In brief
- Five product categories drop out of the European rules that require proof the goods do not come from deforested land. They are cattle hides and skins, in all three forms in which they appeared on the list, plus conveyer belts and the other articles of vulcanised rubber. They drop out on 18 September 2026, that is before the obligations even start to apply.
- Eighteen new codes join the list, but only from 30 December 2027: soluble coffee, frozen cattle tongues and sixteen chemicals made from palm oil, from glycerol to soap. Anyone importing or exporting such products gets an extra year of breathing space compared with the rest.
- For wood, no product joins and none leaves. Twenty-five of the fifty-two amendments concern wood, and all of them narrow: second-hand furniture, reused pallets, wood waste and packaging that merely carries another product stay outside the obligations. Those still covered are operators, downstream operators and traders placing goods on the Union market or exporting them.
Published: Official Journal of the European Union, L series, 2026/2102 of 17 September 2026
In force from: 18 September 2026, the day following that of publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, under Article 2
The European Commission has rewritten the list of products for which a company must prove, through a statement, that its goods do not come from deforested land. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/2102, published on 17 September 2026 in the Official Journal of the European Union, amends Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 in fifty-seven places and takes effect without any Romanian act being needed, just like other European regulations that work on lists of product codes, such as the one by which the Union set the level of verification for 185 categories of construction products. For a Romanian company that processes wood, imports coffee or sells furniture, the practical question is a single one: is my code still on the list, and from when.
Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 is the act that ties access to the European market to the origin of the goods. Anyone placing on the Union market or exporting wood, soya, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber or cattle has to collect the coordinates of the land the raw material comes from, assess the risk and submit a due diligence statement. The list of commodities and derived products covered by that obligation sits in Annex I, and Annex I is the only thing the Commission can amend on its own, through a delegated act, on the basis of Article 34(1).
What leaves the list leaves at once. Point (c) of the annex deletes three cattle hide entries: raw hides and skins under code ex 4101, tanned or crust hides and skins under ex 4104 and leather further prepared after tanning under ex 4107. Points (v) and (y) delete conveyer or transmission belts or belting of vulcanised rubber, under code ex 4010, and other articles of vulcanised rubber not specified elsewhere, under ex 4016. None of these five deletions has a deferred date, so they operate from 18 September 2026.
What joins the list joins a year and three months later. All eighteen added codes carry the same note in the annex: „This provision shall apply from 30 December 2027”. They are frozen cattle tongues, under ex 0206 21 00, extracts, essences and concentrates of coffee, under 2101 11 00, which is precisely soluble coffee, and sixteen products derived from palm oil, from the hydrogenated oils under ex 1516 20 to the soaps under ex 3401 11 00 and ex 3401 20.
Other entries do not disappear but narrow to tighter codes. Retreaded or used pneumatic tyres under ex 4012 are replaced by ex 4012 90 30, so only the new tyre tread stays on the list, not the used tyre. Soya beans under code 1201 become 1201 90 00, and soya beans for sowing drop out. Wooden seats under ex 9401, a general entry, are replaced by six subheadings named one by one, ex 9401 31 00, ex 9401 41 00, ex 9401 61 00, ex 9401 69 00, ex 9401 80 00 and ex 9401 91 90, so that aircraft seats under 9401 10 00 and motor vehicle seats under 9401 20 00 stay outside.
The remaining amendments add „ex” in front of entries and attach exclusion brackets after them. The formula „not including used products and second-hand products” appears thirty times. Waste, as defined in Article 3, point (1), of Directive 2008/98/EC, is excluded in nine places. Products used in the manufacturing of medicinal products for human or veterinary use are taken out in thirteen places. And five new notes, placed at the head of the table, say clearly for the first time which species are covered: cattle only of the genus Bos, not buffalo and not bison; oil palm only of the genus Elaeis, not babassu; rubber only from Hevea brasiliensis, not synthetic rubber; and wood covering neither bamboo nor rattan.
What it changes in practice
The clearest effect is at tanneries and at companies importing hides. For them, Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 disappears altogether: cattle leather never reached the point of being declared, because the obligations start on 30 December 2026 and leather left the list on 18 September 2026. Anyone who had started asking suppliers for farm coordinates for hides can stop the project. The Commission’s reasoning, in recital (5), is that the value of raw hides is small next to that of the meat, so a European operator has no way of extracting from a supplier the information it would need.
