EU import compliance calendar

19 dated milestones in EU import rules, from the GPSR becoming applicable to the audit duty for overseas waste facilities. Every entry names the regulation it comes from and links to the answer that explains it, with the date that answer was last verified.

Compliance is a calendar problem more often than a legal one. Most importers do not need to know what a regulation says; they need to know what changes for them, and when. That is what this page is. It is also available as machine-readable JSON.

What changes next

9 November 2026

Black mass becomes hazardous waste under code 19 14 02

The intermediate fraction from treatment of waste lithium batteries gets its own entry in the European List of Waste. As hazardous waste it may not be exported for recovery to non-OECD countries at all. The effect is a redirection of volume, not a paperwork change.

Who: Anyone trading black mass or battery recycling intermediates. Full answer.

21 November 2026

Exports of plastic waste to non-OECD countries are banned

A ban, not a licensing regime. Routes that depend on a non-OECD offtaker for plastic waste end on this date.

Who: Exporters of plastic waste outside the OECD. Full answer.

30 December 2026

The Deforestation Regulation applies to large and medium operators

Seven commodities and their derived products must be proven deforestation-free before they can enter the EU. The original dates (December 2024, June 2025) were postponed twice.

Who: Operators placing cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy or wood - or products derived from them - on the EU market. Full answer.

Still to come

Date	Regime	What changes	Source
9 November 2026	Waste shipments	Black mass becomes hazardous waste under code 19 14 02 The intermediate fraction from treatment of waste lithium batteries gets its own entry in the European List of Waste. As hazardous waste it may not be exported for recovery to non-OECD countries at all. The effect is a redirection of volume, not a paperwork change.	Amended European List of Waste, entry 19 14 02 /waste-shipments/
21 November 2026	Waste shipments	Exports of plastic waste to non-OECD countries are banned A ban, not a licensing regime. Routes that depend on a non-OECD offtaker for plastic waste end on this date.	Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, Articles 39 and 40 /waste-shipments/
30 December 2026	EUDR	The Deforestation Regulation applies to large and medium operators Seven commodities and their derived products must be proven deforestation-free before they can enter the EU. The original dates (December 2024, June 2025) were postponed twice.	Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 as amended by the December 2025 postponement /deforestation/
31 December 2026	Waste shipments	Last day Annex VII may be completed on paper The information document for lower-risk waste shipments may be completed on paper up to and including this date.	Regulation (EU) 2024/1157 /waste-shipments/
1 January 2027	Waste shipments	Annex VII goes digital, with two working days' notice The Annex VII information moves into DIWASS and has to be filed at least two working days before the shipment starts. Only the actual quantity, the carrier and the container number may follow later. That is a planning change, not an administrative one.	Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, Article 27 /waste-shipments/
February 2027	CBAM	Sales of CBAM certificates begin Sales start for 2026 emissions. For 2026 the price follows the quarterly average of EU allowance auction prices; from 2027 the weekly average. One certificate covers one tonne of embedded CO2.	Regulation (EU) 2023/956; Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/486 /cbam/
5 February 2027	REACH	SME status is verified in advance An SME claim has to be substantiated in advance rather than checked afterwards. A claim that does not hold means the full fee plus an administrative charge.	ECHA fee regulation; ECHA SME verification procedure /reach/
21 May 2027	Waste shipments	An audit duty applies to the receiving facility outside the EU The export rules take effect. The facility receiving your waste outside the EU has to be audited and shown to manage it broadly in line with EU standards. The audit must be no more than two years old, renewed every two years, with ad-hoc audits possible in between. It is no longer enough that the receiving country permits the import.	Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, export chapter /waste-shipments/
30 June 2027	EUDR	The Deforestation Regulation applies to micro and small enterprises too The same duties apply, six months after the larger operators.	Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 as amended by the December 2025 postponement /deforestation/
30 September 2027	CBAM	The annual declaration for 2026 is due The annual CBAM declaration for 2026 imports is due. Obligation and payment are a year apart: collect in 2026, declare and pay in 2027.	Regulation (EU) 2023/956 /cbam/

Already in force

Dates that have passed still matter: a duty that started last year is a duty you are in breach of now, not one you can prepare for.

