Vietnamese coffee races the clock as EU deforestation deadline looms

Photo courtesy of Tuoi Tre News

Coffee farmers work in the Central Highlands, Vietnam’s largest coffee-growing region and a key source of export supply. Photo: Nguyen Khanh / Tuoi Tre

Yet major hurdles remain, chiefly fragmented land records, conflicting forestry data, and a lack of standardized verification systems.

The compliance countdown

As one of the world's primary exporters of coffee to Europe, Vietnam's coffee industry is facing mounting pressure to meet the EU's strict sustainability standards.

Under the regulation, large and medium-sized operators must comply by December 30, 2026, while small enterprises have until June 30, 2027.

The stakes could not be higher. Data from Vietnam Customs show the country exported over 1.05 million metric tons of coffee in the first half of 2026, generating US$4.81 billion in revenue.

Europe remains Vietnam's largest export destination, with Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands alone importing over 409,700 metric tons valued at nearly $1.74 billion during the same six-month period.

Nguyen Thanh Tai, an executive committee member of the Vietnam Coffee-Cocoa Association (VICOFA), noted that nearly half of Vietnam's coffee exports flow directly to the EU market.

Consequently, failing to meet EUDR requirements threatens not only major exporters, but also the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers and the long-term stability of the country's key growing regions.

Under the EUDR, legal liability falls primarily on importers and traders placing goods on the EU market for the first time. However, fulfilling these due diligence obligations requires seamless data collection across the entire upstream supply chain, from local purchasing agents and cooperatives down to individual farming plots.

“While Vietnamese companies aren't always filing due diligence statements directly with the EU, compliance mandates are aggressively pushed down to everyone on the ground,” Tai explained.

According to EUDR, coffee shipments must still be traceable to their production areas, including geolocation data, and demonstrate that they are not linked to deforestation after December 31, 2020. Photo: B.D. / Tuoi Tre

Although the EU has designated Vietnam as a low-risk country, reducing administrative scrutiny and streamlining risk assessments, Tai emphasized that low-risk status is not a free pass.

Every shipment must still be fully traceable back to its plot of origin via precise geolocation data, proven free of deforestation after the cut-off date of December 31, 2020, and verified compliant with local land laws.

Achieving this is a formidable task. Vietnam’s coffee production spans more than 700,000 hectares, cultivated overwhelmingly by smallholders and funneled through complex, multi-tiered networks of local traders and collectors.

Along the way, beans from hundreds of disparate farms are regularly aggregated, stored, and blended long before reaching processing plants or export hubs.

“Having GPS coordinates for a farm isn't enough,” Tai noted. “Unless we can track actual volumes and physical product flows through every single hand it passes, we cannot prove compliance.”

The primary challenge for Vietnam is less about active deforestation and more about proof: whether the industry can back up its claims with verifiable, unbroken data trails from farm to vessel.

Early preparations underway

Vietnam moved quickly to prepare for EUDR requirements, though industry leaders caution that the broader supply chain is still far from ready.

7 August 2026