Preparing Your Suppliers for EUDR: A Practical Checklist

Most importers understand what the EUDR requires. The harder problem is getting 20 cooperatives across three continents to respond to a data request before December 30, 2026. Supplier engagement is where compliance programs stall. Not because the regulation is unclear, but because asking a smallholder cooperative in Côte d'Ivoire to send you GPS polygon coordinates is a genuinely difficult communication challenge.

This is a practical checklist for that problem. It covers what data you actually need, how to prioritise your outreach, what to include in a first contact email, and what to do when a supplier says no or simply doesn't respond.

The supplier engagement problem: why most importers stall here

Geolocation data is the EUDR's bottleneck. You can set up your TRACES NT account in a day. You can run a risk assessment in hours once you have coordinates. But getting plot-level GPS data from origin-country suppliers can take 3 to 8 weeks per supplier, and that's when things go smoothly.

The reasons vary. Some cooperatives have the data but not in a format the EUDR accepts. Some have it only for part of their member farmers. Some have never collected it at all and need to run a field exercise before they can respond. Some will want to understand why you need it before they'll agree to share it. You can't tell which category your suppliers fall into until you ask.

The other problem is simple math. If you have 15 direct suppliers and each takes an average of 4 weeks to respond and provide usable data, your first round of outreach needs to finish by August 2026 at the latest to have any chance of a second round before the deadline. That means starting now, not when your next shipment arrives.

What data you actually need from each supplier

Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 specifies the minimum information your Due Diligence Statement must contain. For each direct supplier you need: supplier name, full address, and country. For each production plot you need GPS coordinates: a single point if the plot is 4 hectares or smaller, a closed polygon tracing the boundary if it's larger. All coordinates must be in WGS84 decimal degrees to at least 6 decimal places.

That precision requirement matters. A coordinate like -3.867412, 11.520834 meets the standard. -3.87, 11.52 does not. You also need the harvest year or production period for each lot, and the country where the commodity was produced (not where it was processed or exported from).

If your supplier is a cooperative supplying coffee from 80 smallholder members, you need coordinates for each farm, not a single point for the cooperative's office. That's the data gap that surprises most importers. Your traceability may already reach to cooperative level. The EUDR requires it to reach to farm level.

A phased engagement plan: Tier 1 first, then deeper tiers

Don't try to contact every supplier simultaneously. Prioritise by volume and risk, then work down the list in two or three rounds.

Tier 1 is your top 3 to 5 suppliers by import volume (the ones where missing data would stop your highest-value shipments). Contact these first. Send detailed requests, schedule calls if needed, and allocate time to troubleshoot their responses. Give them a 3-week deadline to reply.

Tier 2 is your remaining active suppliers. Contact them in the week after your Tier 1 outreach goes out, so you're not waiting on Tier 1 responses before moving. Their deadline should be 4 weeks from first contact.

Tier 3 is any occasional or backup suppliers you haven't used in the past 12 months but might use before year-end. Contact these in a second round once you've processed Tier 1 and 2 responses. You need to know whether they can provide data before you book another shipment from them.

Build in at least two follow-up rounds. The first contact often lands with someone who doesn't handle compliance data. Expect to be redirected, and expect a portion of your suppliers to need a second or third message before they respond substantively. If you begin outreach by July 2026, you have time for two full follow-up rounds before the December deadline.

How to ask for GPS coordinates: template email and guidance

The biggest mistake in first-contact emails is asking for "GPS data" without explaining what format you need and why you need it. Suppliers who've never encountered the EUDR before will assume you want their warehouse address. Your email needs to specify the format and include a brief explanation of the legal obligation.

Here's a template you can adapt. Send it in the supplier's language: Portuguese for Brazil, French for Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon, Bahasa Indonesia for Indonesian suppliers. Sending the request in English when your supplier operates in French significantly reduces your response rate.

---

Subject: GPS coordinates required for EU import compliance: [your company name]

Dear [Supplier name],

As of December 30, 2026, EU importers are legally required to collect GPS location data for all agricultural plots supplying goods to the EU market. This is a requirement under Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 (the EU Deforestation Regulation, EUDR).

