EUDR & Indonesian Coffee: What EU Buyers Need to Know in 2026
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) changes what an importer must prove before coffee can be placed on the European market. Its dates have moved twice, and the current ones are close: this guide sets out what applies now, what an EU buyer needs from an Indonesian exporter, and where we stand.
What is the EUDR?
The EUDR is Regulation (EU) 2023/1115. It covers seven commodities — cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood — and the products made from them. For coffee, that means green and roasted beans entering the EU, whatever their country of origin.
Key dates — and why to double-check them
Original application date
The first deadline. It was postponed by one year in 2024.
Second postponement and simplification
Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 postponed application by a further year and simplified the obligations of downstream operators and traders.
Large and medium operators and traders
The date from which these companies must comply for every placement of coffee on the EU market.
Micro and small operators
A further six months for the smallest companies. Confirm which date applies to your business.
The rules have changed more than once, so verify the current position on the European Commission’s official EUDR page and with your adviser before you rely on any date — including ours.
Who carries the obligation?
The main due diligence duty sits with the operator that first places the coffee on the EU market — usually the importer — which must submit a due diligence statement. A coffee exporter outside the EU is not directly regulated, but its customers cannot comply without the exporter’s data. In practice, an EU buyer will ask the exporter for the evidence below.
What an EU importer needs from an exporter
- Geolocation of the plots where the coffee was grown — a single coordinate point for plots up to 4 hectares, a polygon for larger plots
- Evidence that the land was not deforested or degraded after 31 December 2020
- Evidence that the coffee was produced legally under Indonesian law
- Lot-level traceability linking each shipment to the plots behind it
- Standard export documents: Certificate of Origin, Phytosanitary Certificate, commercial invoice, packing list, Bill of Lading
Why Indonesian coffee is a traceability challenge
The vast majority of Indonesian coffee is grown by smallholders on small plots, and a lot typically passes through several hands — farmers, collectors, processors, exporters — before it reaches the port. Every handoff is a gap that has to be documented, and many plots have never been formally mapped. That is a real task for the whole sector, not only for any one exporter.
Where GreenBean Indonesia stands
We are a trading company working with selected processing partners in Temanggung, Central Java. The EUDR needs data that begins at plot level, so we are working with our processing partners to obtain plot-level data from their supply base. We are being direct about status:
- Available today: Certificate of Origin, Phytosanitary Certificate, lot data sheet, and processor-level traceability for every lot
- In progress: plot-level geolocation and land-use evidence from our processors’ supply base
- Not yet claimed: complete plot-level geolocation for every lot — we will tell you the exact status of the lot you are considering, in writing, before you commit
Questions to ask any Indonesian supplier
- Can you provide plot coordinates for this lot, and how were they collected?
- Who produced the lot, and can you name the processor?
- What evidence do you hold on land use before 31 December 2020?
- How do you keep this lot separate from others?
- What is the supplier’s legal entity, and what export documents will accompany the shipment?
A quality signal, not only a compliance cost
The same practices that make traceability possible — known processors, documented lots, honest status reports — are the ones that make a supplier reliable on quality. Buyers who ask the hard questions now will find it easier to build supply relationships that last.