Can an EUDR country risk classification be challenged?

No individual business, trade body or country can get an EUDR country risk tier changed directly — only the European Commission can revise the classification, and only by amending Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093 itself. As of this writing, no country has moved tier since the first list took effect on 22 May 2025, despite a European Parliament resolution against it and formal objections from Malaysia and Indonesia.

Who can actually change a country's tier, and who can't

Article 29 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 gives the Commission sole responsibility for classifying countries as low, standard or high risk, and for reviewing that classification "regularly, and at least every three years." The Commission acts alone on this: there is no mechanism in the regulation for an operator, an industry association, a trade partner government or an NGO to submit a classification change and have it adopted. Any of them can lobby, object or supply data, but the decision stays with the Commission, exercised through another implementing act subject to the same comitology procedure as the first one.

The European Parliament and the Council sit outside that loop in a different way. Under the EUDR's comitology arrangements, the Parliament can adopt a resolution objecting to an implementing act — which is a political signal, not a veto — while the Council holds a formal right to object that could, in principle, block an implementing measure. Neither body can rewrite the classification itself; both can only object to what the Commission has already adopted or proposes to adopt.

Any revised list still has to pass through the same examination procedure as the first one: a committee of member state representatives votes on the Commission's draft before it can be adopted. That gives individual member states a say in the outcome, but it is a vote on the Commission's proposal, not a channel through which a non-EU producing country or an importer can put forward its own alternative classification.

The European Parliament's objection, and why it didn't move anything

On 9 July 2025 the European Parliament adopted a motion for a resolution objecting to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093, by 373 votes to 289 with 26 abstentions. The resolution argued the Commission had relied on incomplete, outdated and imprecise data, had not properly consulted producer countries, and in the Parliament's view had exceeded the scope of its implementing powers. It called on the Commission to withdraw the Implementing Regulation and resubmit a revised version.

The resolution did not annul the Implementing Regulation, and the classification it objected to remained in force throughout, unchanged, through the date of writing. A Parliament resolution of this kind carries political weight — it signals where a majority of MEPs stand, and it puts pressure on the Commission ahead of the scheduled review — but it has no legal effect on the text in force. Any guide, newsletter or supplier questionnaire that treats the July 2025 vote as having changed a country's tier is simply wrong; check the current Annex to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093, not a summary of the vote.

Which countries have formally objected, and on what grounds

Two governments have raised the clearest formal objections to their own classification.

Malaysia disputes its standard-risk classification specifically. The Malaysian Palm Oil Board and the Malaysian Palm Oil Council have argued that the Commission's benchmarking relied on average annual forest loss data from 2015–2020, which they say is too narrow to reflect Malaysia's more recent performance, and have pointed to a reported double-digit reduction in primary forest loss in more recent national data. Malaysian industry bodies have also criticised the fact that every EU member state is classified low risk as a structural asymmetry, rather than a finding based on the same deforestation criteria applied to non-EU producers.

Indonesia has objected on broader legal and procedural grounds: its Foreign Ministry has said the regulation was adopted unilaterally, without adequate consultation with producer countries, and has questioned the legal basis and methodology behind the risk classification, including possible conflicts with WTO rules. Indonesia's position is reinforced by a run of WTO rulings against separate EU measures affecting its palm oil exports, which industry commentary has suggested could add pressure on the EUDR's own benchmarking approach, though no WTO panel has yet ruled on the country benchmarking system itself.

Both objections are diplomatic and political. Neither has produced a change to either country's tier, and both Malaysia and Indonesia remain classified standard risk under the current Annex.

Country	Current tier	Objection raised	Formal outcome so far
Malaysia	Standard	Disputes data period used; argues recent forest-loss reduction understates improvement	No change
Indonesia	Standard	Disputes legal basis, consultation and WTO compatibility	No change
Brazil	Standard	Joined a 2023 WTO Committee on Agriculture complaint about the EUDR generally, pre-dating the benchmarking list	No change
Belarus, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia	High	None formally recorded; tier follows existing UN/EU sanctions	No change

Is there a legal route to challenge a country's classification in court?

In principle, yes, through an action for annulment under Article 263 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, brought before the Court of Justice of the EU against the Commission's implementing act. In practice, this route is narrow. A non-privileged applicant — a company, trade association or non-EU government — has to show the measure is of "direct and individual concern" to it, a standing test the Court applies strictly to general regulatory acts that apply across a whole class of operators rather than singling one out. A classification that moves an entire country's producers from standard to high risk affects all of them identically, which is exactly the kind of broad, undifferentiated effect that tends to fail that test.

No annulment action against Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093 had been reported as filed or decided at the time of writing. If one is ever brought and succeeds, the practical effect for operators would most likely be prospective — a revised list — rather than retroactive exposure for due diligence statements already filed correctly against the classification in force at the time.

Has the Commission revised any country's classification since May 2025?

No. The Commission has committed to a first review during 2026, informed in part by the updated FAO Forest Resource Assessment data published in October 2025, but no revised Annex had been formally adopted at the time of writing. Article 29(2) requires the Commission to review the list "regularly," with three years as the outer limit, not a fixed annual cycle, so a 2026 review is a commitment the Commission has made publicly rather than a statutory deadline it is bound to hit on a specific date.

When a revision does land, it can move a country's tier in either direction: worsening deforestation data can push a low-risk country to standard or a standard-risk country to high; improving enforcement and falling forest-loss rates can move one down. The regulation gives operators sourcing from a country whose risk category rises a minimum of three months before the new classification takes effect, so a downgrade does not strand a shipment already in transit.

What changes for you if a country's tier actually moves

Tier decides how much due diligence you do and how often authorities check your shipments, covered in full in the country benchmarking guide — it does not touch whether you need a due diligence statement at all, which applies regardless of tier. A downgrade from low to standard removes simplified due diligence under Article 13: you lose the ability to skip the risk assessment and mitigation steps, and if you are a qualifying micro or small operator you lose the single simplified declaration and the postal-code concession. An upgrade from standard to high adds nothing to the due diligence steps themselves, but it roughly triples the share of your shipments a competent authority is required to check, from 3% to 9% of operators and volume.

A business sourcing coffee from a country that moved from standard to high risk, for example, would not have to do anything differently in the risk assessment itself — the steps in Articles 10 and 11 are the same at every tier above low — but should expect a materially higher chance of its shipments being examined on arrival, and would be well advised to tighten its own supporting evidence ahead of that.

What to do while a classification is being disputed

Three practical points follow from the fact that objections are live but have changed nothing yet:

• Treat the current Annex to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093 as binding until the Commission publishes a replacement — not a Parliament vote, a trade-body press release, or a blog post summarising one.
• Check the European Commission's country classification list directly before each filing cycle if a material share of your sourcing sits in a country under active objection, rather than relying on a figure recorded once at supplier onboarding.
• Keep a dated record of which tier you relied on when you filed each due diligence statement. If a classification later changes, your filing is judged against the rules in force when you made it, and a contemporaneous record is the simplest way to show that.

Check what your business's EUDR obligations are, including which due diligence route your sourcing countries currently put you on.

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