EU Forced Labour Regulation

EU Forced Labour Regulation (FLR) at a glance

This regulation will apply from 14 December 2027.

The regulation aims to ban products made with forced labour from the EU market. It prohibits EU and non-EU companies of any size to place and sell any products made with forced labour in the EU or re-export them. To this end, enforcement authorities (competent authorities) at EU and national level will proactively investigate potential cases of forced labour, receive notifications, and issue product bans.

What is forced labour?

According to the ILO Forced Labour Convention, forced or compulsory labour is all work or service – any activity, industry or sector, including informal – which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily; there must be free and informed consent of a worker to take a job and they must have the freedom to leave at any time.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit.

According to UNICEF, child labour is work that children are too young to perform or that – by its nature or circumstance – can be hazardous. Unlike activities that help children develop, child labour causes harm to a child’s health, safety or moral development.

Forced labour can take different forms. For example, a person may be forced to work through:

threats, violence or intimidation
withholding wages or creating debts that make it difficult to leave
taking or withholding identity documents, such as passports
threats of arrest, deportation or reporting someone to immigration authorities
threats against the worker or their family
other forms of pressure that prevent a person from freely leaving their job or refusing the work

Forced labour can occur at any stage of the supply chain, from the extraction of raw materials to manufacturing, processing and selling. The FLR covers forced labour cases both within and outside the EU, as it can happen everywhere.

What are companies expected to do?

The main requirement of the FLR is that companies must not place or make available products made with forced labour on the EU market or export them from the EU. The rule applies regardless of whether forced labour in a product’s supply chain has occurred in or outside the EU, and whether one, several or all components or ingredients of a product are tainted with forced labour.

The FLR does not prescribe any specific measures or processes that companies must follow to ensure they don’t place forced labour-made products on the EU market. It establishes an obligation of result.

However, non-binding EU guidelines suggest that due diligence measures are an effective way to identify, prevent and address forced labour risks, and therefore help companies comply with the FLR.

Elements of forced labour due diligence according to EU guidance

In particular, companies are encouraged to:

know their supply chains and identify suppliers and production sites involved in making their products;
identify, assess, and prioritise (based on severity and likelihood) forced labour risks in their operations and supply chains;
take measures to prevent, reduce, stop or remedy identified forced labour risks and harms;
keep relevant information and documentation about their supply chains and the measures they have taken;
be able to show the competent authority what steps they have taken if their products become the subject of an investigation.

The EU’s guidelines build on the UN and OECD’s due diligence framework, which requires companies to provide for or cooperate in remedy for harms they have caused or contributed to. Where companies are merely linked to harm (solely) caused by a business partner, they may still engage in remedy or at least influence their business partner to provide it.

This is important because, before launching and during a full investigation that can eventually lead to a product ban (see below), enforcement authorities may ask companies for information about their products and supply chains and about the steps they have taken to identify, prevent, mitigate, end or remedy forced labour.

What can I do if I think a product is linked to forced labour?

If you have information that a product available on the EU market may have been made with forced labour, you can submit this information confidentially to the EU through its Single Information Submission Point. Anyone can submit information, whether directly affected by forced labour abuse or not. Submitted information will then be assessed by the relevant competent authority.

The EU's information submission point will be available from 14 December 2027.

When filing information via the single submission point, you do not need to prove the entire forced labour case yourself, because the authority will be investigating it if they think there are ‘substantiated concerns’. However, your information should be as specific and verifiable as possible.

You can provide information such as:

the product concerned;
the company/companies involved;
where the product was produced;
the production site or geographical area;
information about the workers or communities affected;
the type of forced labour suspected;
information about the relevant supply chain;
the time period concerned;
evidence showing audits and similar measures have been insufficient, cosmetic or only existed on paper;
supporting evidence such as photographs, documents, reports, testimonies or other reliable information.

Rightsholders and stakeholders concerned about violations and considering filing a case with the forthcoming Single Information Submission Point can also contact Anti-Slavery International at [email protected]. See our legal assistance directory for additional contacts that may be helpful in your situation.

How does the EU’s FLR relate to remedy?

Full remediation of forced labour is a process with many parts, both financial and non-financial, addressing all legal, psychological, social, financial, and health needs of forced labour victims and their families as much as possible.

The FLR creates strong market incentives for EU and non-EU companies to remediate cases of forced labour, but it does not legally require remedy as a prerequisite for a product ban to be lifted.

However, for example in the preliminary phase of investigations, companies will be requested by the competent authority to submit information within 30 days on action they have taken to identify, prevent, mitigate, bring to an end or remediate risks of forced labour with respect to the products under assessment. This is a powerful incentive for companies to have effective remediation processes and practices in place on an ongoing basis. It could also work as a lever for (partial) remedy in a specific case brought by rightsholders or their representatives through the information submission point: a lead firm and/or supplier under pre-investigation may take urgent remediation action and provide compensation and restitution to forced labour victims, to avoid a full investigation and potential product ban.

