Is there an EU–Indonesia trade agreement? concluded, not in force
Not yet in force. Negotiations concluded in September 2025 after nearly ten years, and the agreement is in ratification. Until it applies, your goods pay the ordinary tariff or the GSP rate where that applies. It is worth knowing the date it starts, because a duty that disappears changes a landed cost overnight.
Full answer — the grounds, the numbers, the pitfalls
Whether a preference actually applies is decided per product by the origin rule in the agreement, not by where the goods were shipped from. Rules of origin works that through, and the goods code decides which rule you are under. A claim without valid proof is recovered from the importer, three years back, with interest.
Source: EU–Indonesia CEPA: negotiations concluded September 2025, ratification pending. Checked: 5 September 2026.
I sell from Indonesia to the EU. Do I need an EU Responsible Person?
Yes. The Responsible Person must be an economic operator established inside the EU; an Indonesian company cannot take the role. Most Indonesian exporters appoint a paid service, €200–800 per year per catalogue.
I export palm oil or palm-oil derivatives. What applies?
Palm oil is on the EUDR deforestation list: plot geolocation and deforestation-free proof required (delayed to 30 December 2026 for large operators). REACH applies to chemical substances. Packaging around it triggers EPR per member state. And if it reaches consumers, GPSR on top.
My product has CE from our factory. Is GPSR automatic?
No: CE and GPSR are separate. A product can be CE-marked and still lack the Responsible Person that GPSR requires, and still get its listing suspended. Many Indonesian manufacturers carry CE for footwear, toys or electronics; the GPSR layer comes on top.
We also export coffee, cocoa, rubber and wood furniture. Same regulation?
Yes, and that is the part exporters miss.
Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 names seven commodities: cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood. Four of them are ordinary Indonesian export lines and furniture is a derived wood product, so the same file is needed for each of them. The obligation does not change per commodity: plot geolocation, the production period, evidence that the land was not deforested after 31 December 2020, and a due diligence statement filed by the EU operator before customs. What does change is how hard the geolocation is to get. Smallholder coffee and cocoa are the slowest, because the plot boundaries do not exist as data until somebody goes and records them. Start with the commodity you ship most of, and check your codes against the current Annex I.
Who registers the packaging, and in which country?
In every member state where the goods are first made available, and usually not by you. Extended producer responsibility for packaging is national, not EU-wide: Germany runs the LUCID register, France issues a unique identifier per waste stream, and the marketplaces check both before they let a listing run. Under
Regulation (EU) 2025/40 a producer who sells into a member state where he is not established has to appoint an authorised representative for extended producer responsibility in that state, applicable from 12 August 2026. The dividing line is who first makes the packed goods available on that national market: if your EU buyer imports and sells, he is the producer of that packaging; if you sell direct to consumers, you are, in every country you ship to.