Reg. (EU) 2024/3015 · prohibition on placing forced-labour goods on the EU market (and exporting them) · applies from 14 December 2027 · no de-minimis, all sectors.
The EU Forced Labour Regulation bans any product made wholly or partly with forced labour from the EU market from 14 December 2027 — sold, imported or exported, with no minimum threshold. Apparel is the exposed sector: cotton and fibre origins, dye houses and cut-make-trim tiers where audits go dark. When authorities open an investigation, the question is not your policy — it is whether you can show, with evidence, where every input in the flagged product actually came from. Investigations move on evidence; brands without chain-of-custody data have nothing to answer with.
Unlike disclosure laws, this is a prohibition: products found made with forced labour are withdrawn from the EU market and disposed of — donation, recycling or destruction — at the operator’s cost.
Authorities and the Commission investigate based on risk signals — databases, NGO submissions, region and sector risk. Your defence is verifiable supply-chain evidence, produced on request.
“Made in part” means a contaminated fibre, trim or process taints the finished garment — tier-3 visibility is the actual compliance surface.
The ban covers placing on the EU market and exporting from it — EU-based brands cannot ship tainted stock out to clear it.
In force since December 2024; the prohibition applies from 14 December 2027. US CBP enforcement under UFLPA is already seizing apparel shipments today — the same evidence gap, an earlier bill.
Fibre origin, spinning and dyeing are where forced-labour risk concentrates. Name the facilities behind your top-volume styles first.
Audit PDFs age; custody data doesn’t. Capture transaction-level evidence of where inputs came from, style by style, season by season.
Pick a live style and assemble the full origin evidence pack as if authorities asked today — the gaps you find are your 2027 exposure.
Aeroz binds identity to garments and components and appends custody events from mill to shelf in an EPCIS 2.0 log — so when a shipment is questioned, the answer is a data trail, not a scramble. The same identity serves the textile DPP, UFLPA at the US border, and your resale authentication — one chain of custody, four uses.
The prohibition applies from 14 December 2027, three years after entry into force. Investigations from that date look at products — and evidence — flowing through supply chains built now.
No — the regulation has no de-minimis and covers all products and operators, though enforcement prioritises higher-risk products and larger volumes.
UFLPA presumes goods from a listed region are tainted unless the importer rebuts it; the EU regulation requires authorities to prove forced labour — but your practical defence in both is the same: verifiable chain-of-custody evidence.
Withdrawal from the market and disposal — with the operator bearing the cost. Repeat exposure also feeds the risk databases that trigger future investigations.
A fixed-fee Aeroz audit maps your products against forced labour regulation for apparel requirements and returns a written readiness assessment, a data-mapping review, and a scoped pilot plan with cost and timeline.