The EUFLR Guidelines, which were published by the European Commission in June 2026 to support the implementation of the EUFLR, provides an overview of the investigative process, decision adoption and enforcement.
The EUFLR does not ban companies, i.e., economic operators. Investigations focus on products alleged to be made with forced labor and on the use of forced labor for their extraction, harvesting, production or manufacturing, and not on the entire business of an economic operator.
Investigations may concern parts, components or entire products, intermediate or final products, product series or categories of products of the same type, or products from a specific factory or facility.
Below, you’ll find a summary of the 5-stage process.
1- Initial Assessment:
Among the factual and verifiable information authorities have collected, including the submissions made via the Forced Labour Single Portal, authorities will prioritize their investigations based on a risk-based approach, considering:
- the scale and severity of suspected forced labor,
- the quantity or volume of products on the EU market, and
- the share of the product potentially linked to forced labor in the final product.
If the initial assessment indicates a likelihood of a violation, authorities may proceed to the preliminary phase.
2- Preliminary Phase
Before a formal investigation is launched, authorities will request information from economic operators, including information on their due diligence activities. Economic operators can include importers, producers, processors and any other company along the supply chain. Authorities will consider the leverage, size and economics resources of companies in their requests and may choose not to ask for additional info if they assess that a request could jeopardize the outcome of the assessment.
Authorities will have 30 working days from the date they receive information to conclude if there is “substantiated concern” of forced labor use. If they find so, they will initiate a formal investigation and must inform the economic operator of the investigation within 3 working days.
3- Formal Investigation
At this stage, authorities will grant 30 to 60 days to economic operators under investigation to provide information on actions to identify, mitigate and end forced labor, on working conditions and on the products under investigation. If operators do not provide information or provide misleading information, authorities can establish violation.
In exceptional cases, authorities (and if outside of EU, the European Commission) may carry out field inspections to confirm or rebut the evidence already gathered and to gather additional evidence. Inspections outside the EU are subject to the consent of the relevant economic operators and non-EU governments.
4- Decision
The burden of proof to demonstrate a violation lies with the authorities, who need to establish whether there has been a violation of the forced labor ban within 9 months of the initiation date of the investigation. They can decide to:
- Prohibit products,
- Withdraw products, or
- Dispose of products.
In their decision, authorities must state the findings of investigations and set a reasonable time limit for operator to comply. All decisions by authorities will be made public. Operators can request review of a decision at any time and a withdrawal of a decision only if there is new substantial information demonstrating compliance and the operator has eliminated forced labor.
5- Enforcement
Competent authorities are responsible for the enforcement of decisions. They are also responsible for communicating decisions to the customs authorities of EU member states.
Effective enforcement requires the close cooperation between the customs authorities and competent authorities. If customs authorities identify a product that may be covered by a decision of the competent authority, they should suspend the release of that product immediately.
If competent authority doesn’t communicate a decision within 4 working days either confirming or denying that product is covered by a decision (2 working days for perishable products), customs authority should release the product if everything else is in compliance.
If you’re preparing to implement the EUFLR, check out CORE’s EUFLR webpage for a comprehensive Q&A section and practical guidance for companies.
Learn more about the EUFLR services CORE offers by contacting Lisa Szeponik: lisa@peopleatcore.com
Serra for the CORE team
