 2026, while micro and small operators will have an additional six-month grace period, until 30 June 2027.
Key changes include:
Only the first operator placing a product on the EU market needs to submit the due diligence statement; downstream traders simply need to retain and pass on a reference number.
Micro and small primary operators will only be required to file a one-off simplified declaration.
The Council has asked the European Commission to conduct a review by 30 April 2026 to assess the regulation’s impact, especially on small and micro operators, and propose further simplifications if needed.
These changes aim to reduce administrative burdens while maintaining the environmental goals of the regulation.
The original regulation, which covers commodities such as cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood, came into force in June 2023. Its application had already been postponed once — from 30 December 2024 to 30 December 2025 — due to concerns over readiness.
Next Steps:
With the mandate now in place, the Council will begin formal talks with the European Parliament in the coming weeks to hammer out a final agreement."
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