We need the following data for each production plot supplying our orders:

• GPS coordinates in decimal degrees format (WGS84), to 6 decimal places
• A single GPS point for plots 4 hectares or smaller; a closed polygon for larger plots
• The harvest year or production period for the relevant lot

We need to receive this data by [date]. Without it, we are legally unable to import your product into the EU from January 2027.

If you need guidance on how to collect or share this data, please contact us. We are happy to support the process.

[Your name and contact details]

---

State the consequence clearly: you can't import the product without the data. This isn't a threat, it's accurate, and suppliers respond better to factual stakes than vague compliance language. Offer support as well. Many suppliers want to comply but don't know how, and saying you'll help opens the door to a working relationship rather than a stone wall. Finally, give a specific deadline rather than "as soon as possible." Requests without deadlines get deprioritised.

Handling supplier resistance or inability to provide data

Resistance comes in a few forms. Some suppliers will refuse outright, either because they don't want to disclose farm locations or because they don't trust the request. Some will agree in principle but fail to deliver usable data after several follow-ups. Some genuinely can't provide the data because they haven't collected it and don't have the resources to do so quickly.

If a supplier refuses on confidentiality grounds, explain that the data is used for deforestation verification and not shared commercially. You may also offer a data processing agreement that limits how you store and use the coordinates. Some suppliers are reassured by formal documentation.

If a supplier tries but delivers unusable data — coordinates that point to a warehouse, single points for large plantations, or coordinates without sufficient decimal places — treat it as an incomplete response and request a correction with specific guidance. Send an annotated example of what a compliant coordinate looks like.

If a supplier genuinely cannot provide the data, you need to make a commercial decision. The EUDR is unambiguous: if you can't complete your due diligence, you can't legally place the product on the EU market. You can use this to prompt a supplier to invest in data collection. Some will, especially if you're an important customer. But if they won't or can't collect data before your shipment needs to clear customs, you need to either source from an alternative supplier or halt that product line until data is available.

Document every step of this process. Your follow-up emails, declined requests, partial data, and corrected submissions all form part of your audit trail. If an authority inspects your compliance records, your diligence in pursuing unresponsive suppliers demonstrates good faith.

What to do when your supplier is a trader, not a farm

Many importers don't buy directly from farms or cooperatives. They buy from a trading company (either in the origin country or in Europe) and that trading company handles the aggregation. In this case the question isn't "can you send me GPS data" but "do you have a EUDR-compliant supply chain."

If your supplier is an EU trading company that already imported the commodity, they should have a Due Diligence Statement reference number for your lot. Ask for it. If they have one, you're a trader under the EUDR and you can reference their DDS rather than building your own. Store their reference number with the shipment records.

If your supplier is an origin-country trading house, they are upstream of the EU import step. They need to be able to provide you with the same GPS data a farm or cooperative would provide, because they're aggregating it from their own supply base. The request is the same; the addressee is different. Ask them what traceability they have to farm level and whether they've already started collecting EUDR data for their EU customers.

The scenario to watch for: an origin-country trader who says "yes, we have the data" but on follow-up can only provide country-level or region-level information. That's not EUDR-compliant. Push for plot-level coordinates, and confirm the format before you treat it as resolved.

For a more detailed breakdown of how operator and trader obligations differ, see EUDR operator vs trader. For a step-by-step guide to what you need to collect from suppliers to complete your DDS, see collecting GPS coordinates for EUDR.

---

The importers who meet the December 2026 deadline will be the ones who started supplier conversations months before the deadline, followed up twice, and built a process for handling the inevitable gaps. None of that is technically difficult. It just has to actually happen.

TracePlot sends suppliers a branded data collection form in their language, handles follow-up reminders, and flags coordinates that don't meet the EUDR format before they become a problem. Getting started costs EUR 49 as a deposit, with plans from EUR 59/month. Reserve your slot before the December 2026 deadline closes in.

Get started at TracePlot