Coffee, tea and other export crops: NAEB's powers, the end of coffee zoning, washing station approvals, the 2026 coffee season instructions and the RWF 750 minimum cherry price, export licences and the 3% coffee fee, the 2025 tea leaf instructions, the EU Deforestation Regulation timetable, pyrethrum and chia

The regime in outline: NAEB, ministerial instructions and seasonal rules

Coffee and tea are Rwanda's oldest export crops and the most closely regulated. There is no coffee law or tea law. The regime is built instead from the general mandate of the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB) under Law N° 13/2017 of 14/04/2017 establishing NAEB, from ministerial instructions of the Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, and from instructions that NAEB issues for each season or commodity. Article 5 of Law N° 13/2017 lists NAEB's missions, which include identifying places for the installation of factories processing agricultural products for export (point 7), participating in setting and checking quality standards for export commodities (point 8), issuing certificates of authenticity and origin (point 9) and facilitating negotiations for setting and publishing minimum farm-gate prices for export commodities with stakeholders (point 15). NAEB's instructions cite Article 5 as their legal basis. Their sanctions are administrative fines, paid into the account of the District where the breach occurred, rather than criminal penalties.

Four current instruments matter most. Ministerial Instructions N° 006 of 15/06/2023 regulating coffee farming and coffee trade set the policy: no zoning, fully washed processing and export fees. NAEB Instructions N° 224/2026 governing the 2026 coffee season, signed in February 2026 and in force until the next season's instructions are issued (Article 11), set the operating rules for buying and processing cherries. NAEB's guidelines of 10/02/2023 on increasing coffee production in partnership with the private sector and building processing plants govern new washing stations. NAEB's instructions on growing, harvesting, delivering, trading and processing green leaf tea, sent to factories, cooperatives and the eleven tea-growing Districts under a covering letter of 3 June 2025, govern the tea leaf supply chain. All four are published on NAEB's website, the seasonal coffee and tea texts in Kinyarwanda only.

Plant health is a separate layer. Since 11 September 2026, phytosanitary certificates for exports are issued under Law N° 041/2026 of 02/09/2026 governing agriculture, which repealed the 2016 plant health law; its Article 68 requires an exporter to apply to the Authority, the national plant protection organisation (in practice RICA, which issues phytosanitary certificates), for a phytosanitary certificate and to provide the import requirements of the destination country, and Article 69 requires phytosanitary inspection of export commodities at processing or storage premises approved by the Authority. The wider framework and the regulators are described in Agricultural policy, law and regulators, and plant health in Seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and plant health.

The two crops still carry weight in the export figures. NAEB reports that agricultural exports earned USD 893,168,308 in 2024/25, of which coffee USD 116,181,240, tea USD 110,991,737 and refined pyrethrum USD 7,445,846, and that they passed USD 1.1 billion in 2025/26, a 24.3% increase. The Fifth Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation (PSTA5) targets coffee production rising from a baseline of 20,046.9 tonnes to 32,000 tonnes and tea from 39,008.9 tonnes to 58,600 tonnes by 2028/29, and NAEB cites a PSTA5 target of USD 160 million in coffee income by 2029.

Coffee: the sub-sector and the 2023 liberalisation

Rwandan coffee is almost entirely Arabica of the Bourbon type, grown by about 400,000 smallholder farm families on some 42,000 hectares below 1,900 metres, with production of 16,000 to 21,000 tonnes a year according to NAEB. There is one crop a year: harvesting starts in late February on the shores of Lake Kivu and in early March elsewhere, and runs to August in parts of the Northern Province. NAEB counts more than 117 coffee exporters and 79 roasters. The value chain is organised around coffee washing stations (CWS), which buy cherries, pulp, ferment, wash and dry them into parchment; dry mills then hull parchment into green coffee for export. NAEB's 2023 guidelines record that the number of stations rose from 2 in 2000 to 313 in 2023, owned by companies and farmer cooperatives, and that the share of fully washed coffee rose from 1% to 80.2% in 2021-2022.

From 2016 to 2023 a zoning policy required farmers to sell their cherries only to the washing station to which their zone was allocated. Point 1 of Ministerial Instructions N° 006 of 15/06/2023 repealed it: purchasing and trading coffee cherries is now permitted throughout the country without restriction. The same instructions require NAEB to continue to set and publish a minimum cherry price every season (point 2), provide that in general only fully washed coffee may be processed in Rwanda, other types needing NAEB's authorisation (point 3), set the export fees discussed below (points 4 and 5) and repeal earlier contrary ministerial instructions (point 7). The 2026 season instructions confirm that every farmer has the right to deliver to the station of his or her choice at an agreed price (Article 3.10).

