Under Article 4(2) of the EU Deforestation Regulation, operators may not place relevant products on the market or export them without first submitting a due diligence statement. An operator that has exercised due diligence in accordance with Article 8 and concluded that the products comply with Article 3 must make the statement available to the competent authorities through the information system that Article 33 required the Commission to establish by 30 December 2024. The statement is electronic and transmittable and contains the information set out in Annex II together with a declaration that due diligence was exercised and that no or only a negligible risk was found.
Annex II lists the content: the operator’s name, address and EORI number where products enter or leave the EU; the Harmonised System code, a description including the trade name and, where applicable, the scientific name, and the quantity; the country of production and the geolocation of all plots of land where the commodities were produced, or of the establishments where cattle were kept; the standard confirmation text; and a signature. Operators must pass the reference numbers of their statements to downstream operators and traders, who refer to them instead of repeating the exercise.
Article 4(3) makes the operator responsible for the compliance of the product by submitting the statement, and the Regulation requires operators to keep their due diligence statements and supporting documentation for five years. Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 introduced, in Article 4a, a one-time simplified declaration for micro or small primary operators in place of a statement per consignment. For an importer of coffee, cocoa, rubber, wood or paper products the statement is the document customs and competent authorities will ask for from 30 December 2026, and the supporting due diligence file behind it must be available on request.