EUDR geolocation requirements: polygons, points and the 4-hectare rule

Every EUDR due diligence statement needs the geolocation of the plot each commodity came from: a single latitude/longitude point for a plot of 4 hectares or less, and a polygon tracing the perimeter for anything larger. Cattle is the one exception — a single point per establishment, whatever its size. Coordinates need at least six decimal places, and polygons are submitted as GeoJSON.

That outline is simple. Getting real coordinates out of a real supply chain, in a format the Information System will actually accept, is where most due diligence statements stall. This guide covers both the rule and the practical failure points.

What "geolocation" means under Article 9

Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 defines geolocation as the latitude and longitude coordinates of the plot of land where a relevant commodity was produced, expressed in decimal degrees to at least six decimal places. Article 9(1)(d) requires this for every plot in the consignment, not a representative sample and not the exporter's registered address.

The six-decimal requirement is not a rounding preference. Six decimal places of latitude and longitude resolve to roughly 11 centimetres on the ground — enough to identify one plot rather than the village it sits in. Coordinates truncated to four or five decimals, which is what a lot of handheld GPS units and older farm records default to, will not pass validation.

Points vs polygons: the 4-hectare rule

The format you submit depends on the plot's area, with one exception for cattle.

Plot size	Commodity	Required format
4 hectares or less	Any commodity except cattle	Single point (latitude, longitude)
More than 4 hectares	Any commodity except cattle	Polygon describing the full perimeter, as GeoJSON
Any size	Cattle	Single point per establishment

Most smallholder plots — a coffee garden, a cocoa farm, a family rubber holding — fall under 4 hectares and only ever need a point. Estate-scale production, plantation blocks and consolidated timber concessions are usually over the threshold and need a polygon with enough vertices to represent the plot's actual shape, not a rectangle drawn around it.

The area itself determines the format, so you need to know a plot's size before you know what to ask a supplier for. A plot just over 4 hectares that is submitted as a point will be rejected; the reverse — a polygon for a smaller plot — is generally accepted but is more data than the rule requires.

Why cattle is treated differently

Cattle is the only live commodity the EUDR covers, and animals move between pasture, feedlots and staging points over their life rather than growing on one fixed plot. The regulation reflects that: instead of a polygon per grazing area, an operator submits a point for each establishment where the cattle were kept, regardless of how large that holding is. A large estancia is not required to survey and submit its full pasture boundary — one coordinate per establishment used in that animal's history is enough.

This is a genuine simplification but not a licence to under-record. If cattle passed through several holdings — a breeding ranch, then a fattening operation, then a slaughterhouse catchment — each establishment in that chain needs its own point, not just the last one before export.

Format and precision, in practice

The technical detail that trips up the most submissions:

• Coordinate order. Polygons are submitted as GeoJSON, which orders coordinates as longitude, then latitude — the reverse of how most people say coordinates aloud and the reverse of how many consumer GPS apps display them. Swapping the order is the single most common cause of a polygon landing in the wrong hemisphere.
• Decimal precision. At least six decimal places on both latitude and longitude. Fewer decimals is a validation failure, not a warning.
• Polygon closure and vertices. A polygon needs enough vertices to represent the plot's actual perimeter, and the shape must close — its first and last coordinate pairs need to match. A four-point rectangle stretched around an irregularly shaped plot will pass basic format validation but misrepresents the boundary, which matters at the next stage.
• One plot, one geometry. A consolidated shipment from several plots needs geolocation for every contributing plot, not one averaged or central coordinate for the batch. See what coffee importers must collect from every farm for what that looks like when a lot blends dozens of smallholder plots through a single cooperative.

How the data gets checked

Submitted geolocation is not just stored — it is checked against independent evidence before a statement is treated as low-risk. The EU Forest Observatory, run by the Commission's Joint Research Centre, maintains a global forest cover baseline dated to 31 December 2020 at 10-metre resolution, which is the reference layer the cut-off date is measured against. Submitted plot coordinates are checked against this baseline and against ongoing Copernicus satellite monitoring for forest loss after that date, alongside other risk indicators the regulation sets out.

The practical consequence is that a plot cannot be described generously. A polygon drawn to include land the commodity did not actually come from, or coordinates placed near but not on the true plot, can trigger a flag even where the underlying supply chain is genuinely deforestation-free, because the geometry itself is what gets tested against the baseline.

Where geolocation collection actually breaks down

The rule is short; collecting compliant data against it is not, for three recurring reasons:

1. Aggregation at the point of sale. A cooperative, washing station or consolidator sells a blended lot and has historically tracked suppliers, not plots. The EUDR needs the plot list underneath that lot, which is a different data structure to what most trading relationships have ever required. EUDR for coffee importers and EUDR for furniture and timber importers both cover commodity-specific versions of this problem.
2. Equipment and format mismatch. Coordinates collected on a farmer's phone, a paper record, or an older land registry rarely arrive at six decimal places or in GeoJSON. Someone has to convert format and precision before submission, and that conversion is where transcription errors creep in.
3. No area recorded. You cannot tell whether a plot needs a point or a polygon without knowing its size, and area is often the field a supplier omits even when coordinates are supplied.

None of these are solved by asking a supplier for "EUDR data" in general terms. A usable request is specific: plot or farm identifier, coordinates or polygon, area in hectares, and the harvest or production period that ties the geometry to a specific shipment.

What happens if geolocation fails validation

TRACES NT validates the mandatory fields — including geolocation format and precision — before it accepts a due diligence statement. A statement with malformed geolocation, coordinates at insufficient precision, or a point submitted for a plot that needed a polygon, is rejected outright and cannot be used to place the consignment on the market or clear customs until it is corrected. How to submit a due diligence statement in TRACES, step by step covers the full filing process and the other common rejection reasons alongside this one.

A statement that passes format validation is not automatically clear of scrutiny either. If the submitted geometry falls inside an area the forest cover baseline and satellite monitoring flag as deforested after 31 December 2020, that triggers further checks by the relevant national competent authority, independent of whether the paperwork itself was in order.

Does the simplified declaration change any of this?

No, not for geolocation format — it changes who has to supply it and how precisely. Micro and small primary operators sourcing exclusively from countries benchmarked low risk can use a postal code or address instead of coordinates under the Article 4a simplified declaration introduced by Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, provided the postal address clearly corresponds to the plot or establishment. Everyone else — which is most operators, since few source exclusively from low-risk countries — still needs the point-or-polygon geolocation described above, at full precision, per plot. Check which EUDR deadline applies to you if you are not sure whether the simplified route is even open to you.

Getting geolocation collection right before you need it

Three things make the difference between a filing that goes through and one that stalls on a live shipment:

• Ask for plot identifier, coordinates, area and production period together, not coordinates alone — area is what tells you whether a point or a polygon applies.
• Validate format before submission, not during it. Check decimal precision and coordinate order on a sample before you build a supplier-wide process around it.
• Start with your hardest supplier, not your easiest one. A single-estate supplier with existing survey data will produce compliant geolocation in a day. A cooperative blending hundreds of smallholder plots will not, and that is the relationship that determines whether you file on time.

Check what the EUDR requires for your business and get a dated plan for the data you actually need to collect, not just the deadline you're working against.