Companies may take similar action when requesting authorities to revise and lift a product ban, or release a frozen batch of “strategic or critical” goods (see below) from confinement, to show forced labour with regard to the product has been “eliminated”. Ending forced labour is sometimes impossible without the provision of remedy, e.g. where repayment of unfair recruitment fees is necessary to relieve workers from debt bondage.

For rightsholders and people acting on their behalf, it may make sense to carefully assess whether and when to submit information under the FLR, what opportunities and risks there are relating to their situation, and what other laws and frameworks are relevant in conjunction.

Companies may in some instances try to avoid a full investigation or have a product ban lifted by just removing problematic suppliers from a product’s supply chain, especially where components/suppliers are interchangeable, leaving forced labour victims at the initial supplier’s site stranded without any remedy. However, if not already found to be inadequate by authorities under the FLR, this might go against other EU laws like the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), under which certain large companies fall, as well as the UN and OECD’s globally accepted due diligence standards.

The process usually works in the following way:

1. Initial assessment of information and risks

2. Preliminary investigation

3. Formal investigation

4. Decision

5. Enforcement

1. Initial assessment of information and risks

Information from submissions is one important – while not the only – way in which competent authorities may become aware of a product or company likely connected to forced labour. Other types of information that authorities may use in proactive market monitoring and initial risk assessment include:

information on previous product bans under the FLR;
information from an EU database on high-risk areas and products (currently in development);
information provided by other authorities;
information from consultations with civil society organisations, trade unions and other stakeholders.

Which authority is in charge?

For suspected forced labour outside the EU, the competent authority is the European Commission.

Each member state will also designate one or several competent authorities. They lead on investigations into suspected forced labour inside the EU and play a key role in the enforcement of any product ban under the FLR, as well as in the imposition of penalties. You can find all competent authorities appointed so far here.

2. Preliminary investigation

If any initial assessment indicates a likely violation of the FLR, the competent authority begins a preliminary investigation to see if there are substantiated concerns. It might request information from companies (which they have to provide within 30 days) about their products and supply chains and about the steps they have taken to identify, prevent, mitigate, end or remedy forced labour. It might also collect information from other relevant companies and stakeholders.

Substantiated concern, according to the Forced Labour Regulation, means ”a reasonable indication based on objective, factual and verifiable information for the Commission or competent authorities to suspect that it is likely that a product was made with forced labour”.

If the authority finds such concerns, an official full investigation will be launched.

If it does not, the preliminary investigation will be closed.

If an investigation is closed, this does not automatically mean that a future investigation is not possible, especially if there is new information. As soon as new information of other circumstances emerge, a new investigation is always possible.

3. Formal investigation

In case the authority found that there are substantiated concerns, an investigation will be launched to decide ("establish") if a product is made with forced labour.

The authority can gather further information, including by:

requesting information from companies;
requesting information about the product and its supply chain;
identifying producers, suppliers and other economic operators involved;
interviewing relevant companies or stakeholders, including unions, workers and other rightsholders;
carrying out field inspections (even outside the EU if there are no objections from that country’s government).

4. Decision

At the end of an investigation, the competent authority decides whether there is sufficient evidence to conclude that a product was made with forced labour.

If forced labour is not established

If the authority does not establish that the product was made with forced labour, the investigation is closed. The authority informs the relevant companies and other competent authorities of the decision.

Again, the closure of an investigation does not automatically prevent future investigations if new information or circumstances arise.

If forced labour is established

If the authority finds that the product was made with forced labour, it adopts a decision concerning the product.

The authority can:

prohibit the product from being placed or made available on the EU market;
prohibit the export of the product from the EU;
require the identified company/companies to withdraw the product from the EU market;
order the disposal of the product or relevant parts of it by the identified company/companies.

The company must comply with the decision within the time limit set by the competent authority, usually 30 working days.

5. Enforcement

Once a product ban has been issued, this is communicated to all competent authorities and enforced across the EU. For instance, customs authorities may block prohibited shipments at EU borders, while national market inspectors will monitor internal retail and digital distribution networks to ensure banned goods do not circulate.

National authorities can impose severe financial fines for non-compliance and retain the power to directly seize and destroy products at the company’s expense if orders are ignored. For banned goods of “strategic or critical importance” to the EU, authorities can order temporary withholding instead of disposal, until the operator proves forced labour has been eliminated from the product’s supply chain – a possible lever for remedy.

Similarly, companies can appeal decisions and request a review at any point. If “elimination” of forced labour in a product is proven, the project ban decision (for future shipments) may be withdrawn.