EUDR Geolocation: When a Single GPS Point Will Do and When You Must Map a Polygon

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) accepts a single latitude/longitude point for plots of up to four hectares, but any plot of more than four hectares producing a commodity other than cattle must be mapped as a polygon of its perimeter. In the EU Information System, a point submitted without an area is recorded as 4 hectares, and a point declared above 4 hectares is rejected unless it relates to cattle. If your business sells cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soya or wood products into the EU, this is the level of detail your supply chain has to deliver.

A word on scope: the EUDR is an EU regulation. This guide explains what it requires for goods placed on, made available on or exported from the EU market. It says nothing about rules in the United Kingdom itself, which the sources indexed in the EUDR knowledge base do not cover.

The rule in one sentence, and where it comes from

Article 2(28) of the consolidated Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 (version of 26 December 2025) defines geolocation as latitude and longitude coordinates of at least one point, using at least six decimal digits. For plots of land of more than four hectares used to produce relevant commodities other than cattle, geolocation must be given as polygons with sufficient points to describe the perimeter of each plot.

Article 9(1)(d) then requires the operator to collect the geolocation of every plot where the commodities in a product were produced, plus the date or time range of production. For cattle products, the geolocation covers every establishment where the animals were kept. The Commission guidance of 20 July 2026 specifies that this runs from the birthplace through to the farms where cattle were kept until slaughter.

Who actually enters the data when you are based in the UK?

Geolocation is entered by the operator in the due diligence statement. For goods produced outside the EU, the guidance explains that the operator is generally the person acting as importer when the goods are released for free circulation. Where that importer is not established in the EU, Article 7 deems the first person established in the Union who makes the products available on the market to be an operator as well, so that there is always a responsible actor inside the EU.

• Authorised representatives must be EU-established: Article 2(22) defines them as persons established in the Union holding a written mandate from the operator.
• Non-EU operators can only declare imports: the Information System validation rules state that if the operator is not from an EU country, the only activity type allowed is IMPORT.
• An EORI number is required for the IMPORT and EXPORT activity types.
• The responsibility stays with the operator, even when an authorised representative files on its behalf (Article 6(1)).

In practice, whether you file yourself or your EU customer files, the plot data must come from your supply chain. Getting the point-versus-polygon question right at source saves rejected statements later.

What the Information System does with points and areas

The Commission's validation rules apply the following checks to a point geolocation:

The GeoJSON file description, updated on 17 August 2026, confirms that the "Area" property of a point is expressed in hectares, is optional and defaults to four. It also warns that "Area": "3" written as text is not read as a number and results in an area of zero.

GeoJSON checklist before you send a file to the EU

1. Coordinates in WGS 84 (EPSG:4326), decimal degrees, ordered longitude, latitude. Convert anything else beforehand.
2. Geometries limited to Point, MultiPoint, Polygon or MultiPolygon; LineString and MultiLineString are refused.
3. Polygons closed (first point equals last point) with at least four coordinate pairs.
4. No holes (doughnut shapes) and no self-intersections (figure-of-eight shapes). For a doughnut, the documented workaround is two half-doughnut polygons.
5. No duplicate vertices created by the six-decimal truncation.
6. Property names spelt exactly: ProducerName, ProducerCountry, ProductionPlace, Area. ProducerCountry takes an ISO2 country code.
7. Total geolocation data of no more than 25 MB per due diligence statement.
8. Ordinary GeoJSON only: no PDF, no text file, no password protection.

If a large estate pushes you over 25 MB, the Commission suggests two techniques: describe straight boundaries with two points rather than a vertex every 5 to 10 metres, and use single points for plots under 4 hectares rather than polygons. Statements are also capped at 1,000 producers per commodity, 10,000 producers per statement and 100 commodities per statement.

The two file variants matter for larger supply bases. Type I files are used via the API and the producer-level import; Type II files, used for the commodity-level import in the web interface, group several producers by ProducerName and ProducerCountry and must carry ProducerCountry on every feature.

Timber and wood products: add the species

For anything listed under wood in Annex I, from sawn timber to furniture, plywood or paper, Article 9(1)(a) requires the common name and full scientific name of each species. The Information System will not accept a timber commodity without at least one scientific/common name pair, and caps the list at 500 pairs per commodity.

The guidance accepts that species can be hard to pin down in particleboard or paper, but where species vary, the operator must list each species that may have been used, using recognised nomenclature such as DIN EN 13556. A UK furniture maker supplying EU retailers should expect to be asked for exactly that.

Common mapping errors and the exceptions worth knowing

• Mixed-use plots: forest and agricultural areas within one property are assessed separately. The guidance's example is a 10-hectare property where 2 hectares meet the forest definition: those 2 hectares count as forest regardless of the 80% under crops.
• Register versus ground truth: actual forest characteristics prevail over land registers and cadastral maps.
• Free maps are not evidence: the EU Observatory forest-cover map carries no legal value and is not mandatory.
• One bad plot, all volumes out: deforestation or degradation on a plot disqualifies all commodities from that plot (Article 9(1)(d)).

Since Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, micro or small primary operators (natural persons or micro and small undertakings established in a low-risk country who place their own production on the market) may give the postal address of their plots or establishment instead of coordinates (Article 4a(5)). Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093 lists the United Kingdom as low risk, but the category is limited to producers selling what they themselves grew, harvested or raised there.

Keep the timetable in mind: these obligations apply from 30 December 2026, or 30 June 2027 for micro and small undertakings established as such by 31 December 2024. You can test your own cases against the EUDR base, for example: "If I don't fill in the Area field for a geolocation point in the Information System, what value does the system use?"