If you print newspapers, the short answer changed in December 2025, and most of the industry has not caught up with it. Printed products are no longer in the EUDR. The paper you buy still is.
Both halves of that sentence matter, and mixing them up is how printers end up either doing work they no longer owe or promising customers something they cannot evidence.
Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 amended the EU Deforestation Regulation in December 2025. Alongside the well-covered postponement, it deleted the Annex I line covering printed books, newspapers, pictures and other products of the printing industry.
The European Parliament put it in one sentence: "printed products are removed from the scope of the regulation, as requested by Parliament." The Council signed off the same revision on 18 December 2025.
So the newspaper, the insert and the flyer that leave your plant are not relevant products under the EUDR. You place no relevant product on the market by selling them, and no due diligence statement is owed on them by anyone.
Paper and paperboard stayed exactly where they were. The German federation BVDM was explicit about this when the exemption was agreed: "Während Papier weiterhin im Anwendungsbereich der Verordnung bleibt und somit EUDR-konform sein muss", paper remains within the scope of the regulation and must be EUDR-compliant.
Chapter 48 is untouched. Your reels are relevant products. What changed is who carries the paperwork, not whether the paper is regulated.
The obligation on the paper sits with whoever first places it on the EU market, which is the mill or the importer. They run the due diligence and file the statement. You buy a product that is already covered.
Because your output is no longer a relevant product, the chain stops at you. You are not passing a regulated product onward, so you are not filing anything.
That is the legal position. It is not the commercial one.
What leaves through the front door comes back through the side door. Your customers are not bound by what Annex I says about your invoice line, they are bound by their own compliance policies, and they are already writing paper compliance into terms and supplier agreements. Expect clauses in which you warrant that the paper used on the job was EUDR-compliant.
A warranty you cannot evidence is a liability, not a sales argument. This is where the work actually sits in 2026: not in filing, but in being able to show which grade, from which supplier, under which due diligence reference, ran on which job, and to still show it five years from now.
If that connection lives only in a purchase ledger on one side and a production log on the other, you can sign the clause but you cannot answer the question that follows it.
BVDM flagged a side effect when the exemption was agreed, and it is worth having in your head when a publisher shops a job around. A printer outside the EU can now ship printed matter into the Union without touching the EUDR at all, while a printer inside the EU still buys paper that sits squarely in scope. The federation called this a potential distortion of competition to the detriment of printing companies in the European Union.
The regulation applies from 30 December 2026 to large and medium operators and to downstream operators and traders of every size, and from 30 June 2027 to natural persons and micro enterprises for part of the scope. Those dates govern your paper suppliers. Their readiness, and the reference numbers they can hand you, is what determines whether you can answer a customer in January.
One honest caveat: Annex I is still moving. A further delegated act adopted on 13 July 2026 adjusted the product list again, and at the time of writing it was still in scrutiny. Nothing in it puts printed products back, but if your plant sells anything beyond printed matter, check the current annex rather than a summary.
Are printed newspapers still covered by the EUDR?
No. Regulation (EU) 2025/2650 deleted printed books, newspapers and other products of the printing industry from Annex I in December 2025.
So does the EUDR affect printers at all?
Yes, through the paper. Paper and paperboard remain in scope. You do not file a due diligence statement, but you buy a regulated product and your customers will ask you to warrant it.
Do we have to file a due diligence statement?
Not for your printed products, because they are no longer relevant products. The statement on the paper is filed by whoever first placed it on the EU market.
Does a printer outside the EU have an advantage now?
On printed matter shipped into the Union, yes, and BVDM has raised exactly that as a competition concern.
What should we actually be able to show?
Which paper grade, from which supplier, under which due diligence reference number, ran on which job, for five years back.
Two things, and neither takes a project.
Ask your paper suppliers for their EUDR due diligence reference numbers and how they intend to deliver them from 30 December 2026. Then look at whether your own systems can tie those numbers to a reel, a grade and a job, and hold that link for five years.
If the second one is where it falls apart, send us a line. We will look at what your existing systems already capture and tell you where the real gap sits. No system change, no presentation.
This article is an orientation guide, not legal advice. Product scope and classification are the legally decisive points and both have moved more than once. Your national print association holds the current guidance.