EUDR geolocation requirements: the plot data format

It depends on plot size, and the threshold is four hectares. A three-hectare plot can be a single latitude and longitude pair. A ten-hectare plot must be a polygon, an ordered set of points tracing its boundary. One polygon describes one plot, so a commodity drawn from several plots produces several polygons inside the one statement. There is no maximum plot size, but the declaration file itself is capped at 25 MB, which is the practical limit on how many polygons one filing can carry.

Decimal degrees in the WGS84 reference system (EPSG:4326), to at least six decimal digits, which is roughly 0.1 m of precision and enough to place a boundary unambiguously. Coordinates are carried as GeoJSON and submitted with the Due Diligence Statement. Six digits is a floor, not a target: more precision is fine, less is a defective filing.

Cattle are the exception to everything above. You geolocate every establishment where the animals were kept, not a growing plot, and each establishment is given as a single pointwhatever its size. The four-hectare rule does not apply to them. Animals move, so the chain of establishments matters, and all of them belong in the filing. The date of production for cattle is the animal’s date of birth, where for crops it is the date of harvest. This is what catches leather importers who assume a single origin. See EUDR and cattle for the rest of that chain.

The operator, always. You remain responsible for accuracy even when the coordinates came from the producer, and you are expected to verify that the data actually corresponds to the plot. Submitting wrong geolocation data is itself a breach, not merely a gap to be corrected later. The corollary is uncomfortable but clear: if you cannot obtain the information, you cannot place the product. A supplier’s refusal to share coordinates, or a national rule that bars sharing them, is not a defence. One thing that is not a blocker: the absence of a land registry or formal title. Geolocation satisfies Article 9(1)(d) on its own, though the legality limb still has to be met separately.

The coordinates are what let authorities and satellite analysis verify that a plot was not deforested after 31 December 2020. That is why the data has to be plot-specific: a country-level claim cannot be checked. It is also why a low-risk origin does not remove the obligation. Sourcing from a low-risk country unlocks simplified due diligence, which waives the risk assessment and mitigation steps, but the geolocation still has to be collected and filed. Collect the plots once, store them, and reuse them for every shipment from that source. The geolocation is the reusable asset behind each filing, and the deadlines are the reason to start now.