Warning PROP-007

Declared Area does not match the polygon's measured area

A gap between the stated area and the measured area weakens the evidence behind the statement, and can push a plot across the 4 hectare polygon threshold.

Severity
Warning. The file may be accepted, but something is probably wrong, or the evidence in your statement is weaker than it should be.
Fixed automatically?
Yes, in one click. The change is listed in the change log.
In short
Check which is right. We measure the area on the WGS84 ellipsoid, which is the figure the 4 hectare rule turns on.

What the Information System does

The Information System's documentation describes Area as "the area in Hectares of the geometry element "Point"" (GeoJSON File Description, Definitions) and does not describe comparing it with a polygon's shape. We check it because the area decides whether the regulation requires a polygon at all (Regulation (EU) 2023/1115, Art. 2(28)), and a mismatch weakens the evidence in the statement.

Why it happens

A polygon's area can be measured from its boundary. When the file also declares an Area, the two should agree. When they do not, one of them is wrong, and it matters which, because four hectares is where the regulation changes what you must supply.

We measure on the WGS84 ellipsoid with GeographicLib, the same method geodesic GIS measurements use. The tolerance is generous, so small rounding differences are not flagged; what remains is usually a units mistake, a boundary that covers only part of the plot, or an Area copied from the wrong row.

A broken example

{
  "type": "FeatureCollection",
  "features": [
    {
      "type": "Feature",
      "properties": {
        "ProducerName": "Coopérative Example",
        "ProducerCountry": "CI",
        "ProductionPlace": "Parcelle 1",
        "Area": 50
      },
      "geometry": {
        "type": "Polygon",
        "coordinates": [
          [
            [-5.123456, 6.123456],
            [-5.122456, 6.123456],
            [-5.122456, 6.124456],
            [-5.123456, 6.124456],
            [-5.123456, 6.123456]
          ]
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

What the checker reports for this file:

  1. The file declares 50 hectares but the shape measures 1.2241 hectares, a difference of 97.6%. The two figures fall on opposite sides of the four hectare threshold, so they disagree about whether a polygon is required., line 10, column 17
Before
Before. Centred on 6.1240° N, 5.1230° W.
After the fix
After the fix. Set Area on plot 1 to the measured 1.2241 hectares, replacing the declared 50. The shape itself was not touched. If 50 was right, the boundary is what needs correcting. Centred on 6.1240° N, 5.1230° W.

Fix it in EUDRplot

  1. Open the file in the checker. Each mismatch shows the declared and measured areas in hectares.
  2. Decide which is right. If the boundary is right, choose Use the measured area to replace the declared value. If the declared value is right, the boundary is incomplete or in the wrong place.

Fix it in QGIS

  1. Measure on the ellipsoid. Set the project ellipsoid to WGS 84 (Project › Properties › General › Measurements), then add a field with $area / 10000 in the Field Calculator.
  2. Compare. Select by expression: abs("Area" - $area / 10000) > 0.05 * $area / 10000 finds differences above 5%.

Try it: check the example, or your own file

Drop a GeoJSON, KML, shapefile or CSV here, or .

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Related errors

Guides

Free tools

Sources

Rule PROP-007, rule set 2026.09.2. The same rule runs in the checker, the free tools and the command-line tool.

Last verified against these sources on .