For a wood-processing company, the effect is simplification rather than exemption. The obligation stays for sawn timber, plywood, panels, flooring, wooden packaging and furniture entering the Union market. What changes is the outline: second-hand furniture and pallets are not declared, sawdust and offcuts that qualify as waste are not declared, and the crate or pallet that merely supports and carries other goods is not declared either, even if the goods carried have nothing to do with forests. The same logic applies to paper and paperboard, where the old entry, which referred wholesale to Chapters 47 and 48 of the Combined Nomenclature, is replaced by two tighter entries, ex 47 for wood pulp and ex 48 for paper and paperboard, with recovered products expressly taken out.
For coffee roasters and importers, the effect runs the other way: the scope grows, but with a delay. Coffee beans, green or roasted, under code 0901, were already on the list. Soluble coffee was not, and recital (6) says why that was a problem: it could be brought into the Union with no statement at all, which moves the deforestation risk instead of eliminating it. From 30 December 2027, coffee extract comes under the same obligations as the beans.
For the chemical industry and for detergents and cosmetics, the list of sixteen new codes of palm oil derivatives is the genuinely heavy part of the act. It covers fatty alcohols, crude glycerol, fatty acids, amines, amides, quaternary ammonium salts, soaps and even polyethers, all of them only in so far as they were made using palm oil. That is also where the only public health exception in the act appears: products used in the manufacturing of medicinal products stay outside, however much palm oil they contain.
Who is untouched by any of this: the ordinary shopper. The due diligence statement is a company obligation, not a consumer one, and the act introduces no tax, no sales ban and no new label on the shelf.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The comparison is made entry by entry, and the differences read best on the old ones. For cattle, the entry „0102 21, 0102 29” becomes „ex 0102”, so two subheadings are replaced by the whole heading, and the narrowing moves to note (1), which limits application to the genus Bos. Recital (3) says openly why: distinguishing between pure-bred breeding cattle and other cattle served no purpose. For rubber, the entry „4001” becomes „ex 4001”, and note (3) takes out balata, gutta-percha, guayule, chicle and synthetic rubber, which until now could be read as being covered by the same entry.
For wood, the amendment takes the same form repeated twenty-one times, from entry 4401 to entry 4421: the code gains the mention „ex” and a bracket excluding used and second-hand products. For the packaging entries, 4405, 4415 and 4416, the exclusion of packing materials is added as well, both single use and those clearly suitable for repetitive use, from the moment they are actually used to carry other goods. The old entry 4415 already had a bracket about packaging, but written so awkwardly that it could be read the other way round.
For furniture, the entry „9403 30, 9403 40, 9403 50, 9403 60 and 9403 91” keeps its codes, but each gains „ex” and the exclusion of second-hand products, while prefabricated wooden buildings move from „9406 10” to „ex 9406 10 00”. For soya, the disappearance of the general code 1201 in favour of 1201 90 00 takes soya beans for sowing out of scope, and recital (12) explains the decision by negligible trade volumes and by the Commission’s plan on proteins.
What no longer has to be declared at all, whatever the code, has changed too. Note (5), added at the head of the relevant products column, takes out of scope samples of products of no commercial value and products sent for examination, analysis or testing, referring to Articles 86 and 95 of Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009. Those two articles exist and say exactly what is attributed to them: Article 86 covers samples of negligible value, and Article 95 covers goods undergoing examination, analysis or testing. Recitals (16), (17) and (18) add packaging, marketing materials and items of correspondence in the same logic.
This amendment is the third to narrow the list in less than a year. In December 2025, Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 had removed from Annex I the entry „ex 49”, that is everything to do with books, newspapers and printed matter made of paper, and had introduced a one-time simplified declaration for micro or small primary operators. The present act continues in the same direction.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It takes second-hand goods and waste out of scope, with a formula repeated thirty times. A second-hand furniture shop or a warehouse that reuses pallets no longer has any reason to wonder whether it has to submit a statement.
- It names the species, instead of leaving the customs code to decide on its own. The new notes say clearly that buffalo, bison, babassu oil, synthetic rubber, bamboo and rattan are not covered, which removes questions raised by four different sectors.
- It defers the eighteen new codes by a year rather than imposing them tomorrow. Anyone selling soluble coffee or palm oil chemicals has until 30 December 2027 to get their supply chain ready.
