The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive — known as CSDDD or CS3D, formally Directive (EU) 2024/1760 — requires the largest companies to run risk-based human-rights and environmental due diligence across their own operations and their chain of activities. This checker tests your group against the final adopted thresholds and shows the obligations that follow if you are in scope.
How it works
Scope turns on two different tests depending on where the company is incorporated:
EU company: employees > 1,000 AND worldwide net turnover > €450,000,000
Non-EU company: net turnover generated in the EU > €450,000,000For EU companies both conditions must be met. For non-EU companies only the EU-generated turnover is tested and headcount is ignored. Application then phases in by size band, with the very largest companies (over 5,000 staff and €1.5bn turnover) caught first from 26 July 2027 and the rest from 2028 and 2029.
Phase-in timetable
The Directive phases companies in by size over three years. Here is the indicative schedule based on the adopted text:
| Wave | Application date | Typical company profile |
|---|---|---|
| Wave 1 | 26 July 2027 | EU companies with more than 5,000 employees and more than €1.5 billion worldwide net turnover |
| Wave 2 | 26 July 2028 | Remaining EU in-scope companies (over 1,000 employees and over €450M turnover) |
| Wave 3 | 26 July 2029 | Non-EU companies generating more than €450M in EU net turnover |
Note that the EU’s “omnibus simplification” package is still moving through the legislative process. Thresholds or dates may be adjusted before each wave enters force. Check for updates if you are in a borderline position.
What being in scope requires
CSDDD is not a reporting directive — it requires companies to actively identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for adverse human-rights and environmental impacts. The core obligations include:
- Integrating due diligence into policy: A published due-diligence policy that describes the company’s approach across its own operations and its business relationships in the chain of activities.
- Identifying and assessing adverse impacts: A risk-based mapping of where human-rights harms (forced labour, health risks, discrimination) and environmental harms (pollution, biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions) are most likely to occur — both upstream in the supply chain and downstream in product use.
- Preventing or stopping identified impacts: Contractual assurances from suppliers, supplier audits, capacity building, and, where impacts cannot be prevented, a plan to minimise them.
- Providing remediation: In-scope companies must provide access to a remedy for anyone harmed by their value-chain activities.
- Stakeholder engagement: Consulting affected workers, communities, and their representatives when identifying and addressing risks.
- A complaints mechanism: An accessible channel through which workers, communities, and civil society can raise concerns.
- Climate transition plan: Aligned with EU climate goals under the Paris Agreement (this requirement is carried over from CSRD for in-scope CSDDD companies).
Notes and example
A textiles group with 1,200 employees and €500M worldwide turnover is in scope as an EU company because it clears both the headcount and turnover bars. A company of the same size but only €300M turnover is out of scope, because the turnover test fails even though it has more than 1,000 staff. Sector does not change the scope test, but a textiles, agriculture, or minerals value chain signals where forced-labour, land, and ecosystem risks are most likely to concentrate and therefore where due diligence should be prioritized. This is a self-screening tool — the omnibus simplification package may still adjust thresholds and dates, so confirm borderline cases with counsel.