What Information Goes Into a Due Diligence Statement?

Annex II sets the ordinary statement information

An ordinary EUDR due diligence statement contains the operator's identification, the relevant product's code and description, the required quantity information, country of production and production geolocation, together with the prescribed confirmation and signature information. Annex II is the legal starting point. The Information System's current forms and technical specifications explain how those requirements are represented electronically.

The statement information is narrower than the complete evidence a business may need to collect under Article 9 and review under Articles 10 and 11. A document can be important to the due diligence conclusion without being a mandatory attachment to every electronic statement. Conversely, keeping excellent evidence outside the system does not excuse leaving a required statement field incomplete.

Identify the operator accurately

Annex II requires the operator's name and address and, for relevant commodities and products entering or leaving the market, the EORI number in accordance with the customs rules. Use the legal person responsible for the activity. The name of a purchasing contact, shipping agent or group brand cannot replace that entity merely because it appears prominently on an invoice.

Verify the consistency of the entity identity across registration, the statement and the transaction records. A minor-looking company-name mismatch can indicate that staff selected a sister company instead of the importer. Correct the identity issue before submission rather than adding a note later to explain why an unrelated company's reference number was used.

Product descriptions and quantity units

Annex II calls for the Harmonised System code and a free-text product description, including the trade name and, where applicable, the full scientific name. The amended implementing rules expressly require full scientific names of the wood species that relevant products contain or were made using. Avoid treating a commercial timber colour, grade or brand as a scientific species identification.

Quantity must follow the applicable Annex II rules. For products entering or leaving the market, the text specifies kilograms of net mass and the applicable supplementary unit. Other cases use net mass with the required estimate or deviation information or, where applicable, volume or number of items. The exact code and circumstances matter; a single unqualified unit field is unlikely to fit every product flow.

A shipment recorded as one hundred bags illustrates the problem. Without the required mass or other applicable quantity information, the business may have an adequate warehouse count but an incomplete regulatory statement. Align purchasing and stock data with the prescribed units before the submission stage, and retain the basis of any conversion used.

Production origins, not dispatch locations

The statement includes the country of production and geolocation of the relevant production plots. Where commodities come from different plots, the required plots must all be covered. For cattle-related products the rule concerns the establishments where the cattle were kept, subject to the legal wording. A consolidation depot or export port is not an alternative production location.

Use the source data as a controlled record. Check that the selected plots actually belong to the products described in the statement and that country names match the coordinates. A file can pass basic format validation while describing the wrong supply chain. The geolocation submission guide explains how to keep technical validation separate from that factual check.

Confirmation and signature information

The prescribed confirmation records that due diligence was carried out and found no or only negligible risk of non-compliance with the deforestation-free and legality conditions. The Annex also specifies signature information including the person acting for the operator. Electronic implementation should be checked against the live official manual, rather than assuming that a scanned signature attachment is always required.

Before making that confirmation, the operator should be able to explain its supporting conclusion. If a supplier's land-use documents contradict the coordinates or a deforestation alert remains unresolved, the missing work belongs in the assessment process. Selecting a confirmation box cannot resolve the underlying issue. Assign the review to a person who can stop release when the necessary conclusion is unavailable.

Avoid importing obsolete fields or the wrong declaration

The revised Annex II removed the former point concerning references to earlier statements. Do not copy old forms into a new process without checking the current legal text. The July 2026 implementing amendment separately provides a grouping mechanism for a user's own records, with its own legal conditions. That does not restore an ordinary downstream statement chain.

Annex III governs the simplified declaration for qualifying micro or small primary operators and has different information, including an estimated annual quantity. It should not be blended into the ordinary Annex II form. The complete statement framework helps identify which record applies. Keep the field mapping, source data version and reviewer decision together so the final submission can be reconstructed from reliable evidence.

A field-level review should also distinguish missing information from inconsistent information. A blank country field is visible immediately, while a completed country field that conflicts with the production coordinates can be easier to overlook. Compare related fields and supporting records together. This helps detect a statement assembled from individually plausible entries that do not describe the same actual product and production history.