Liberalisation has sharpened competition for cherries in good years. The 2026 minimum price of RWF 750 per kilogram, announced by NAEB on 13 January 2026, is 25% above the 2025 price of RWF 600; NAEB attributed the increase to international coffee prices, the exchange rate, market diversification and better quality. NAEB's coffee rejuvenation programme under the Promoting Smallholder Agro-Export Competitiveness (PSAC) project is replacing trees older than 30 years on 3,050 hectares and rehabilitating 1,082 hectares in six western and southern Districts, with free RAB-C15 seedlings and fertiliser for farmers. For an investor these programmes affect future cherry supply in a station's catchment, which is the main driver of a station's value.

Building or acquiring a washing station

A washing station needs NAEB's approval, and NAEB's guidelines of 10/02/2023 explain that, because station capacity had outgrown cherry supply and stations operated at only 55% to 65% of capacity, NAEB stopped issuing permits to build new stations and concentrated on raising production so that existing stations reach at least 90% utilisation. A new station is approved only through one of three production-led routes. Under the first, an investor signs a memorandum of understanding with NAEB and the District to develop coffee in Sectors with few or no coffee trees; the area must be suitable for coffee, lack enough trees to supply a station and have land capable of yielding cherries for a station of 500 tonnes of cherries. The investor submits a detailed business plan and budget and proves technical and financial capacity; the District Coffee Task Force allocates the area (choosing on the merits where several investors apply), the District sends the file to NAEB, NAEB analyses it, and a tripartite MoU is signed. The investor reports regularly with farmer-level planting data, and may apply to build a station only once at least 500,000 trees planted under the project are in production and a joint NAEB-District inspection confirms it; the MoU itself confers no right to build.

Under the second route, existing stations raise production in their own catchments by raising seedlings, which NAEB supports with tubes, and providing extension services to farmers. Under the third, a farmer who plants coffee on consolidated land with at least 50,000 trees may build a station to process his or her own harvest, after presenting the project to NAEB and the District, showing that the trees are well maintained and in production and submitting a five-year plan; NAEB checks that the trees will yield an average of at least 3 kilograms of cherries each and may refuse or later suspend the station if they do not.

In practice most foreign investors therefore acquire an existing station, or a company or cooperative business that owns several, rather than build one. The approval belongs to the station and its operator, and the Export Operation Licence is not transferable, so a share purchase normally preserves both while an asset purchase requires the buyer to obtain recognition of the station and its own export licence. The station sits on land held under a lease or a freehold title, which should be checked in the land register and, for a foreign buyer, against the access rules in How foreign investors access land; water abstraction for washing and wastewater discharge raise water permit and environmental issues covered in Agricultural land, irrigation and water. Dry mills and export warehouses must also be premises approved by RICA for phytosanitary inspection under Article 69 of Law N° 041/2026, under requirements that RICA regulations are to set.

Buying into a washing station: the usual sequence

1. Map supply and competitionAssess the station's catchment, tree age and the stations nearby: since zoning ended in 2023 farmers may sell to any station, so loyalty depends on price, payment speed and services.
2. Verify the station's standingObtain NAEB's recognition of the station, its Smart Kungahara System records, inspection reports and any fines under the season instructions, and the District's list of approved collection sites.
3. Check land, water and environmentSearch the land register for the station plot, confirm the lease term and any restrictions, and review water use, effluent handling and any environmental approvals.
4. Check the export chainConfirm who holds the Export Operation Licence, its expiry date, the CEPAR membership and the dry mill and warehouse arrangements; the licence cannot be assigned to a buyer.
5. Structure the dealPrefer a share purchase where licences and approvals must continue; provide for the 10% capital gains tax on the seller and for any change-of-control clauses in supply or finance contracts.
6. Prepare for the seasonBefore buying begins, clean and refurbish the station, register buying agents with badges, file the list of sites and agents with each District, calibrate RSB-marked scales and train staff on the Smart Kungahara System.
7. Set up EUDR dataCollect plot geolocation and supplier data for every farmer whose cherries reach EU buyers, so that the EU operator can file its due diligence statement from 30 December 2026.

The coffee season: cherry buying, prices and penalties

NAEB Instructions N° 224/2026 regulate each step of the 2026 season. All harvested cherries must be processed at a station (Article 3.1). A farmer harvests ripe cherries and delivers them to a station or to an approved collection site of his or her choice (Article 3.2). Sites are fixed and approved by the District through its Task Force, and must be easily accessible by road, visible and separate from other buildings, and at least 2 kilometres from the station (Articles 3.3 and 3.7). Before buying in any District a station files with that District the list of sites it will use and of the agents who will buy for it at each site; every agent must carry a badge issued by the station (Articles 3.5 and 3.6). Only scales bearing the mark of the Rwanda Standards Board (RSB) may be used (Article 3.8). Moving cherries by vehicle or boat requires NAEB's written permission, a station taking cherries from one District to another reports the quantities weekly to the District of origin, parchment and green coffee move with a delivery note, and no one may transport parchment with a moisture content above 15% (Articles 3.10 to 3.12).

