EUDR Geolocation Requirements: When a Single GPS Point Is Enough and When You Need a Full Polygon

Under Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 (the EUDR), a single latitude/longitude point is enough only for plots of four hectares or less; any plot of more than four hectares used to produce a commodity other than cattle must be described with a polygon tracing its perimeter. In the EU's Information System, a point with no area is automatically treated as 4 hectares, and a point declared above 4 hectares is rejected unless the commodity is cattle. If you ship soybeans, coffee, cocoa, rubber or wood products to Europe, this is the data your EU customer will ask you for.

What the EUDR actually requires: the legal definition of geolocation

Everything starts with Article 2(28) of the consolidated text of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 (version of 26 December 2025). It defines geolocation as the location of a plot of land described by latitude and longitude coordinates "corresponding to at least one latitude and one longitude point and using at least six decimal digits". It then adds the key exception: for plots of land of more than four hectares used for the production of the relevant commodities other than cattle, geolocation "shall be provided using polygons with sufficient latitude and longitude points to describe the perimeter of each plot of land".

Two other definitions shape what you map. A plot of land (Article 2(27)) is land within a single real-estate property, as recognized by the law of the country of production, with conditions homogeneous enough to assess the aggregate deforestation risk. For cattle, geolocation refers instead to establishments, meaning all premises or places where the animals were kept (Article 9(1)(d)). And Article 9(1)(d) requires the geolocation of all plots where the commodity in a product was produced, together with the date or time range of production.

• Plot of 4 ha or less (soy, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, wood): one point with at least six decimals is legally sufficient.
• Plot of more than 4 ha (same commodities): a polygon describing the whole perimeter is mandatory.
• Cattle: geolocation of every establishment where the animals were kept; the polygon threshold in Article 2(28) does not apply to cattle.
• Several plots feeding one shipment: the geolocation of every plot must be included.

Worked examples: point or polygon?

The 6-hectare soy field is the classic case raised by US growers and elevators: it is above the threshold, so a single GPS pin will not do. This is also one of the example questions you can put to the EUDR knowledge base: "A plot used to grow soya is 6 hectares. Can we just drop a single GPS pin on it, or do we need to map the whole outline?"

The Area field in the EUDR Information System

The Commission's validation rules for due diligence statements turn the legal threshold into hard checks. For a point geolocation, the area is mandatory. If you provide no value, the system inserts 4 hectares by default. If the commodity is not cattle and the area you enter is higher than 4 hectares, the system raises an error. When an area is provided, it must be at least 0.0001 hectare.

The GeoJSON file description (updated 17 August 2026) confirms the same default from the file side: the "Area" property for points is optional and, if missing, "it will be set by default to '4' (four) hectares". It also flags a subtle trap: writing "Area": "3" (in quotes) instead of "Area": 3 results in an area of 0, because the quoted value is not read as a number.

Building a GeoJSON file the system will accept

The Information System imports production places as GeoJSON (RFC 7946). Coordinates must use WGS 84 (EPSG:4326) in decimal degrees, written in the order longitude, latitude. Coordinates in another reference system must be converted first. The system truncates coordinates to six decimal places before storing them, so sending more precision is useless and can even make a valid polygon invalid.

1. Use an accepted geometry: Point, MultiPoint, Polygon (at least four coordinate pairs) or MultiPolygon. LineString and MultiLineString are not accepted.
2. Close every polygon: the first and last coordinate pairs must be identical.
3. No holes and no crossing lines: doughnut shapes and figure-eight shapes are rejected. The documented workaround for a doughnut is two half-doughnut polygons.
4. Watch truncation duplicates: two points that differ only after the sixth decimal become the same point once truncated.
5. Use the exact property names: ProducerName, ProducerCountry (ISO2 code), ProductionPlace and Area. "productionplace" in lower case is an error; unknown properties are ignored.
6. Respect the size limit: 25 MB of geolocation data per due diligence statement, including uploaded GeoJSON files.
7. Keep the file clean: no password protection, no PDF or text files, coordinates within ±90 / ±180.

Two file variants exist. Type I is used through the API and the producer-level import. Type II is used for the commodity-level import in the web interface and groups several producers by ProducerName and ProducerCountry, with ProducerCountry required on each feature. The Commission recommends filling in ProductionPlace to name each plot.

To stay under 25 MB, the documentation suggests describing straight boundaries with two points rather than a point every 5 to 10 meters, and using single points for plots under 4 hectares instead of polygons. Other volume limits apply too: up to 1,000 producers per commodity, 10,000 per statement, and 100 commodities per statement.

Timber: species names are part of the plot data

For wood products, geolocation alone is not enough. Article 9(1)(a) requires the common name of the species and their full scientific name. The validation rules enforce it: if the commodity is sourced from timber, at least one scientific name and common name must be provided, with a maximum of 500 pairs per commodity.

The Commission's guidance of 20 July 2026 adds that where the species used in a product varies, as with particleboard or paper, the operator must list each species that may have been used, following internationally accepted timber nomenclature such as DIN EN 13556. For a US hardwood or pulp exporter, that means keeping species records at the same level of detail as plot records.

Mapping mistakes US suppliers should avoid

• Mapping the farm, not the plot. The guidance says that when a property contains both forest and agricultural land, the two areas are considered separately: on a 10-hectare property with 2 hectares meeting the forest definition, those 2 hectares are forest even though they are only 20% of the property.
• Trusting the land register over reality. Actual forest characteristics prevail over designations in land registers and cadastral maps; registers can complement satellite data when proving past agricultural use.
• Treating the EU Observatory map as proof. The Commission's forest-cover tool is free but "non-exclusive, non-mandatory and carries no legal value".
• Leaving production places empty without a reference. A commodity can skip production places only when the statement references at least one earlier statement; any production place you do provide needs geolocation.
• Forgetting the date. Article 9(1)(d) asks for the date or time range of production alongside each plot.

One exception concerns very small producers. Micro or small primary operators, a category introduced by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 for producers established in a low-risk country who place their own production on the market, may replace geolocation with the postal address of their plots or establishment (Article 4a(5)). The United States is listed as low risk in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093, but the category depends on size and on who places the goods on the market, so check the definition in Article 2(15a) before relying on it.

Finally, the threshold itself may evolve: Article 34(2) asks the Commission to evaluate "the threshold for mandatory use of polygons" in its general review, due by 30 June 2030. Until then, four hectares is the line. Remember also the timeline: the main obligations apply from 30 December 2026, and from 30 June 2027 for micro and small undertakings established as such by 31 December 2024.