Each EU country sets its own penalties under the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), within a floor the regulation fixes. National law must allow fines on companies of at least 4% of their annual EU-wide turnover. It must also provide for confiscation of the goods and of the revenue from them, exclusion from public contracts, and temporary bans on trading the products.
Who can be penalised?
Operators, downstream operators and traders. Downstream operators were added to the list when the regulation was amended in December 2025.
What must the penalties include?
- Fines. For a company, the highest fine national law allows must be at least 4% of its total EU-wide turnover in the financial year before the decision.
- Confiscation of the products concerned.
- Confiscation of the revenue the business earned from them.
- Exclusion from public procurement and public funding for up to 12 months.
- For serious or repeated breaches, a temporary ban on placing, selling or exporting the products, and the loss of simplified due diligence.
Final court judgments against companies are published on a Commission website list.
Example: what the 4% floor means
Example. A company had EU-wide turnover of EUR 50 million in the year before a fining decision. National law must allow a fine of up to at least EUR 2 million, which is 4% of EUR 50 million. The 4% is a floor on the maximum, not a minimum fine, and the actual fine is set case by case.
What else can authorities order?
Alongside any penalty, authorities can order corrective action: fixing a formal error, stopping the goods from being placed, withdrawing or recalling them, or donating or disposing of them. They can seize goods or suspend their placing while they check. Where the information system flags a shipment as high risk, its suspension lasts three working days, or 72 hours for perishable goods, and can be extended. Member States may also let their authorities recover the full cost of their work on a case of non-compliance.
How often are businesses checked?
| Country of production | Minimum share checked each year |
|---|---|
| Low risk | 1% of operators |
| Standard risk | 3% |
| High risk | 9%, plus 9% of the quantity |
These shares cover operators and large downstream operators and traders, counted separately for each commodity. The penalty amounts themselves are written into each country’s national law, which the regulation does not list.
Where this comes from: Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, Articles 16, 17, 20, 23, 24 and 25, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650.
More on this: EUDR guide · EUDR compliance
Reviewed by Team GreenSutra on 26 October 2026.