Has the EUDR record-keeping obligation of five years changed this year?
The short answer: the obligation itself, to retain the underlying documentation of your due diligence statement for five years, is set out in the regulation and has not been amended this year. What has shifted are the application dates of the regulation as a whole, and these dates in turn determine when those five years will actually start running for you as a market participant or trader.
This distinction is important, because much confusion in the market concerns precisely this point. People hear that the EUDR has been delayed and conclude from that that the retention period itself has also been adapted. That is not what is happening: the content of the obligation remains the same, only the moment when the clock starts running for you depends on when the regulation becomes applicable to your role and your product.
What the regulation itself says about the retention period
The regulation stipulates that market participants and traders must keep the documentation underlying their due diligence statement available for a period of five years. This concerns the underlying documents: supplier data, geolocation of plots, information about the country of origin and the risk assessment based on it. This core of the obligation is unchanged and is separate from the discussion on delay.
Which documents precisely fall under this in practice varies by commodity and by product stream. An overview of the obligations by subject, including the location in the official text, can be found in the overview with explanations by subject.
What has actually changed this year
What has been adapted in the recent period are the application dates of the regulation. These dates are laid down in the legislation itself and differ by company size and by role in the supply chain. Because the retention period only starts running from the moment you actually submit a statement or place a product on the market, a changed application date will also shift the starting point of those five years. The duration of the period itself does not change; only the moment when it starts for you may shift.
Because this is precisely the combination of role, product and date where much confusion arises, we recommend that you do not reconstruct this from hearsay, but determine for yourself what applies to your situation. This can be done in a few questions via the free role check that maps out your situation.
What does not change about the content of the obligation
Apart from the moment when the period starts, there is no indication that the nature of what you must keep this year has changed. The documents you need to support a due diligence statement, the way geolocation data is recorded, and the obligation to be able to demonstrate that data on request of a competent authority remain unchanged compared to the text as established. This does not mean that nothing will ever change: the European Commission may publish implementing provisions or guidance that clarify the practical application, without the regulation itself being amended.
How you verify this for your own situation
Because reporting on the EUDR is often oversimplified, it is wise to return to the official text when in doubt, or to a source that refers to it rather than making its own interpretation. How we maintain the information on eudri.com and where it comes from, you can read on the page about our working method. For your own business, it remains the case that the ultimate risk assessment and the interpretation of the rules for your specific situation is your responsibility or that of your legal adviser; we structure and alert, but we make no statement as to whether a product is deforestation-free or EUDR-compliant.
Stay informed without having to monitor everything yourself
For those who don't want to review official sources every month, there is a way to receive automatic notifications as soon as something actually changes for your role and product, including the implications for your retention period. This is part of the subscription options we offer, alongside the detailed breakdown by obligation and the templates to keep your dossier in order.
Do you first want to know exactly where you stand for your own role and product, without obligations? Take the free role check, or read the other topics in our knowledge base to get the full picture before you proceed with building your dossier.