We would rather tell you
what we don't hold.

If you import bamboo housewares into the EU, the question your compliance team is asking is simple: does this shipment need a due diligence statement? For pure bamboo, the answer is no — and it is worth being precise about why.

Bamboo is classified as a non-wood forest product. The European Commission's published EUDR guidance confirms that products made solely from bamboo fall outside the scope of the Regulation, because bamboo is not a wood commodity under Annex I. In September 2026 a delegated act wrote that exclusion directly into Annex I, alongside rattan, reed, rush and willow. For your inbound flow this removes three recurring costs: plot-level geolocation, per-shipment risk assessment, and the due diligence statement itself.

We are equally direct about where the exemption stops. A board with a bamboo surface and rubberwood feet is not a bamboo-only product: the wood components remain fully in scope, and the obligation follows the material, not the customs code of the finished item. This is where most supplier statements fall apart, so we publish the split.

Our position by material

Timing: for medium and large operators obligations apply from 30 December 2026; micro and small enterprises handling the remaining products have until 30 June 2027. Nothing here is legal advice — the importer of record carries the obligation.

Food contact is the gate most bamboo suppliers fail quietly. There is no harmonised EU measure specific to wood and bamboo, so the requirement is set at member-state level — Germany under LFGB, France, Italy and the Netherlands each with their own expectations. A report issued for one market does not automatically satisfy another.

We test per destination, per order. Reports are issued by accredited third-party laboratories — SGS, Bureau Veritas, Intertek or TÜV — in the name of the party that will import. For a first order we quote the testing cost separately so you can see it, rather than burying it in the unit price.

The EUDR exemption is often misread as "no EU rules apply to bamboo". They do. REACH applies in full to every article placed on the EU market, and it is enforced at the border as well as at retail.

Where a SKU is finished with plant oil and no pigment — the majority of the range — the risk profile is low, and the report reflects that rather than padding a file with irrelevant tests.

Everything we quote is made in Lishui. That has one clear compliance advantage: the paperwork and the production come from the same building. When your compliance team asks who harvested the timber, the answer does not travel through three intermediaries before it reaches you.

It also means we can be checked. A buyer-commissioned audit, an unannounced visit, a video call while the line is running — all of it lands on the same address.

Forest certification

FSC chain-of-custody is available on certain hardwood and MDF lines. Ask for the certificate number with your quotation so your team can verify it at source. Bamboo is not FSC-certifiable in the same way — a request for "FSC bamboo" usually signals a specification written by someone who has not bought the material before, and we will say so rather than sell you a certificate that does not mean what you think.

Social compliance

BSCI / Sedex status: to confirm — ask before you shortlist us, and we will tell you exactly what we hold and what would need scheduling before a retail programme could ship.

Lacey Act declaration

Plant products entering the US require an import declaration stating genus, species, country of harvest and quantity. Bamboo is a plant and is not exempt from the declaration requirement, even though it sits outside EUDR. We supply the species and harvest-country data your broker needs to file — in practice, missing species detail is the most common reason a bamboo shipment sits at the port.

California Proposition 65

Where a listed substance may be present above the applicable threshold — certain dyes, coatings or metal fittings — we screen the SKU and issue the appropriate warning language for retail packaging. For unfinished, oil-only bamboo articles we document the assessment rather than apply a blanket warning.

North America is our largest market at roughly a third of shipments, which is why these two items come up in almost every US enquiry. Requirements change; the responsibility for import compliance rests with the importer of record.

Buyers rarely ask for a document by name. They ask whether the file will clear customs and satisfy a retailer’s compliance desk. This is the list we keep current, with the reference number we quote on the invoice.

Status below is deliberately plain. Anything marked per order is produced for your shipment rather than held on file; anything marked to confirm is still being verified and should not be treated as a promise.