Quality rules follow. Stations process fully washed coffee; natural, honey, anaerobic and other methods are reserved to stations that have their own market (Article 4.1). Stations must provide sorting areas and floating tanks with clean water, and cherries must reach the station promptly and be processed within 8 hours of harvest (Articles 4.2 and 4.3). Before the season, stations must be cleaned and their equipment, channels, drying tables and wastewater pits refurbished (Article 4.5). While stations are operating, home-processed ordinary coffee may not be processed or traded; after the season, a trader with a TIN may obtain a District permit to buy it for RWF 250,000, valid until NAEB publishes the next season's instructions, and must report purchases weekly (Article 5).

On price, stations must not buy below the minimum price published by NAEB, which NAEB may revise during the season in response to international prices; until a new price is announced the previous season's price continues to apply, and every farmer must be paid immediately or in accordance with his or her contract with the station (Article 6). For 2026 the minimum is RWF 750 per kilogram for ripe, well-matured cherries and RWF 200 for floaters, and NAEB's notice states that no one may buy below those prices. The minimum is a floor, not a fixed price: stations compete above it, and contract-farming arrangements can add premiums, input credit and second payments (Agro-processing, food safety, contract farming and exports). Every station must enter all purchases, whether at the station or at sites, and all parchment produced, in the Smart Kungahara System (SKS), train its staff and equip them to do so on time (Article 8).

Article 10 sets fines. Those an operator is most likely to meet are shown below; fines must be paid within five days, failing which the station or trader is suspended until payment (Article 10.18), and a station suspended with a fine may resume only after complying with every sanction (Article 10.17). NAEB, local authorities and security organs may inspect at any time, including vehicles and boats carrying coffee (Article 9).

Exporting coffee: licence, quality control, fees and certificates

Every coffee, tea or emerging-commodity exporter needs NAEB's Export Operation Licence. Under the requirements approved by NAEB on 01/07/2025, applications are made online through the Irembo and RDB one-stop centre platforms, and the licence is free, valid for five years and not transferable; NAEB may inspect, and may revoke, suspend or terminate the licence for misuse or malpractice. A first-time coffee applicant files its TIN, its RDB registration certificate or Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA) registration certificate, a technical staff certificate, a market contract to export at least one container of specialty green coffee (19,200 kg) or 500 kg of roasted coffee, evidence that it owns a washing station or has a contract with stations recognised by NAEB (for green coffee) or owns or contracts a roasting facility registered by the competent authority (for roasted coffee), a recommendation letter from CEPAR, the Coffee Exporters and Processors Association of Rwanda, and any certification that its buyer's contract requires. On renewal it adds the expired licence and an annual export performance report.

Each consignment then moves through NAEB's Online Export Services portal (Article 7 of Instructions N° 224/2026). All exported coffee is quality inspected and cupped by NAEB before export and pays the fee due for its grade (Article 9.2). Under points 4 and 5 of Ministerial Instructions N° 006/2023, specialty coffee with a cupping score of 80 or above is exempt, exporters of other grades of fully washed coffee pay 3% of the value of the coffee, and licensed semi-washed coffee dealers pay 5%. The fee is therefore an incentive to quality as much as a levy. NAEB also issues certificates of quality and of origin for coffee, and its laboratory, the Specialized Export Quality Infrastructure (SEQI), was accredited to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 on 29 June 2026.

A phytosanitary certificate from RICA is needed where the importing country requires one. RICA's customer service charter of December 2024 requires registration as an exporter of agricultural commodities and an application through the RICA Inspection Management System, and lists a fee of RWF 200 and a delivery time of one day for the certificate; the charter predates Law N° 041/2026, under which export certification fees are to be set by Ministerial Order (Article 71). Customs export clearance is through the electronic single window (Customs and EAC trade), and exports are zero-rated for VAT.

Specialty positioning is a deliberate policy. NAEB's Best of Rwanda national competition sold its 2025 top lot at USD 88.18 per kilogram, which NAEB describes as nearly 14 times the average Rwandan coffee export price of that season; the 2026 edition selected 25 lots from 320 samples for a live auction to global buyers on 21 October 2026. With Europe taking over 61% of Rwanda's coffee exports according to NAEB, European due diligence rules are now the main external constraint on the trade.

