EU Commission Publishes Country Risk Benchmarking for European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)
Today (23 May 2025) marks a key milestone with the publication of the European Commission’s country risk benchmarking classification. This sets out how the new Deforestation Regulation will be applied.
Countries have now been officially classified as either low risk or high risk. You can find the full list in the Annex or view the alphabetical listing here.
Note: Any country not listed in the Annex is considered standard risk.
The classifications are important for two reasons:
- It affects the level of checks carried out by competent authorities.
- It determines whether companies are required to carry out 'full' or 'simplified' due diligence when sourcing from these countries.
If you are sourcing from low risk countries, you are only required to carry out simplified due diligence. This still requires the collection of information (Article 9) but does not require you to assess or mitigate risks (Article 10 and 11 EUDR), unless you are aware of any reason to believe that the relevant products do not comply (Article 13(2).
What’s Next?
The first review of these country classifications is envisaged for 2026. This will allow time to take into account new data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) Forest Resource Assessment (FRA), expected to be published in October 2025.
You can read more about the methodology used to reach the decision on classification here.
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