EUDR Geolocation Requirements — GPS Data and Polygons

Geolocation Requirements Under EUDR

Geolocation is one of the most specific and challenging requirements of EUDR. Article 9 mandates the collection of geographic coordinates for all plots of land from which relevant products originate.

What Data Is Required?

The type of data depends on the plot size:

Plot Size	Data Required	Format
Under 4 hectares	A single geolocation point	Latitude and longitude (decimal degrees, at least 6 decimal places)
4 hectares or more	Polygon delineating the plot	List of latitude/longitude coordinates defining the plot boundary

The 4-hectare threshold refers to the total area of the plot, not the harvested area.

Quality Standards

Geolocation data must meet the following quality requirements:

• Accuracy — coordinates must actually correspond to the production location. A GPS error of a few meters is acceptable, but coordinates off by hundreds of meters are not.
• Currency — data must reflect the actual plot used at the time of harvest/production.
• Completeness — all production plots must be covered. It is not sufficient to provide coordinates for only a subset of sourcing locations.
• Verifiability — coordinates must be correlatable with publicly available satellite imagery.

Collection Methods

Geolocation data can be collected through several methods:

1. Field GPS — handheld GPS devices or mobile mapping applications. The most accurate method, but requires physical access to the plots.
2. Satellite imagery — identifying plots based on high-resolution imagery (Sentinel-2, Landsat, commercial imagery). Useful for verifying field GPS data.
3. Cadastral and land registers — in countries with digitized cadastral systems, data can be extracted from official records.
4. Collaborative platforms — systems where producers register their plots through a mobile application with GPS functionality.

Integration with the EU Information System

Geolocation data is transmitted as part of the due diligence statement in the EU Information System (EUDR Information System). The system will accept:

• Coordinates in WGS84 format (the standard GPS reference system).
• Polygons defined by ordered lists of latitude/longitude points.
• The system will automatically validate submitted data (for example, verifying that polygons are closed and do not self-intersect).

The European Commission will use this data to verify through remote sensing whether the plots have undergone deforestation or forest degradation after the cut-off date of 31 December 2020.

Practical Challenges

Collecting geolocation data presents significant challenges, particularly for:

• Supply chains with many smallholders — for example, cocoa from West Africa, where millions of small farms supply the raw material.
• Areas with limited GPS coverage — dense tropical forests where the GPS signal can be imprecise.
• Mixed products from multiple sources — palm oil or soy from factories that blend production from dozens or hundreds of plots.

For operators handling large volumes, investing in a digital traceability platform is essential. See the compliance checklist to ensure you have all the required data and the risk assessment page to understand how geolocation data is used in risk analysis.