- It takes out packaging that merely carries other goods, including the reusable kind. Without that clarification, any wooden crate or cardboard box could have attracted a declaration obligation on a consignment with no connection to forests.
- It closes a loophole the act itself acknowledges. Coffee extract entered the Union with no checks at all, although it is made from the same beans for which a statement is required, and recital (6) says this moves the deforestation risk elsewhere.
- It protects the manufacturing of medicines, with an exception written into thirteen places. A medicine manufacturer does not end up with a raw material blocked for an environmental reason.
What remains a problem
- There is nowhere to read which list applies on a given date. The deferrals sit scattered across eighteen brackets inside the annex, and the act gives no complete version of the table, neither for 30 December 2026 nor for 30 December 2027.
- The phrase „used products and second-hand products” is defined nowhere. It appears thirty times and decides whether goods are declared or not, but neither the present act nor Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 says what it means, while waste is defined carefully, by reference to a directive.
- Cattle hides leave with nothing put in their place. Recital (5) acknowledges that excluding them may move the deforestation risk instead of eliminating it, yet the act’s conclusion is still to take them off the list, and the re-examination is postponed to the 2030 general review.
- The sector with the greatest exposure in Romania gets only clarifications. Of the fifty-two amendments to entries, twenty-five concern wood, and not one adds or removes a product, even though this is where most of the Romanian trade covered by the rules is played out.
- The pattern of repeated deferrals weakens predictability. The application of the obligations under the base regulation has been moved twice, by twelve months each time, and a company that invested in traceability in 2024 paid for a deadline that has since shifted by two years.
- The act does not say what happens to statements already submitted for products leaving the list. Anyone who filed a statement for hides or for conveyer belts does not learn from the text whether it stays valid, whether it is withdrawn, or whether it simply no longer matters.
Practical advice
- Check your product code in Annex I in its consolidated form, not in this act. The delegated regulation says only what changes, and the whole table is read in the consolidated version of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, where the amendments appear in their proper place.
- Note down two dates, not one. The obligation to submit the due diligence statement starts on 30 December 2026 for most companies and on 30 June 2027 for natural persons, micro-enterprises and small enterprises established by 31 December 2024. The codes added now apply only from 30 December 2027.
- If you sell or buy second-hand goods, set aside the proof that they are second-hand. The exclusion is generous, but the act does not say how it is proved, so the purchase invoice, the age of the product and its condition are the only things you can answer an inspection with.
- If you use wood, check whether it is bamboo or rattan before you prepare any file. Note (4) takes them entirely out of scope, and for a bamboo product all the traceability work would be done for nothing.
- If you process palm oil, read the list of sixteen new codes by code, not by name. Many of them apply only if the product was synthesised using palm oil, and the difference between the same compound obtained from palm and from another source decides whether the obligation applies to you.
- If you are a tannery or a hide importer, stop the traceability project but keep the documentation. Leather leaves the list, and the Commission announces in recital (2) that it will re-examine including it in the 2030 general review.
- If you send or receive samples, keep a record of them separate from commercial goods. Samples of no commercial value and products sent for testing are outside the scope, but only under the conditions in Articles 86 and 95 of Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009, which require them to be used up, destroyed or returned.
Frequently asked questions
From when does this regulation apply?
Does Romania have to adopt an act for the regulation to apply?
Which products leave the list for good?
Does soluble coffee come in now?
From when must the due diligence statement actually be submitted?
Does the old furniture I sell in a second-hand shop come under these rules?
What happens to wooden pallets and crates?
Are bamboo or rattan products covered?
What does the mention „ex” in front of a code mean?
Where do I find the official text in Romanian?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Recital (20) contradicts Article 2, in the Romanian version only. The English text reads „this Regulation should enter into force on the day following that of its publication on the Official Journal of the European Union” and speaks of preparations „before the entry into application of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115”. Both are accurate, so a reader working from the English version will find nothing wrong at this point. The Romanian version, which is equally official and is the one that binds readers in Romania, says the regulation „ar trebui să intre în vigoare în ziua următoare datei publicării respectivului regulament”, on the day following the publication of „that regulation”, and „that regulation” is, in that sentence, Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, published on 9 June 2023, whereas Article 2 ties entry into force to the publication of the act itself, that is to 17 September 2026. The same Romanian sentence also speaks of preparations „înainte de intrarea în vigoare a Regulamentului (UE) 2023/1115”, before that regulation entered into force, although it has been in force since 29 June 2023, the twentieth day after publication, under Article 38(1); what has not yet begun is the application of the obligations.
