Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall has delivered the EUDR simplification review today, locking medium and large operators into a hard 30 December 2026 compliance start. That is according to a Commission statement issued today, which tabled the package four days past the 30 April deadline as a report to the European Parliament and Council, revised guidance and FAQs, changes to the IT system and a draft delegated act amending the list of products covered.
Wood Central understands that the package keeps all seven EUDR commodities within the regulation and fully retains wood and its pulp and paper derivatives within Annex I, leaving leather hide removal and soluble coffee inclusion as the Commission’s only proposed category-level scope changes in today’s review. Both changes sit inside a draft delegated act amending Annex I, first floated for public consultation in April 2025 and now reissued with the leather and coffee proposals folded in.
The delegated act adds the prefix “ex” to certain HS codes to confirm that only products derived from a relevant commodity fall within the EUDR’s scope, with all other goods sharing the same customs code excluded. Waste material, used and second-hand wood and paper products, samples of negligible value, and packing materials used to support, protect, or carry another product are also exempted from regulation under the same act.
Ms Roswall said today’s package keeps the EUDR’s deforestation objectives intact whilst incorporating the simplifications already agreed by co-legislators in December 2025. The Commissioner had previously confirmed that Brussels would “not place unnecessary burdens on companies and trading partners,” and the law’s core legal text is now formally untouched after the third deadline cycle.
WWF European Policy Office, the global conservation NGO’s Brussels-based EU advocacy arm, said today’s review ends months of regulatory uncertainty and confirms the EUDR will move into operational compliance from December 2026. Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, the office’s Forests Manager, said “now the EU must hold the line” on enforcement, with WWF research estimating each year of delayed implementation costs around 50 million trees and 16.8 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
Miki Ng, EU policy researcher and campaigner at London-based environmental NGO Earthsight, said the decision keeps forest-product compliance on the same track operators have been preparing for, with the proposed leather hide exemption the only category-level commodity removal in the package. “The proposal to remove leather from the law is about politics, not evidence,” Ms Ng said, warning that beef from cattle raised on deforested land would be kept out of the EU market whilst hides from the same animal would circulate freely.
The leather proposal does not affect the wood, pulp or paper provisions, with forest-product operators continuing under the same Annex I scope they were preparing for ahead of the original December 2025 deadline. The Confederation of European Paper Industries (Cepi), the trade body for European pulp and paper producers, has previously welcomed the December 2025 postponement and called for further FAQ and Guidance work to clarify persisting ambiguities in the regulation.
It comes as Wood Central reported that Brussels missed its 30 April EUDR deadline before delivering Monday’s package, with US Ambassador Andrew Puzder pressing Ms Roswall for a “negligible risk” classification for US producers ahead of the cut-off and the European Organisation of the Sawmill Industry (EOS) joining a multi-sector association call for further legislative simplification before the December 2026 start date.
The Commission’s package will now be transmitted to the European Parliament and Council for two months of scrutiny under the standard EU procedure, with large and medium forest-product operators facing a hard 30 December 2026 start, micro and small operators in scope until 30 June 2027 and the regulation’s seven covered commodities all retained inside Annex I — three years after the law took effect in June 2023.
- For more information about the European Union’s deforestation regulation and the role it is now playing in driving reforestation finance, click here for Wood Central’s special feature from Friday.
