what happens if I don't comply with the deforestation regulation

Penalties may include fines, confiscation and exclusion

If you breach the deforestation regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 provides for penalties that the Member States themselves establish and enforce, within a framework prescribed by the regulation. That framework sets out various types of measures: financial penalties, forfeiture of the product and of the profits obtained from it, temporary exclusion from public procurement and EU funding, and the (temporary) prohibition on placing the product on the market or exporting it. Which of those measures is imposed, and to what extent, is up to the competent authority of the Member State where the breach is established. The regulation itself does not lay down a fixed penalty amount; that is determined at national level, with the proviso that the penalty must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

Which authority precisely enforces and how strictly that happens in practice cannot be derived from the regulation itself and is also determined by the way each Member State implements it at national level. What is certain is that the obligation to exercise due diligence applies as soon as a company falls under the regulation, and that obligation varies depending on the role in the supply chain. To find out whether the company qualifies as an economic operator or as a trader, and whoever only resells what has already been placed on the EU market faces a lighter set of obligations — more on that is covered under the question what applies if you only resell.

What this is based on: the chapter on enforcement

The obligation for Member States to establish penalties and the list of possible measures — penalty, forfeiture, exclusion from procurement and funding, temporary prohibition on placing on the market — derives from the chapter on enforcement in Regulation (EU) 2023/1115. The European Commission provides further guidance on the implementation of that regulation on its page on the implementation of the deforestation regulation, although fixed amounts or deadlines per Member State are not mentioned there. For the exact wording and the full list of measures, the regulation itself, as published on EUR-Lex, remains the authoritative text.