- Recital (2) attributes to Article 34(2), point (i), a provision that is not there. The text says that, „as stipulated in Article 34(2) point i”, the inclusion of cattle hides, skins and leather will form part of the 2030 general review. Point (i), in the form given to Article 34 by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, speaks about the impact of the relevant commodities, about extension to further commodities, maize among them, and about the possible inclusion of biofuels under HS code 382600. Hides are mentioned nowhere in it. The English and the Romanian versions are worded the same way here, so this is a defect of the act itself. Their re-examination remains a Commission undertaking rather than an obligation written into the regulation, and the difference matters for a sector now leaving the rules.
- Point (a) of the annex quotes an entry that Annex I does not contain, in the Romanian version only. In the English text the act replaces the entry „0102 21, 0102 29 Live cattle”, and that is exactly how Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 names it in English, so nothing is out of place there. In the Romanian version, equally official, the act cites „0102 21, 0102 29 Animale vii din specia bovine”, while the entry under those codes in the Romanian Annex I is called „Bovine vii”. The codes identify the entry beyond doubt, so the replacement works, but a reader looking in the Romanian Annex I for the text quoted will not find it.
Editorial analysis
The act has a symmetry that shows only once you add up the dates in it. What leaves the list leaves on 18 September 2026, 103 days before the obligations under Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 even start to apply, so cattle hides and conveyer belts will never be declared. What joins the list joins on 30 December 2027, that is exactly 365 days after the obligations start and 183 days after they reach small companies as well. The narrowing is immediate, the widening is deferred by a year, and the asymmetry is not explained anywhere in the recitals: recital (21) says only that companies need time for the new categories, without saying why the deletions need no time at all.
The second observation concerns the legal basis itself. Article 34(1) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 allows the Commission to amend Annex I „with regard to the relevant CN codes of relevant products”. Five of the fifty-seven amendments touch no code at all: notes (1) to (4) narrow the scope by biological species, and note (5) takes whole categories of commercial operation out of scope, samples and products sent for testing, by reference to a customs regulation. These are useful decisions, which any operator will greet with relief, but they do not look like moving a customs code. The 66 days between the adoption of the act, on 13 July 2026, and its publication, on 17 September 2026, match the two-month period in which the European Parliament and the Council may object to a delegated act, laid down in Article 35(6). Nobody objected.
The third observation is about proportions. Twenty-five of the fifty-two amendments to entries concern wood, that is half the act, and not one of them adds or removes a product: they all add „ex”, used products, waste or packaging. For a forestry and wood-processing sector the size of Romania’s, that means the act does not change who declares, only where declaring stops. And that is where the most expensive gap shows: the phrase „used products and second-hand products”, which appears thirty times and decides on its own whether goods fall under the obligation, is defined neither in this act nor in Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, which by contrast defines waste by reference to Directive 2008/98/EC. A regulation that has been in force for 1,280 days by the date its obligations start, with two twelve-month deferrals behind it, can no longer afford a key concept left to the judgment of each customs authority.
What should be changed
- A definition of used and second-hand products. A definition and a simple rule of proof, for instance first placing on the market evidenced by an invoice, would spare thirty brackets in the annex from thirty different readings at customs.
- Moving the deadlines out of the brackets and into an article. The deferral to 30 December 2027 ought to be written in a single provision, not repeated eighteen times inside the annex, so that it can be read without going through the whole list of codes.
- Publishing the consolidated table for each date of application. A company needs Annex I as it stands on 30 December 2026 and as it will stand on 30 December 2027, not a list of amending instructions to apply for itself.
- Saying openly what happens to hides after 2030. If the re-examination is a Commission undertaking, it ought to be written as an undertaking, with a deadline, rather than resting on a point of the base regulation that speaks about maize and biofuels.
- A transitional rule for statements already submitted. The act takes five categories off the list and says nothing about the due diligence statements made for them in the meantime, even though some companies began their preparations back in 2024.
- Aligning the Romanian version with the names in Annex I. When the act quotes an entry it is amending, the name ought to match the one published in Romanian, or else the reader searches the table for a text that is not there.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Journal of the European Union, L series, 2026/2102 of 17 September 2026 14 pages PDF, 593 KB
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.