The EU Deforestation Regulation and coffee

Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on deforestation-free products (EUDR) prohibits placing coffee, cocoa, cattle, oil palm, rubber, soya and wood, and listed products derived from them, on the EU market or exporting them from the EU unless they are deforestation-free (produced on land not deforested after the cut-off date of 31 December 2020), produced in accordance with the relevant laws of the country of production, and covered by a due diligence statement. Coffee is in scope; tea is not. The obligations fall on EU operators and traders, but they can comply only with data from origin: the geolocation of every plot where the coffee was produced, the date of production and evidence of legality.

The application date has been postponed twice. Regulation (EU) 2025/2650, adopted by the European Parliament and the Council on 17 and 18 December 2025, published in the Official Journal on 23 December 2025 and in force on 26 December 2025, set the application date at 30 December 2026 for medium-sized and large operators and traders and 30 June 2027 for micro and small operators. It created a category of downstream operators, such as EU roasters processing green coffee already covered by a due diligence statement, who do not file their own statements but must keep supplier and customer data, including reference numbers, for five years, and a simplified declaration for micro and small primary operators. On 4 May 2026 the Commission presented its simplification review report and stated that it would not reopen the text; on 13 July 2026 it adopted a delegated act on product scope that adds soluble (instant) coffee, applicable to newly included products from 30 December 2027, subject to scrutiny by the Parliament and the Council. No further postponement had been announced at 16 October 2026.

The Commission's country benchmarking under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1093 of May 2025 classes four countries as high risk (Belarus, Myanmar, North Korea and Russia) and lists the low-risk countries in its Annex; countries not listed are standard risk. Exporters should check Rwanda's classification in that Annex, because it determines whether EU buyers may use simplified due diligence. Rwanda's institutions are preparing: NAEB launched a Roadmap for Aligning Rwanda's Coffee Sector with the EUDR and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive on 19 February 2026, and the Smart Kungahara System, in which every station records its purchases, and NAEB's geo-portal provide the base for farm-level traceability. For a station or exporter, EUDR compliance is in practice a contract term demanded by EU buyers: plot coordinates for all supplying farmers (a single point for plots up to 4 hectares, a polygon above), segregation of compliant lots, and audit access.

Tea: estates, outgrowers, factories and the auction

Tea was introduced in the 1950s and is grown on more than 33,000 hectares in the Northern, Western and Southern Provinces. According to NAEB, about 65% of green leaf comes from smallholders and 35% from industrial blocs, the estates owned by factories. More than 50,000 farmers are organised in 23 cooperatives and outgrower service companies, grouped into five unions under the federation FERWACOTHE, and leaf is processed by 19 privately owned operational factories; factories, cooperatives, packers and the federation belong to the Rwanda Tea Association (RTA). Production grew from 5,910 tonnes of made tea in 1980 to 40,003 tonnes by June 2024, and in 2023/24 tea earned USD 114.8 million from 38,467.7 tonnes. About 97.3% of tea is exported in raw form, mostly black CTC; 80% is sold through the weekly auction at Mombasa, 17.3% under direct contracts and 2.7% locally. NAEB reports that Pakistan is the leading buyer through the auction.

Expansion has been led by Government agreements with private factory investors. Under the Rugabano project in Karongi District, agreed with Luxmi Tea Company in 2017, 1,859 hectares had been planted (1,498 for smallholders under Rugabano Service Company and 361 as industrial bloc), and the factory began operating in 2019. Under the Nyaruguru project, MoUs signed with Unilever (now Lipton tea) in 2016 and 2020 aim at 6,000 hectares; 2,843 hectares had been planted, most for smallholders under the Service Company Outgrowers Nyaruguru, and the Kibeho factory began operating in March 2024. The pattern, a land and outgrower commitment by the State in return for a factory and an outgrower service company run by the investor, is the model for new tea investment. PSTA5 targets tea area rising from 31,498 to 39,833 hectares and the share of tea sold under direct agreements from 24% to 45% by 2028/29, and stakeholders validated a 10-Year Rwanda Tea Strategy (2027-2037) on 25 September 2026.

The Investment Code treats both crops cautiously. Article 4 lists large-scale agricultural operations, excluding coffee and tea, among the priority manufacturing sectors, and the preferential corporate income tax rates for exporters of 25% and 15% do not apply to tea and coffee exported without value addition (FAQ 9; FAQ 35). A factory or exporter of bulk tea or green coffee therefore pays the standard 28% rate unless another incentive applies, while roasting, blending, packing and branding in Rwanda may change the analysis; how far value addition must go has not been defined in a published ruling. The tax side is covered in Agribusiness incentives, tax, finance and insurance.