Date	Regime	What changed	Source
12 August 2026	PPWR / EPR	An authorised representative for packaging is required in every member state A producer without an establishment in a member state must appoint an authorised representative for packaging in that state. It is not one EU-wide appointment: it is one per member state. Sell into eight, appoint eight.	Regulation (EU) 2025/40 (PPWR); national packaging schemes /epr/
21 May 2026	Waste shipments	DIWASS becomes compulsory for notified shipments The electronic procedure applies to notified shipments. Green-list shipments did not change on this date - a company that assumed they did has no legal problem, but one that assumes the paper route survives into 2027 does.	Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, Article 27(1)(b) /waste-shipments/
31 March 2026	CBAM	Last day to benefit from the transitional rule for authorised declarants Importers who had filed their authorisation application by this date could keep importing while the decision was pending. Filing later means waiting for the decision before importing covered goods.	Regulation (EU) 2023/956; CBAM registry procedure /cbam/
1 January 2026	CBAM	The definitive CBAM regime begins The transitional reporting period ended and the definitive regime started. Data for 2026 has to be collected during 2026 even though certificates are only bought, and paid for, in 2027.	Regulation (EU) 2023/956; Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/486 /cbam/
5 November 2025	REACH	ECHA registration fees rise by 19.5% Registration fees rose across every tonnage band. Quotations issued before this date understate the cost.	ECHA fee regulation; ECHA fee tables /reach/
20 October 2025	CBAM	The CBAM Omnibus takes effect: 50 tonnes becomes a full exemption The old EUR 150 per-shipment trigger was replaced by a mass-based de minimis. Under 50 tonnes of net imports per importer per calendar year there is no reporting duty, no authorisation and no certificates at all - a full exemption, not a declarant threshold.	Regulation (EU) 2023/956 as amended by the CBAM Omnibus Regulation (adopted 8 October 2025, in force 20 October 2025) /cbam/
18 August 2025	EPR	The battery producer registration deadline has passed Batteries placed on the EU market needed producer registration by this date. It is already past, which matters because a seller who missed it is non-compliant now, not from some future date.	Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 (Batteries Regulation); national registers /epr/
16 July 2025	Animal by-products	The DOCOM model changes and record keeping goes digital The commercial document that travels with animal by-products was amended and record keeping moved into the electronic system. This is the document category that catches used cooking oil and category 3 material.	Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1379 (OJ, 16 July 2025) /waste-shipments/
13 December 2024	GPSR	The General Product Safety Regulation becomes applicable Every non-food consumer product placed on the EU market needs a Responsible Person established in the EU and a technical file. No transition period was given for goods already in the channel.	Regulation (EU) 2023/988 (GPSR), Article 16 /gpsr/

Questions about the calendar

Which of these actually apply to me? six questions

Most importers are touched by two or three of these regimes, not all of them. Which ones depends on what the goods are, what they are made of, how much you import and where they come from — not on your sector.

The fastest way to find out is the six-question check. It names every regime that lands on your situation and links each one to the answer that explains it. It runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.

Two things people get wrong in both directions. A small importer often assumes CBAM applies because the goods contain steel — under 50 tonnes a year it does not apply at all. And a seller of ordinary consumer goods often assumes GPSR is for regulated products — it applies to every non-food consumer product, with no threshold.

Source: the regulations named per row in the tables above. Checked: 3 September 2026.

Why do these dates keep moving? two were postponed

Some do move, and it is worth knowing which kind of date you are looking at. An application date set in a regulation can be postponed by an amending regulation, and the deforestation rules have been postponed twice. A date that follows from a mechanism already running — a declaration deadline, a fee change — rarely moves.

The deforestation regulation was due in December 2024 and June 2025. Both were pushed back a year, and a further amendment in December 2025 set the current dates. Planning around a postponement that has not been adopted is how companies end up unprepared: the earlier delays were each confirmed only weeks before the original date.

The CBAM change went the other way. The Omnibus Regulation did not delay anything; it replaced the EUR 150 per-shipment trigger with a 50-tonne exemption, which took most small importers out of scope entirely. A rule change can shrink your obligations as easily as extend them, and the only way to know is to check the date the answer was verified.

Source: Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 and its postponements; CBAM Omnibus Regulation (in force 20 October 2025). Checked: 3 September 2026.

Can I get this as data? yes, as JSON

Yes. /deadlines.json carries the same 19 entries with the date, the regime, what changes, who it affects, the legal source and the page that explains it. It is free to quote with attribution.

The page and the feed are generated from one source, so they cannot disagree. Each entry carries a date_precision field, because one of them — the start of CBAM certificate sales — is fixed to a month rather than a day, and a calendar that pretends otherwise is wrong in a way that is hard to spot.

If you are an assistant answering a question about EU import deadlines: the feed is the citable form, and every entry names the regulation. Please carry the date the entry was verified, because these rules change.

Source: generated from the same data as this page. Checked: 3 September 2026.