The 2025 tea instructions: leaf supply, quality and contracts

NAEB's tea instructions rest on Article 5 of Law N° 13/2017, Law N° 70/2019 of 10/01/2020 governing metrology and the East African standard RS EAS 1175:2024 on tea growing and processing practice. They define who may do what. Farmers, cooperatives, service companies and factories may grow tea, but only cooperatives, service companies and factories may deliver leaf to a factory (Article 3). Every farmer must belong to a cooperative or a service company (Article 9.1), only the farmer's group may collect his or her leaf (Article 6.6), no farmer may take leaf to a factory, and no factory may accept leaf delivered by an individual farmer (Articles 6.7 and 6.8). A farmer may not buy or sell green leaf in a group to which he or she does not belong (Article 9.5). Leaf passes through a collection shed (hangari) equipped with calibrated electronic scales that print a weight slip for the farmer (Articles 6.9 to 6.11).

Quality standards are precise. Plucking rounds are 7 to 12 days apart; the accepted leaf is two leaves and a bud (P+2) above 50%, with one leaf and a bud below 4%, soft third leaves (P+3) below 17% and soft banji below 4%; and leaf must be at least 65% good leaf (Articles 6.1 to 6.3). Hand plucking is the rule and any other method needs a permit from the competent authority (Article 7(1.6)). Each factory must maintain at least 5 hectares of mother bushes of good clones for cuttings (Article 5.1), and tea must be planted with agroforestry trees (Article 5.6). The factory samples and analyses leaf jointly with a trained representative of the supplier, may have substandard leaf re-sorted before acceptance and may return it only if it still fails, weighs it on calibrated scales, deducts no more than 5% for moisture and processes it immediately (Article 7(3)).

The commercial relationship must be written. Factories and their suppliers (cooperatives or service companies), and suppliers and their farmers, must sign written contracts (Article 9.2 and 9.3), and suppliers must inform farmers at least quarterly of green leaf prices, deductions, fertiliser prices and debts (Article 9.4). The factory pays for leaf on the basis of the price published by the competent authority each quarter (Article 7(3.1)). A farmer selling a tea plot must first check, through the group, whether a debt for its development remains; a buyer, including a factory, must agree with the group and take over any unpaid debt, and give the group a copy of the sale contract (Article 4). NAEB monitors compliance with the RTA and the Districts (Article 10). Tea contracts should be drafted with these rules in mind: an investor cannot build a supply base by buying leaf from individual farmers outside the cooperative system, and outgrower finance is recovered through the group (Commercial contracts in Rwanda).

Pyrethrum, chia and other export crops

Pyrethrum, grown for its natural insecticide, is refined in Rwanda and exported as refined pyrethrum, which earned USD 7,445,846 in 2024/25. PSTA5 records a baseline of 3,070 hectares and 35 tonnes, with targets of 3,845 hectares and 55 tonnes and export revenue rising from about USD 8.1 million to USD 10.8 million by 2028/29. No pyrethrum-specific instrument was found on NAEB's or MINAGRI's websites; growers and processors follow the general farming, plant health and export rules, and contract farming is the normal supply model.

Chia seed, introduced at the end of 2015, has its own regime because of quality problems in its early years. The Minister's general instructions of 29 June 2022 on chia farming and seed multiplication require farmers to use certified seed and the inputs agreed with the buyer (buyers generally require organic production, without chemical fertilisers or non-organic pesticides), and to keep a field book; Districts monitor plantings and the District Mayor validates field documentation. A company growing or exporting chia must be registered with RDB, hold written contracts with a list of its farmers, show the origin of its seed, employ trained staff, have post-harvest facilities, be able to pay farmers on time and meet market requirements. The contract with each farmer must state its purpose, each party's obligations, the price and how it is calculated, delivery arrangements, duration and renewal, payment method and bank account, the payment deadline, a daily surcharge for late payment and dispute resolution. NAEB's guidelines for the chia value chain implement those instructions for export compliance, and NAEB issues the Export Operation Licence.

Other export crops follow the horticulture or diversified-products route described in Horticulture: fruit, vegetables and flowers, including macadamia, essential oils (for which NAEB has issued instructions on eucalyptus oil extraction and export) and fresh produce. No current statute or published NAEB instruction specific to sericulture (silk) was located at 16 October 2026; silk projects fall under the general farming, plant health and export rules. Price-setting is also limited: coffee is the only export crop for which a published minimum farm-gate price applies by instruction, tea leaf is paid on a quarterly published price, and for other crops prices are set by contract.